Category Archives: Fail!

Texas Failure to treat properly?

This failure to treat with convalescent antibody follows a failure to admit when Eric Duncan made his initial visit to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital on the evening of September 25.  Although he had a low grade fever when he arrived, when he left 4 hours later he had a fever of 103 F (and was sent home with antibiotics and Tylenol).

Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has been cited for the past three years for having a high frequency of ER discharges which returned within 30 days, and Eric Duncan fit that pattern when he returned on September 28 after a contact called 911, which led to ambulance transport.  By then Eric Duncan also had diarrhea and vomiting but his blood was not sent out for Ebola testing until the next day, Monday, September 29 (and media reports indicated his nephew call the CDC on Monday due to a lack of progress).

via Media Myth On Ebola Convalescent Antibodies.

Kurdish paper distributor gunned down in southeastern Turkey – Reporters Without Borders

{Wannabe Caliph Erdogan has a newspaper delivery guy assassinated? How brave!} Reporters Without Borders condemns media worker Kadri Bagdu’s murder today while distributing the Kurdish dailies Azadiya Welat and Özgür Gündem in Seyhan, in the southeastern province of Adana. His targeted killing harks back to the darkest hours of Turkey’s recent history.

Bagdu, 46, was distributing the newspapers free of charge on the street in the Sakir Pasa district of Seyhan when he was shot five times by two individuals on a motorcycle who then sped away. One of the shots hit him in the head. He succumbed to his injuries several hours later.

via Kurdish paper distributor gunned down in southeastern Turkey – Reporters Without Borders.

Lost Louisiana: the race to reclaim vanished land back from the sea | Environment | The Guardian

Left unchecked, the state is projected to lose an additional 1,750 sq m in the next 50 years.

The land began vanishing from southern Louisiana about 80 years ago when the authorities began penning in the Mississippi after catastrophic floods.

The system of levees cut off the river from the delta, choking off the sediment needed to shore up the coast.

A decade later, oil drilling took off in coastal areas of Louisiana. Industry canals tore up the coastal wetlands.

Rising seas under climate change accelerated the land loss, exposing New Orleans and the valuable oil, shipping and seafood industries on the coast to hurricanes and storm surge.

Sea level rise is now the leading cause of land loss, said Virginia Burkett, chief scientist for climate and land use change at the US Geological Survey, leading a recent tour of the restoration projects organised by the Society of Environmental Journalists.

“If sea level rise doubles as we expect over the next century, can you imagine what is going to happen to this landscape?” she asked. “Without the barrier islands and marshes to attenuate the storm surge, the people of New Orleans are basically surrounded by an earthen levee.”

via Lost Louisiana: the race to reclaim vanished land back from the sea | Environment | The Guardian.

A Photo is Worth a Thousand Words: Navajo President Explains His Game Time Activities

Social media was abuzz late Sunday afternoon after a photograph was posted was online featuring out-going Navajo Nation President Ben Shelly and his wife Martha sitting in Washington NFL team owner Dan Snyder’s suite during the Arizona Cardinals and Washington NFL game.

A picture is worth a thousand words is an old adage.

Given Snyder is viewed as a modern-day George Armstrong Custer because of his total disregard of the feelings of hundreds of thousands American Indians about wanting him to change the name of his team, comments were not charitable towards the President Shelly. And given the Navajo Nation Council voted for a resolution calling for a name change of the Washington NFL team, there were many negative comments.

via A Photo is Worth a Thousand Words: Navajo President Explains His Game Time Activities.

Illegal loggers remain hidden in Peru’s forest but timber finds global buyers | Environment | The Guardian

In this remote part of Peru’s 700,000 sq km of Amazon rainforest, there is not much beyond subsistence fishing and farming as a way to earn a living. Other options are mostly illegal: logging Amazonian hardwoods, growing coca, hunting and selling bushmeat. These activities are all prohibited, but in a region larger than Germany, the state is virtually absent. Levels of poverty and illiteracy are far above the national average. Organised crime and evangelical sects fill the vacuum. As in the Rudyard Kipling poem, here the “law of the jungle” is “as old and as true as the sky”.

