All posts by nedhamson

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

Michigan study shows many hospital workers avoid flu shots

Data gathered by the University of Michigan shows that fewer than 50 percent of U.S. hospitals have mandatory influenza vaccines for their staff.

Every year, millions of Americans become sick and thousands of Americans die from influenza. People most at risk for contracting the illness already have health concerns or weakened immune systems.

There are several recommendations that apply to every hospital in the U.S., encouraging health care workers to receive their influenza vaccines every year. Health professionals maintain that this is the best way to prevent the workers from passing influenza viruses to hospital patients.

This is why it is a significant concern that over 50 percent of hospitals do not have mandatory vaccines for their staff. Many people who come to hospitals are already vulnerable, and adding their susceptibility to the spread of the influenza can only make matters worse.

“Vaccination of health care workers has been shown to significantly reduce patients’ risk of influenza and its complications, including pneumonia and death, compared with vaccination of patients alone,” Sanjay Saint, senior author of the new study, said. “To put it bluntly, American hospitals have a lot of work to do.”

To folks who finally care about Trump

I think it’s absolutely bomb (unapologetically using my favorite circa 2003 adjective despite being Muslim) that so many feminists I’ve never or rarely seen say something about Islamophobia are now saying something about Islamophobia. I just think it’s also absolutely terrifying that it took Trump’s call for a ban on Muslims entering the U.S. for so many people to reach this breaking point. If Trump is what made you realize that “enough is enough,” I say better late than never. I just hope you know that we reached enough long ago. I hope you’ll make sure to point out that what we’ve had enough of can’t just be Trump and his well-supported idea of banning Muslims from the country.It has to include a White House which thinks “Trump should be disqualified,” but said little about mass shootings on Sunday and lots about scary brown terrorism and people (i.e. my relatives who the White House will continue to bomb overseas).It has to include a Dick Cheney who thinks “Trump goes against what we believe in” but that water-boarding and sexual violence as torture, the murder of millions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Gitmo do not.It has to include a J.K Rowling who thinks “Trump is worse than Voldemort” but Israel’s occupation and theft of Palestinian life and land? Less so.It has to include a Hillary Clinton who thinks “Trump is prejudiced and hateful” but the surveillance, detention, and deportation of Muslim Americans after the Patriot Act she still defends is super race-neutral and loving.It has to include a media empire which thinks we shouldn’t be banned from the country per say, we should just be routinely dehumanized and exclusively called terrorist.It has to include the feminists that think Trump’s comments are despicable, but celebrated women being able to enter combat positions last week (to kill Muslims as effectively as men can).If Trump is what made you realize that we’ve crossed a line, I say better late than never. I just hope you know that we crossed that line long ago.

Source: To folks who finally care about Trump

Bay Area Muslims Suprisingly Resistant To Fascist Proposals: SFist

Michael Kim, age 46, of Lafayette, is a graduate of the US Naval Academy and for seven years served as an active duty naval officer “How is it possible that this country I love, that I’m a community member of, a nation I defend, is turning its back on me so harshly?” he said35-year-old emergency room physician Asad Tarsin who lives in Dublin, said “I feel we are at a crossroads at a nation. I think that with crossroads there’s a degree of concern if we as a country are going to make the right decisions.”Somehow, bless her, Tarsin has found a way to be hopeful and generous. “I think I have more faith in my fellow Americans than I do a segment of the population that’s been duped by a rhetoric of fear.”Now that’s a faith to which we should all subscribe.

Source: Bay Area Muslims Suprisingly Resistant To Fascist Proposals: SFist

The Genesis of ‘Coywolves:’ A Story of Survival

The Genesis of ‘Coywolves:’ A Story of Survival

By Divya Rao | Wednesday, December 09, 2015



An eastern wolf-coyote hybrid in West Virginia.

An eastern wolf-coyote hybrid in West Virginia.

The end of the Thanksgiving season provides an opportunity to look back on America’s history with an eye to our changing environment. The “New World,” while harsh at first to pilgrims, was a pristine habitat for many plants and animals, including eastern gray wolves. Abundant populations of eastern gray wolves capitalized on the continent’s lush temperate forests.

However, the settlement of Europeans in America quickly led to widespread deforestation and hunting. While the needs of settlers were met and settlements continued to grow, the situation facing eastern gray wolves was grim. Faced with a diminishing habitat, smaller and smaller prey populations, and even poison traps set by humans, the eastern gray wolf population was in rapid decline. However, these same conditions made an ideal habitat for western coyotes, which began to move in from the southwest.

Faced with a shrinking population and a smaller pool of mates, eastern gray wolves began to mate with western coyotes, leading to the development of a hybrid species known as the “coywolf.” The coywolf blends several characteristics of wolves and coyotes to create a species that is uniquely capable of thriving in a habitat disturbed by human activity. They are adapted to forested land, open terrain and even sub-urban and urban areas and are opportunistic eaters—able to eat deer, rabbits and small rodents, as well as fruits and other produce. Although they are not protected under the Endangered Species Act and several states have liberal hunting laws regarding coywolfs, their unique adaptations have allowed them to thrive.

While this is indeed an incredible example of species hybridization and evolution in a relatively short time frame, the origins of the coywolf provide a valuable reminder that we must take a stand for wolves, which are, yet again, under attack. In the coming weeks, President Obama will sign a budget bill from Congress that may be primed with policy ‘riders’ to remove wolves from the endangered species list in Wyoming, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota. Moreover, the budget riders will prevent citizens from challenging the de-listing of gray wolves in these states in court. Without the protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act, gray wolves in these states will be under threat yet again from state management plans that have, in the past, allowed for unregulated, on-sight killing of wolves.

Though wolves were able to overcome obstacles like habitat loss, hunting and poisoning in the past by hybridizing into coywolves, the remaining population of pure-bred wolves will not be able to overcome the targeting killing that will be allowed if these riders are passed along with the final budget bill. Stand with us and urge President Obama to veto extinction

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Wolves

David Cameron presses for migrant benefit curbs on Romania visit

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PM is visiting Romania and Poland, two countries opposed to his welfare plan, in attempt to make progress on issue

David Cameron has repeated his call for the EU to allow Britain to curb benefits for migrants, despite signs he may have to drop the demand in the face of implacable opposition.

The prime minister reiterated his proposal on a trip to Romania and before a visit to Poland, two of the countries that are most strongly opposed to it. He is visiting both countries in the hope of making progress on his attempted renegotiation of the terms of Britain’s EU membership before a meeting of the European Council next week.

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Cameron government rejected flood risk warnings from climate advisers

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Committee on Climate Change had warned in October that the government must take action to protect homes from risk of flooding

The UK government was warned by its official climate change advisers in October that it needed to take action on the increasing number of homes at high risk of flooding but rejected the advice.

The decision not to develop to develop a strategy to address increase flooding risk came just a few weeks before Storm Desmond brought about severe flooding in Cumbria, Lancashire and other parts of the north west causing an estimated £500m of damage.

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