All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Chikungunya vaccine recommended for US travelers in outbreak settings | CIDRAP

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) vaccine advisory group today recommended the chikungunya vaccine for people ages 18 and older who will be traveling to a country or territory experiencing an outbreak of the disease.

chikungunya virus
NIAID/Flickr cc

The vote passed with 12 yes votes and 1 abstention.

Last November the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the nation’s first chikungunya vaccine, which is a live attenuated vaccine made by Valneva that is given as one intramuscular dose.

Chikungunya is an emerging health threat that has sickened more than 5 million people over the past 15 years, mainly in areas where the mosquito that carries the virus is endemic. The disease isn’t usually fatal but can cause fever, plus debilitating joint pain that can last for months.

Source: Chikungunya vaccine recommended for US travelers in outbreak settings | CIDRAP

Heather Cox Richardson: Why the Founders Insisted on Separating Church and State | Diane Ravitch’s blog

Heather Cox Richardson put the Alabama court decision declaring embryos to be children into historical context. The Founders did not want the nation to be controlled by theocrats. They understood the importance of separating church and state. That separation was and is important for the protection of the church from the state and for the protection of the state from the church…

Source: Heather Cox Richardson: Why the Founders Insisted on Separating Church and State | Diane Ravitch’s blog

What Not To Eat In A Day – The Brockovich Report

What’s a little chlormequat in your Cheerios?

Chlormequat is a toxic agricultural chemical that the EPA refers to as a pesticide.

Chlormequat chloride is currently registered for use as a plant growth regulator (PGR) in ornamentals grown in greenhouses and nurseries. It works to control plant size by blocking the hormones that stimulate growth prior to bloom.

When applied to oat and grain crops while they’re growing, it stops the plants from bending over, which can make for a difficult harvest.

But guess what? If this chemical compound alters plant hormones, what do you think it does to us? Animal studies show chlormequat can lead to reduced fertilityharm to the reproductive system, and altered fetal growth.

Yikes! That raises a lot of question about how it could impact people…

…Bottom line: don’t assume the food on grocery store shelves is fit for human consumption. If we’re not setting standards for what’s safe, then anything goes.

Just as we discus the need for clean, safe drinking water, we also need to talk about food that nourishes us and doesn’t give us high or low level exposure to unwanted chemicals.

What Can Consumers Do To Avoid These Toxins?

Consumers concerned about exposure to harmful chemicals and pesticides may want to buy products made with organic ingredients, as certified organic products are grown without synthetic pesticides. Low levels of contamination may still occur in organic products, but they are usually lower than their non-organic counterparts.

Always read labels and try to avoid products with long lists of ingredients or food additives that you don’t recognize. Avoid foods that list both sodium benzoate and ascorbic acid, citric acid, and vitamin C as ingredients. Food companies must list these chemicals on packaged food ingredient labels…

Source: What Not To Eat In A Day

Open Thread | For the ‘ There’s No Difference Between the Candidates’ Clowns….Let’s Look at Actual POLICY: EDUCATION | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Balloon Juice has started doing this series, following Bharat Ramamurti.

Bharat Ramamurti has launched a recurring feature – Trump v. Biden, but not as a cage match or a horse race. You know, actual policies!

This week, higher education!

Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) posted at 10:51 AM on Tue, Feb 20, 2024:
This week’s edition of Biden v. Trump on the issues: higher education.

A thread on what they did as President and their very different plans for a possible second term. 1/

https://t.co/emCp9L31D4
(https://x.com/BharatRamamurti/status/1759984218199789902?t=aLVgsrUwUTZNrY_02zWPDw&s=03)

You know, ACTUAL POLICY AND POLICY POSITIONS.

Source: Open Thread | For the ‘ There’s No Difference Between the Candidates’ Clowns….Let’s Look at Actual POLICY: EDUCATION | 3CHICSPOLITICO

Rewiring Democracy — Part I | Filosofa’s Word

We the People of the United States of America, have become complacent.  We believe, for we have no other experience, that no matter what happens, no matter who is leading the nation, the guarantees written into the U.S. Constitution will always be there for us.  We believe that the democratic foundations of this nation will survive, no matter what threats are posed to them.

