Category Archives: Fail!

Measles may compromise immune systems for three years | Vaccine News Daily

“We already knew that measles attacks immune memory, and that it was immunosuppressive for a short amount of time. But this paper suggests that immune suppression lasts much longer than previously suspected,” C. Jessica Metcalf, co-author and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs at Princeton, said. “In other words, if you get measles, three years down the road, you could die from something that you would not die from had you not been infected with measles.”

via Measles may compromise immune systems for three years | Vaccine News Daily.

Australia PM adviser says climate change is ‘UN-led ruse to establish new world order’ – Telegraph

 Climate change is a hoax developed as part of a secret plot by the United Nations to undermine democracies and takeover the world, a top adviser to Tony Abbott, Australia’s prime minister, has warned.

Maurice Newman, the chief business adviser to the prime minister, said the science showing links between human activity and the warming climate was wrong but was being used as a “hook” by the UN to expand its global control.

“This is not about facts or logic. It’s about a new world order under the control of the UN,” he wrote in The Australian.

“It is opposed to capitalism and freedom and has made environmental catastrophism a household topic to achieve its objective.” Born in Ilford, England, and educated in Australia, Mr Newman, a staunch conservative and former chairman of the Australian Stock Exchange, has long been an outspoken critic of climate change science.

via Australia PM adviser says climate change is ‘UN-led ruse to establish new world order’ – Telegraph.

Robert Reich: Trans Pacific Trickle-Down Economics – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

What we should have learned by now about trickle-down economics is that nothing trickles down.

If the Trans Pacific Partnership is enacted, big corporations, Wall Street, and their top executives and shareholders will make out like bandits. Who will the bandits be stealing from? The rest of us.

via Robert Reich: Trans Pacific Trickle-Down Economics – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics.

Human pneumonic plague outbreak has multiple transmission routes | Vaccine News Daily

Specimens taken from the dog and the three ill people showed acute Yersinia pestis. Experts state that one of the cases of pneumonia could have been transmitted from the dog owner to the individual. This is the first U.S. transmission of the plague since 1924.

Experts state this is an opportunity for health professionals to consider diagnosing the plague in animals, as well as potential to study relatively mild plague illnesses among patients who already take antimicrobial agents.

An automated system located in the hospital lab previously misdiagnosed the bacterium as Pseudomonas luteola. This outbreak shows that there are limits to current diagnostic systems when they test for rare bacteria, like Yersinia pestis, and they are always in need of improvement.

via Human pneumonic plague outbreak has multiple transmission routes | Vaccine News Daily.

Fracking Chemicals Detected in Pennsylvania Drinking Water – NYTimes.com

An analysis of drinking water sampled from three homes in Bradford County, Pa., revealed traces of a compound commonly found in Marcellus Shale drilling fluids, according to a study published on Monday.

The paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, addresses a longstanding question about potential risks to underground drinking water from the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The authors suggested a chain of events by which the drilling chemical ended up in a homeowner’s water supply.

“This is the first case published with a complete story showing organic compounds attributed to shale gas development found in a homeowner’s well,” said Susan Brantley, one of the study’s authors and a geoscientist from Pennsylvania State University.

via Fracking Chemicals Detected in Pennsylvania Drinking Water – NYTimes.com.

School to work transition: Youth in Eastern Europe and Central Asia face multiple barriers in finding decent jobs

The average length of transition from school to stable or satisfactory employment was nearly two years for the six countries analysed. Youth with university degrees do better at eventually finding a stable job. The lesser-skilled young person – with primary education only – spent, on average, four times longer to find a job than the university graduate.

via School to work transition: Youth in Eastern Europe and Central Asia face multiple barriers in finding decent jobs.

