“The clearest consequence is that you increase the risk of spreading the virus and the disease. With half-a-million people going to Rio for the Games – not just the usual visitors but people coming from every corner of the world – you open up the possibility of someone from each one of those places getting infected. Once the individual returns to his country, the local mosquitoes may then transmit the disease,” says Amir Attaran, a professor of epidemiology and public health at the University of Ottawa. Attaran co-authored the letter that more than 170 scientists have signed and sent to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Olympic Committee, urging them to postpone the upcoming Games – scheduled for August 5 to August 21 – until the Zika virus is no longer a threat. The letter also asks the organizations to consider moving the Games to another host country.
Category Archives: Fail!
Jeremy Corbyn ‘failed to reply’ to Israeli Labour on fears of antisemitism – Trog-Laborites will try anything to undo what their voters decided!
WHO says ′no public health justification′ for postponing Olympics over Zika virus | News | DW.COM | 28.05.2016 – Deja vu Ebola Fail… economic and politics before public health by member states of WHO!
WHO noted, however, that people continue to travel between countries with the virus. There are also those who do not travel, for a number of other reasons. WHO has already urged pregnant women not to attend the games and in February called the virus a global health concern. The health experts questioned a possible conflict of interest because of WHO’s relationship with the International Olympics Committee. They called for an unbiased, evidence-based assessment to guide the UN health body. Moving the Olympics in such a short time period is not practical and cancelling or postponing the games would entail massive economic losses.
Misremembering Tivoli — Petchary’s Blog
A blogger friend in Guyana, Mark Jacobs, used this word in the context of a tragic event in his own country: The unsolved murder of a human rights activist just before the general elections of May 11, 2015. Mark starts his latest blog post thus: because you have choose to misremember, don’t think everyone else […]
Bratton: There’s An “Epidemic” Of People Filming Police: Gothamist – doing the one foot in and one foot back dance!
Bratton’s defense of Martinez is inconsistent with his stark condemnation of four undercover NYPD officers that were caught on video harassing and arresting Crown Heights postal worker Glen Grays without cause. “You do not have a right to resist arrest and in so many of those videos, people are resisting violently and being encouraged by the crowd,” Bratton said Wednesday. Two years ago, Eric Garner was arrested and put in a chokehold by plainclothes NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo on Staten Island. Garner was killed in the incident, and his death was ruled a homicide. (A Staten Island grand jury declined to indict Pantaleo.) His deadly arrest was filmed by Ramsey Orta, and the footage ignited heated nationwide debate about police brutality, racist policing patterns, and the potential benefits of placing mandatory body cameras on law enforcement officers. Filming police with your cellphone is completely legal, but plenty of NYPD cops will still arrest you for it.
Source: Bratton: There’s An “Epidemic” Of People Filming Police: Gothamist
US warns of nearly invincible superbug | News | DW.COM | {The final “oops!”?}
US health officials reported Thursday that they had discovered the first case in the country of a patient with an infection resistant to all known antibiotics. The discovery raises fears that the so-called superbug could pose serious danger for routine infections if it spreads. “We know now that the more we look, the more we are going to find. We risk being in a post-antibiotic world,” said Thomas Frieden, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, referring to the urinary tract infection of a 49-year-old Pennsylvania woman who had not travelled within the prior five months. “We need to do a very comprehensive job of protecting antibiotics, so we can have them and our children can have them,” Frieden added.
Source: US warns of nearly invincible superbug | News | DW.COM | 26.05.2016
Quote of the Day: “You’re a Bigot, Lady”
The witness, University of San Diego law professor Gail Heriot, lambasted the recent Departments of Justice and Education guidance on transgender students’ rights, declaring that “[i]f someone had said in 1972 that one day Title IX would be interpreted to force schools to allow anatomically intact boys who psychologically ‘identify’ as girls to use the girls’ locker room, he would have been greeted with hoots of laughter.” Heriot went on to dismiss trans students’ gender identities as “a fantasy,” asserting that, “I [am not] a great-horned owl just because, as I have been told, I happen to share some personality traits with those feathered creatures.”
Lofgren wasn’t having any of it. She condemned Heriot’s transphobia, noted the disproportionately high rates of violence and discrimination that trans students suffer, and declared her objection that Heriot’s hateful comments — many of which, by the way, are legally suspect in addition to unethical and bigoted — were ever entered into the record to begin with. Then, over the objections of Republican Chairman King — who demanded “civil” language from Lofgren but (of course) not from Heriot — Lofgren declared: I think you’re a bigot lady. I think you’re an ignorant bigot. Mic drop.
Eurosurveillance – Europe at risk for Dengue, Zika, and CHIKV? You bet and at your nearest airport!
