Articles by Steven Gilchrist

S ickle cell anemia is a worldwide disease. The disease is most common in people who trace their ancestry to areas of the world such as: Central America, Greece, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, South America, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Caribbean. In the United States, more than 70,000 people are inflicted with sickle cell anemia. In the U.S. the disease is of particular concern for African Americans. Sickle cell anemia occurs in 1 in every 500 African American births. C urrently, there is no universal cure for sickle cell anemia – which is an inherited blood disorder. People who have the disease suffer from abnormally (sickle) shaped blood cells. Normal red blood cells last about 120 days, whereas sickle cell shaped blood cells last only 10 to 20 days. Normal blood cells are a smooth circular shape. In sickle cell patients, the misshaped blood cells cannot move sufficiently through the body’s small blood vessels. Common medical problems associated with the disease are: chronic ep...

O n March 26, 2009, U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-Virginia) introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009. This legislative act is designed to create a blue-ribbon national commission that will undertake an 18-month review of all aspects of America’s criminal justice system in order to restructure the entire system. Webb envisions that the Commission would be a bipartisan effort. The legislation recommends that the Commission seek policy changes that would decrease prison violence, improve treatment of the mentally ill, and improve responses to international & domestic criminal activity by cartels & gangs, and other major reforms. The necessity for restructuring the system is dire. With a population of 307 million the United States has 5% of the world’s population; however, the U.S. houses 25% of the world’s reported prison population. Four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than are in mental health hospitals. Senator Webb has presented his resear...

S ince its creation in the 19th century, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has worked to help people during humanitarian conflicts and natural disasters. The origins of the Red Cross date back to 1863. In that year a five-member committee established the ICRC in Geneva, Switzerland. Jean Henry Dunant, a Swiss businessman, was one member of the committee. In 1862, Dunant wrote A Memory of Solferino . In the book, Dunant recollected his experiences on an Italian battlefield in 1859. He witnessed the pain of warfare first-hand and this motivated him to advocate for the establishment of war relief organizations. For more than a century, the ICRC has amassed about 110,000 pictures into a photo archive collection. Close to 90 of these photographs were featured in an exhibition in Boston. The exhibit, “A Memory of Humanity: From Solferino to Guantanamo – 145 Years of Red Cross Photography,” was on display in the Adams Gallery at Suffolk ...

A pril 6, 2009 marked the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the North Pole. Matthew Alexander Henson was one of the members of the original team that discovered the North Pole on April 6, 1909. Henson was born on August 8, 1866 in Charles County, Maryland. When Henson was 13 years old he became an orphan after his parents died. In order to support himself Henson became a cabin boy on a ship. Eventually he sailed to different places around the world. During this time he became a skilled navigator. In 1887, while working in a Washington, D.C. hat store Henson met U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Robert Edwin Peary. Later, Peary hired Henson as an assistant and soon brought the young man with him on sailing expeditions. The first was a survey trip to Nicaragua in 1887. Peary thought that Henson would be an indispensable part of his quest for discovering the North Pole. Between 1891 and 1909 Admiral Peary and Henson went on seven expeditions to the Arctic. Henson’s primary task was to learn ...

M ay 25, 2009, marked the 25th anniversary of National Missing Children’s Day. On May 15, 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed Proclamation 5194, establishing May 25 of each year as National Missing Children’s Day. Since then, each presidential administration has reauthorized the Proclamation. The legislation for the Proclamation originated in the late 1970s. From 1979 to 1981 several missing children cases around the country garnered extensive media attention. The abductions and murders of Etan Patz, Adam Walsh, and 29 children in Atlanta brought much needed attention to missing children cases. May 25, 1979, is the day when 6-year-old Etan Patz went missing from a New York street corner on his way to school. Prior to Proclamation 5194, there was not an organized system in place to search for and locate missing children. In 1984, The U.S. Department of Justice established a $3.3 million dollar grant that created the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Tod...

O n May 21, 1881, Clara Barton, assisted by a group of friends, founded the American Association of the Red Cross in Washington, D.C. African Americans have contributed to the success of the organization since its inception in the late 19th century. Abolitionist Frederick Douglass was a member of the group of leaders that joined Barton to develop the organization, which today is known as the American Red Cross. In 1917 Frances Elliot Davis was the first African American nurse in the American Red Cross. Dr. Charles R. Drew was the first medical director of the first American Red Cross Blood Bank. Another African American, Jerome Heartwell Holland, made unique contributions to the American Red Cross. Holland was born in Auburn, New York on January 9, 1916. A standout football player at Cornell University, he was named a two-time All-American for his gridiron talents and he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Holland earned his bachelor’s and maste...

L ast Monday, on Memorial Day, America collectively remembered people who have sacrificed their lives in service to the United States. This day was a reminder of the reality of conflicts and wars of the past and also of the present. 4,900 members of the U.S. military have died in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as of May 26, 2009. It appears that American combat forces will be leaving Iraq by September 2010; however, the war in Afghanistan poses increasing challenges because of the resurgence of the Taliban. Often, it is easy to forget the sacrifices of the soldiers who fight in wars to defend the country’s interests. With the current economic problems, high unemployment, challenges with access to quality healthcare and higher education, there are several issues that captivate one’s attention on the domestic front. By reading newspaper articles about Memorial Day, I was reminded of the effect that the current wars have on soldiers and their families. Whether or not the decision for t...