It’s rather like the complacency many of us have about our lives.  If you were fortunate enough to be born into a household that was never without food, without the basic necessities of life, and if your lifestyle has remained relatively secure for however many years you’ve been on this earth, then you really cannot imagine what it would be like to one day have it all disappear from under your feet.  You cannot imagine what it’s like to be homeless, to scrounge trash dumpsters for a few scraps of food to keep your children from starving.  The same is true with democracy.

Or take your home … maybe you’ve owned it for 20-30 years.  You’re comfortable in it, it meets your needs.  But what happens if you don’t invest a bit of money in it, have the roof restored and the wiring replaced?  Nothing lasts forever.  Oh sure, you replaced the carpet last year, painted the bedrooms, but those are aesthetics, not structural repairs.  If you don’t replace the wiring that, though you cannot see it, is old and frayed, you risk the house catching fire and burning down some night while you sleep.

We who were born post World War II have never felt a direct threat to the sovereignty of our nation, have never had to live in a nation without laws to protect us.  We have never had to live under the iron fist of a cruel dictator.  Thus we cannot imagine it.  We are complacent that, since the Constitution has held since 1787, some 237 years, it will continue to do so.  We cannot imagine what it would be like to be told that we are persona non grata in the nation of our birth simply because of our gender identity.  All our lives, we have been able to go to the library in whatever town or city we live in and check out a wide variety of books or sit down at our computer and order an e-book from Amazon.  We cannot imagine a time when we could not access books, but that time has already come in some places.

Source: Rewiring Democracy — Part I | Filosofa’s Word

No-Boil Mac ‘n Cheese | snapshotsincursive

What’s Cooking in Gail’s Kitchen? Stir. Spread. Flip. Repeat: No-Boil Mac ‘n Cheese! Depending on who you talk to, there are probably over 100 ways to make macaroni and cheese. No wonder when the grandkids order it in a restaurant, they sometimes take one bite, turn up their noses, and push the plate away. Odds are, ever since they could hold a spoon as a toddler from the comfort of a high chair, more than likely Mother was busy preparing dinner and relied on the store-bought variety in the blue and orange box. It was cheesy, buttery, salty, and established itself as a comfort food early on. This recipe is more an adult version of an old favorite. Try it, if you dare…

Source: No-Boil Mac ‘n Cheese | snapshotsincursive

Rewilding Ireland: ‘Undoing the damage’ from a history of deforestation – Stigmatis News

Rewilding advocate Eoghan Daltun was unsatisfied with life in Dublin, so he sold his property and bought a farm on the Beara Peninsula of southwestern Ireland. His plan was simple: remove the invasive plant species and then put up a fence to keep out the goats and nonnative sika deer. The land did the rest, rewinding time rapidly toward what is beginning to look like a temperate rainforest in just 14 years. Even rare native creatures like pine martens have discovered the regenerating habitat.

Source: Rewilding Ireland: ‘Undoing the damage’ from a history of deforestation – Stigmatis News

They paint like this to make drivers slow down | STREET ART UTOPIA

3D Zebra Crosswalk To Slow Down Speeding Cars

In the small fishing town of Ísafjörður, Iceland, an exciting development in pedestrian crossing safety has just popped up – almost literally. A new kind of speed bumps has been painted that appears to be 3D by way of a cleverly-detailed optical illusion.

Not only does the innovative design give foot-travelers the feeling of walking on air, but the 3D painting also gets the attention of drivers, who will be sure to slow down their speed once they spot the seemingly floating ‘zebra stripes.’ Icelandic environmental commissioner Ralf Trylla called for its placement in Ísafjörður after seeing a similar project being carried out in New Delhi, India. With the help of street painting company Vegmálun GÍH, his vision of pedestrian crossing signs became a reality.

Source: They paint like this to make drivers slow down | STREET ART UTOPIA