The outbreak of seven autochthonous dengue cases reported by Succo et al. in this issue of Eurosurveillance [6] was triggered by one infected traveller returning from French Polynesia in the summer of 2015, and occurred in an area where another vector, Ae. albopictus, the Asian Tiger mosquito, was established in 2005. This is not the first event of local transmission of DENV reported in Europe in recent years. Since 2010, at least 23 dengue cases were detected. In September 2010, two autochthonous cases of dengue fever were identified in Nice, southern France. The index case had friends from the West French Indies staying with him, while the second case was an individual living nearby [7]. In the summer of the same year, another transmission event occurred in Croatia [8,9]. The index case was a German man returning in mid-August from a two-week holiday spent at the Peljesac peninsula and the isle of Korĉula, ca 100 km north-west of Dubrovnik. A second autochthonous case, and other 15 individuals with serological evidence of recent infection, were identified in October 2010. How the virus was introduced in Croatia remains unclear. In 2013 and 2014, five autochthonous case of dengue were identified in southern France, one in Bouches-du-Rhône (2013) [10], and four in Aubage and Toulon-Hìres (2014) [11]. Ae. albopictus was the vector in all the transmission events listed here. Dengue is not the only Aedes-borne viral disease threatening the health of European citizens. Nearly 10 years ago, in the summer of 2007, more than 250 cases of chikungunya occurred in the north-east of Italy [12]. The primary case was a viraemic individual arriving from the Indian State of Kerala. The chikungunya virus (CHIKV) implicated in the sustained outbreak carried the A226V mutation, which increases virus fitness and is usually detected in areas where the Tiger mosquito is the predominant vector [13]. In September 2010, autochthonous transmission of the CHIKV was also identified in south-east France, where chikungunya was diagnosed in two children living in the same area as another child who developed a febrile illness after returning from Rajasthan, India [14].
Source: Eurosurveillance – View Article
Bernie Sanders’ Campaign Drops Tommy Chong as Intro Speaker Hours Before L.A. Rally – Hollywood Reporter
Tommy Chong is in disbelief after he was disinvited by the Bernie Sanders campaign from introducing the presidential hopeful hours before a rally in East Los Angeles.
The iconic comic actor and outspoken marijuana advocate tells The Hollywood Reporter that the Sanders campaign was happy to have his endorsement months back, but when it came time for the two men to appear in public together, someone got “cold feet,” he says.
“It’s lip service to get the votes, but they don’t want to endorse what I stand for and what I’ve stood for all my professional career,” Chong said right after he was uninvited to the rally. “It was an insult.”
In a email to THR, a Sanders spokesman said, “We appreciate his support but a scheduling issue came up.”
Chong, who was invited on Sunday to Sanders’ noon rally in Lincoln Park, says he is sure the campaign put distance between himself and Sanders over the marijuana issue, calling the move a “weakness” by the Sanders’ camp. He joked that his hair and makeup were done for nothing.
Chong says he already did a radio interview early Monday morning talking about how excited he was to introduce his candidate.
“Now I’m going to look like a fool, like one of those guys who starts bragging about something that isn’t true,” he tells THR. “And I don’t like that because my endorsement means a lot because of what I have gone through and what the whole [marijuana] culture has gone through.”
In January, Chong released his endorsement video, made by the Grassroots Community, in which he praised Sanders’ positions on numerous issues, including the legalization of marijuana.
Chong later sent out an additional tweet about the situation.
Hope to continue my support, reschedule, and continue activism, political change and promoting peace anywhere possible.
Is Trump bump triggering dump USA move in America? Not much beyond the jokes – Times of India
A Canadian radio DJ launched a website earlier this year inviting Americans to move to an island off Nova Scotia if Donald Trump wins the race to the White House. A Canadian advertising firm set up a webpage called Trump Clause that includes legal advice for people or businesses choosing to migrate north. Net searches for ”moving to Canada” have soared since the start of the ”Trump bump,” and at one point, the Immigration Canada website was said to have crashed from the traffic. Meanwhile, sharp-eyed online entrepreneurs are hawking everything from ”Canadian Clothing Brands to Familiarize Yourself With Before You Move to Canada” to Canadian spouses to facilitate immigration (the website is appropriately called MapleMatch). The online music streamer Spotify has come up with a ”Moving to Canada” playlist (featuring Canadian singers), while in the U.S, one realtor recently advertised: ”Leaving the country if TRUMP is elected PRESIDENT? Give me a call and LET’S GET YOUR HOME SOLD!!”
Source: Is Trump bump triggering dump USA move in America? Not much beyond the jokes – Times of India









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