Bremerton’s Tara Kirk Sell, and her sister Dana Kirk Martin, paved the way for swimmers to dream big. The sisters were the first to make a U.S. Olympic swim team when they competed at the 2004 Athens Games. Tara won a silver medal as a member of the 4×100 medley relay.
She now lives in Baltimore with her husband and two young children, and wrote this op-ed piece for the Baltimore Sun. Kirk Sell, a public health researcher and associate at the UPMC Center for Health Security in Baltimore, gives a great insightful voice on the public health concerns of Zika from the Olympians point of view. There has been talk from some in the public health sector to cancel the Rio Olympics due to Zika.
Here’s an excerpt;
“With the Zika outbreak in the Americas raging and the growth of scientific support about potential birth defects from maternal infection, some in public health have called for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio to be postponed or moved. As a fellow public health researcher and a pregnant Olympian swimmer and silver medalist at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, I have a close-up perspective on both sides of this issue and believe this opinion does not balance the risks appropriately.”
You can read the full article here.
