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March 25, 2002
BC Health News: Diabetes and TB
The Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), a Mexican
health care provider, is dealing with more than 100,000 cases
of diabetes mellitus in Baja California and San Luis Río
Colorado, Sonora, according to Aureliano Cruz Montreal of the
IMSS. Cruz also stated that this number represents a serious
health problem given that the IMSS has approximately 1,500,000
health care users in BC and San Luis.
While Type 2 diabetes, the most common form of diabetes mellitus,
can frequently be managed through exercise, meal planning and
weight loss, Cruz said that few people in the region do anything
to better their quality of life. Many people do not even know
they suffer from the disease, he stated.
Cruz made the preceding comments at the end of a four-month
long class on diabetes management that he gave to thirty diabetes
patients insured by the IMSS. He also said that some of the obstacles
he deals with in treating diabetes are a lack of knowledge about
the disease and resistance to treatment programs, both on the
part of patients and some doctors.
Tuberculosis is also a serious health problem in BC, especially
in Méxicali, which is the city in Mexico with the highest
rate of TB infection, according to Abelardo Rivera, a Méxicali
nurse.
Rivera says that the high rate of TB is due to the large number
of people that have drug-resistant TB. This form of the disease
develops when people begin, but do not finish, their course of
TB treatment.
Source: La Crónica, March 13 , 2002. Diabetes article
by Marco Vinicio Blanco. La Voz de la Frontera, March 20, 2002.
TB article by Javier Mejia.
March 13, 2002
Mass Firings Anticipated in BC Law Enforcement
In an editorial for the El Mexicano newspaper, print and
radio journalist Martín Borchardt writes that the Baja
California Secretary of Security, Bernardo Martínez, has
confirmed that many State Police and Méxicali and Tijuana
police will be fired from their law-enforcement positions. Among
those let go will be high-ranking police officers, states Borchardt.
These firings will be done on the basis that the agents no
longer have the trust of public officials. This is a common reason
for termination of employment in Mexican law enforcement.
Borchardt says that the firings will be announced at the same
time at both the city and state levels.
This cleaning out of BC law enforcement will also serve as
a preamble to the meeting between Presidents Fox and Bush next
week, says Borchardt.
Federal and state sources have informed Borchardt that many high
law-enforcement positions will open up in the next few days.
Borchardt's sources state that many police chiefs will flee,
disappear or resign because they know that mass firings are in
the works. Other people will leave law enforcement because they
are worried about what Benjamín Arrellano Félix
might reveal, writes Borchardt.
Benjamín Arrellano Félix, who is considered
by the DEA to be the leader of the Arrellano Félix drug
cartel, was arrested last weekend and is being held in Mexico.
Source: El Mexicano, March 13, 2002. Source Martín Borchardt.
March 8, 2002
The Status of Women in Mexico
In a story for Women's Day on the status of women in Mexico,
the Méxicali newspaper La Crónica summarized an
Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía y
Informática (INEGI) report on the subject.
The report, entitled "Mujeres y Hombres 2002" (Women
and Men 2002), states that Mexican women work six to ten hours
more per week than men--and get paid at least 11% less on average.
However, wage discrimination is worse in some jobs. Women industrial
supervisors are paid 40% less than their male counterparts, for
example.
"Mujeres y Hombres 2002" also takes a close look
at domestic violence issues. Domestic violence was found to take
place in 1.3 million homes throughout Mexico. In these homes,
99% of women reported emotional abuse, 16% were threatened with
physical violence, 11 % reported physical violence and 1 % reported
sexual abuse.
The average age for a first marriage in Mexico is 19.4 years
for women but 23.2 for men. Women with at least a junior high
education have an average of 2.2 kids. Women with less education
have 4.7 children.
Life expectancy for both women and men has increased dramatically
over the past fifty years. In 1950, women and men had a life
expectancy of 47 years. In 2000, their life expectancy was 75.
However, women are expected to live longer in Mexico--their life
expectancy in 2000 was 77 years versus 73 years for men.
While over the last 35 years, women have held only 11.1% of the
seats in the Mexican Senate, they currently hold 15.6% of the
seats in that house.
The report also states that there are three million indigenous
women in Mexico. More than 21% of them do not speak Spanish.
In Yucatán, 37.3% of people speak an indigenous language,
in Oaxaca 37.1%, in Chiapas 24.6% and in Quintana Roo 23%.
Source: La Crónica (Méxicali), March 8, 2002.
February 26, 2002
Méxicali's Laguna Mexico: Another Trashed Lake on the
Border
Much like the heavily polluted Laguna La Escondida in Reynosa,
Tamaulipas, on the other end of the US-Mexico border, Méxicali's
Laguna Mexico is a small lake that middle-age area residents
remember from their youth as a place where they could go to picnic
and swim on hot summer days.
Now, however, the Laguna Mexico serves as an illegal trash dump
and the Baja California state government has said that it will
not invest in restoring the lake this year.
Arturo Espinoza Jaramillo, the head of the state's Secretaría
de Asentamiento Humanos y Obras Públicas del Estado ((Housing
and Public Works, Sahope), told the Méxicali newspaper
La Crónica that the restoration of the lake is the responsibility
of the federal government's Comisión Nacional del Agua
(CNA).
Espinoza also said that any action to improve the lake would
have to begin at the local level and then be approved at the
state level. The project would then be paid for by the CNA, he
said.
Espinoza stated that he has not yet been advised of any city
plans to begin work at the lake.
To see a previous FNS story with photos on Reynosa's polluted
Laguna Escondida and the social justice issues that surround
the proposed restoration program, go to http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/apr01/feat4.html
Source: La Crónica (Méxicali), February 26, 2002.
Article by Eneida Sánchez Zambrano.
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