I’m ashamed of Britain’s aid pledge to Nepal – just 12p each | Carole Cadwalladr | Comment is free | The Guardian

And what have we done? David Cameron has announced that Britain will be sending a team of eight people to help. The government has said we will give £5m in disaster relief. Eight people. Five million pounds – the princely sum of 12p from each of us. And here are some more numbers: 200, the years we have siphoned off their population to fight our wars for us; 43,000, the Gurkhas killed during two world wars; 141, the places ahead we are of Nepal in a list of the world’s richest countries; five, where we are in a list of its trading partners.

I don’t feel lucky to have missed the earthquake in Kathmandu or the avalanche at base camp. To have avoided the broken limbs my other team mates suffered, or to have been buried under the cascading rubble of the heartbreakingly beautiful, now destroyed, Durbar Square, where last Saturday I bought scarves as presents for my friends. I took my chances. I didn’t have to be there. Instead I feel extraordinarily lucky to have been born in a country with a functioning economy and the kind of life chances denied to 99.9% of the population of Nepal.

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I received a world-class education for free, I’m able to travel and visit other countries, and if I’d been caught in an avalanche up at base camp, or stubbed my toe, I had insurance to spring me a helicopter to the best western-style hospital around. My livelihood, unlike the Nepalese people I was with, hasn’t just suffered a catastrophic blow by the inevitable collapse of tourism (the Foreign Office has warned against all but essential travel to the country). And the doctor I saw for the chest infection I carried home didn’t cost me a penny.

via I’m ashamed of Britain’s aid pledge to Nepal – just 12p each | Carole Cadwalladr | Comment is free | The Guardian.

EU approves import of 19 genetically modified organisms | News | DW.DE | 24.04.2015

No place to run or hide – corruption and self-delusion win out! The European Union’s executive body granted 10 new authorizations for genetically modified organisms (GMO) food or animal feed on Friday, including varieties of maize, soybean, cotton, and oilseed rape. The Commission also renewed licenses for seven GMO products and allowed the import of two types of carnation.

“All the GMO products approved today have been proved to be safe before their placing on the EU market,” the Commission said in a statement, explaining the products were tested by the European Food Safety Authority and that the authorizations are valid for 10 years.

The newly approved products are made by companies including US giants Monsanto and DuPont, and German firms Bayer and BASF.

via EU approves import of 19 genetically modified organisms | News | DW.DE | 24.04.2015.

Settlers Raise Israeli Flag over Hebron’s Al-Ibrahimi Mosque

Israeli settlers raised the Israeli flag on the walls and over the rooftop of al-Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as Cave of the Patriarchs, today in Hebron.

The reconstruction committee in Hebron condemned, in a press statement, this measure and considered it a continuation of ongoing Israeli attempts to alter the character  of the mosque and annex  it to the list of Jewish heritage sites.

The committee slammed this Israeli measure as a provocative act and an assault against Muslims in general and Palestinians in particular.

It called on all relevant human rights and humanitarian organizations to take the necessary actions to protect the mosque.

Al-Ibrahimi Mosque is located in the old city of Hebron, few hundred meters away from the part of the city illegally occupied by around 400 extremist settlers, who are protected by about 1,500 Israeli soldiers.

Since 1967, al-Ibrahimi Mosque, like all other Muslim holy sites in Palestine, became a target for the Israeli occupying forces and Zionist settlers, reported the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee.

In 1994, Israel divided al-Ibrahimi Mosque between Muslims and Jews, after an Israeli settler gunned down 30 Palestinians during dawn prayer.

via Settlers Raise Israeli Flag over Hebron’s Al-Ibrahimi Mosque.

Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes – NYTimes.com

Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells.

The state’s energy and environment cabinet introduced a website detailing the evidence behind that conclusion Tuesday, including links to expert studies of Oklahoma’s quakes. The site includes an interactive map that plots not only earthquake locations, but also the sites of more than 3,000 active wastewater-injection wells.

The website coincided with a statement by the state-run Oklahoma Geological Survey that it “considers it very likely” that wastewater wells are causing the majority of the state’s earthquakes.

via Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes – NYTimes.com.