All posts by nedhamson

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

FOTD – February 20 – Snowdrop – Cee’s Photo Challenges

Source: FOTD – February 20 – Snowdrop – Cee’s Photo Challenges

Dengue activity in the Americas already outpacing last year’s surge | CIDRAP

Aedes aegypti

UK College of Agriculture, Food & Environment/Flickr cc

After reporting record cases that topped 4.5 million last year, countries in the Americas have already recorded more than 673,000 dengue infections in the first 5 weeks of 2024, including 700 severe cases and 102 deaths. Countries reporting increases this year are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Martinique, Mexico, Paraguay, and Peru.

Two thirds of this year’s cases are from Brazil, where more than 455,000 dengue infections have been reported.

All four serotypes are circulating in the Americas region this year, with proportions that vary by country. However, Brazil, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico are seeing circulating of all four serotypes.

Source: Dengue activity in the Americas already outpacing last year’s surge | CIDRAP

Tentaciones y riesgos – Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

La tentación de las élites gobernantes de utilizar el poder económico, militar y político, respaldado por mercenarios de la comunicación, líderes sociales corruptos y científicos ambiciosos, parece ser una tendencia en diferentes regiones del mundo para dominar y explotar a los pueblos. En ciertas regiones ausentes de proyecto integral de nación, donde las personas coexisten en un ambiente de distracción y estulticia, el plan consiste en permitir que la miseria, el desorden, la ignorancia y la inseguridad alcancen niveles de alto riesgo social para así justificar la intervención militar, eliminar las garantías individuales, pisotear la dignidad humana y perpetuar a un grupo en el poder. La gente se encuentra tan distraída en superficialidades, que ni siquiera tiene capacidad de percibir el peligro que le acecha en sus países.

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Source: Tentaciones y riesgos – Santiago Galicia Rojon Serrallonga

Sometimes it is hard not to get disheartened | Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

…Let us put an end to the creation of yet more suffering! There is enough suffering in this world that we cannot change. Right now and already for a long time, a lunacy wave of unnecessary suffering is swashing over the world, and it seems that nobody is asking themselves, what the heck we are doing.

Photo: Pixabay

Source: Sometimes it is hard not to get disheartened | Context, Thought, and Learning: ShiraDest Offers Project Do Better

Patients see first savings from Biden’s drug price push, as pharma lines up its lawyers – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Last year alone, David Mitchell paid $16,525 for 12 little bottles of Pomalyst, one of the pricey medications that treat his multiple myeloma, a blood cancer he was diagnosed with in 2010.

The drugs have kept his cancer at bay. But their rapidly increasing costs so infuriated Mitchell that he was inspired to create an advocacy movement.

Patients for Affordable Drugs, which he founded in 2016, was instrumental in getting drug price reforms into the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Those changes are kicking in now, and Mitchell, 73, is an early beneficiary.

In January, he plunked down $3,308 for a Pomalyst refill “and that’s it,” he said. Under the law, he has no further responsibility for his drug costs this year — a savings of more than $13,000.

The law caps out-of-pocket spending on brand-name drugs for Medicare beneficiaries at about $3,500 in 2024. The patient cap for all drugs drops to $2,000 next year…

Source: Patients see first savings from Biden’s drug price push, as pharma lines up its lawyers – San Gabriel Valley Tribune