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As of June 22 nd , the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 was reported to be more than 8.8 million with the death toll of 466,700 in the world. This novel virus is known to be originated from a wet market in Wuhan city in China last December and started to spread globally in March of 2020. The borders are closed and schools and industries get stopped.  Experts warn that a pandemic like COVID-19 could now occur anytime and turn into an endemic, which is a disease regularly found in a certain area. Therefore, they insist that it is important to bring changes on general awareness and system based on “One Heath” approach. How is the disease related to ecosystem? And what does this approach actually mean?   What is One Health System? CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in the US explains One Health is an approach to recognize people’s health is closely connected to that of animals and the environment we share. It emphasizes that we should understand the interc...

  Have you heard of the movie, “Dark Waters”? Inspired by a true story, the movie talks about how dangerous PFCs(Per- and polyfluoro compounds) could be. It starts with 190 milk cows dying around the town where one of the major chemical manufacturing companies, DuPont, is located. People suffer from diseases for no apparent reason. Later, it turns out that they are related to PFOA (Perfluorooctanoic Acid), a harmful kind of PFCs, secretly released from the plant. Finding out the truth, Robert Bilott, an attorney of the case, started to fight for the case for 20 years since 1998 and finally had DuPont make reparations of $671 million.   PFCs(fluoropolymer), Carcinogen That Might Be Around Us All the Time PFCs are compounds that all – or some parts- of hydrogen in hydrocarbons are substituted for fluorine. They are used widely from various industry fields such as firefighting foams and cleaning in semiconductor manufacturing plants to consumer products like cookware, food pa...