Goats and Soda

editor's note

Dear readers,

Posing for a photo is such an everyday thing. But sometimes it takes courage to face the camera. That's the story behind a set of photos featured in the Photoville exhibit in New York  in June.

Photojournalist Miora Rajaonary wanted to show the faces of women who've been affected by female genital schistosomiasis, a waterborne parasitic disease that, according to the World Health Organization, afflicts an estimated 56 million women and girls, mainly in Africa. It's a disease that brings stigma because symptoms, including vaginal itchiness and discharge and bloody urine, are similar to those of sexually transmitted diseases. 

One woman told the photographer that her husband accused her of betraying him because of the STD-like symptoms and left her. 

The exhibit is titled "Sahy Rano," a Malagasay phrase translated in a wall label as meaning "someone who is not afraid to dive into the water, even if there is a strong current." It also also means "someone is really brave."

Read the story and see the photos here.

Marc Silver
Editor, Goats and Soda

P.S. We'll be taking off for the July 4 holiday so won't be sending out a newsletter next week. 

vaccine news

The good news (154 million deaths avoided) and bad news about childhood vaccines
A new study points out success stories — and potential obstacles — to bringing vaccines to the world's children.

RFK Jr. says U.S. will stop funding global vaccine group over 'vaccine safety' issues
The secretary of health and human services said that funding will be curtailed until Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, takes into account the science of vaccine safety in its campaigns.

child labor

How many kids go to work instead of school?
They toil in mines, tend crops, scrub floors. An author of a new report on child labor points to great progress in reducing the number of kids who work but says the numbers remain "unacceptable."