The murder of forest campaigner Edwin Chota with three fellow Ashaninka leaders – Jorge Rios, Leonicio Quintisima and Francisco Piñedo – at the beginning of last month briefly drew the world’s attention to Peru’s rainforest. The remains of just three men, shot dead in the forest, have been found. DNA profiling using relatives’ hair samples are being used to identify the bodies. The authorities arrested the alleged killers, illegal loggers Adeuzo and Eurico Mapes, a father-and-son pair who are reported to have threatened Chota when he informed officials of their activities. These complaints fell on deaf ears, say members of his community, Alto-Tamaya Saweto.

via Illegal loggers remain hidden in Peru’s forest but timber finds global buyers | Environment | The Guardian.

Where’s Monty Hall when we need him? SoCal Researcher Launches Crowdfunded Effort To Find Cure For Ebola: LAist

{Is the race to find a vaccine or cure for ebola – which had more or less been ignored for 30 some years globally for lack of profit – becoming the new “Let’s Make a Deal!” for researchers and drug firms? The first to find a real advance will be able to trade on that for investments and support for other more profitable efforts in the future!}

Professor Saphire is leading the charge at Scripps to find a cure for Ebola, having already led in the development of the experimental ZMapp serum has cured five patients this past summer of the virus. In order to find the antibodies that will fight the virus effectively, her work requires samples being shipped in from around the globe. Unfortunately, her lab is limited in resources, and has started a CrowdRise fundraiser in order to get the money for personnel and equipment. So far, we’re at $14,000 of her $100,000 goal.

Saphire was on KPCC’s Take Two this morning to talk about her efforts, and addressed the concerns that research for a cure isn’t what the current epidemic needs right at this moment:

It’s true that none of these experimental therapies are going to be available in enough doses to treat everybody; it’s just not possible. To contain this outbreak the focus really needs to be on medical supplies and medical care. We just can’t have people dying in the streets and infecting their families at home. They need to be cared for by doctors and nurses that have supplies to protect themselves, but the contain and control isn’t enough. One of the things about crowdfunding is it gives people the control. They can choose what they want to invest in and maybe they want to put some of their resources toward supplies like medical gloves and bleach and maybe they want to put some of their resources toward getting a cure ready to treat this thing.

via SoCal Researcher Launches Crowdfunded Effort To Find Cure For Ebola: LAist.

Race for Status May or May Not Help Stop Ebola… Chinese firm pushes Ebola drug it says can cure deadly virus | South China Morning Post

{Russia says it has a cure, Canada and US have a cure, UK has a treatment, India and Japan will be next to claim they are working on a cure and/or vaccine – and those dying of Ebola are really not as important as status to be won in eyes of world – and hoped for profit in other drugs later}

A Chinese drug maker with close military ties is seeking fast-track approval for a drug that it says can cure Ebola, as China joins the race to help treat a deadly outbreak of a disease that has spread from Africa to the United States and Europe.

Sihuan Pharmaceutical has signed a tie-up with China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences (AMMS) last week to help push the drug called JK-05 through the approval process in China and bring it to market. The drug, developed by the academy, is currently approved for emergency military use only.

“We believe that we can file to the Chinese Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) before the end of the year,” Sihuan’s chairman Che Fengsheng said during an investor call last week.

“They are looking at this very seriously … and we could get on the ‘green light’ track,” he added.

Sihuan’s drug is only one contender among a number of experimental cures worldwide to treat Ebola, although if successful it would be a huge boon for China’s developing pharmaceutical sector and the country’s soft power in Africa, an increasingly important partner for the world’s No.2 economy.

via Chinese firm pushes Ebola drug it says can cure deadly virus | South China Morning Post.

Israeli military training targets Children in Aida Camp

Local sources said that on Sunday 12 October the Israeli Occupation Forces stormed into Aida refugee camp without any provocation and began shooting tear gas, sound bombs and rubber coated steel bullets at children in the streets.

Eye wittness and photographer Mohammad AL-Azza said that “They were searching houses, occupying rooftops and invading the whole camp”.

He added “Yesterday, they were training soldiers by using families, children and homes as military practice. Tamer Abu Salem, 13 years old, was in Lajee Center moments before he was shot in the head with a rubber coated steel bullet. Tamer underwent emergency surgery after arriving at the hospital and he is still in the ICU. Before the soldiers left the camp, they shot two bullets through Lajee Center’s windows as punishment. The occupation is on-going, and our struggle continues.”

via Israeli military training targets Children in Aida Camp.

Columbus’ Discovery – Vatican Encouraged Slavery

The principles of “discovery” come out of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V declared war on all non-Christians. He provided King Alfonso of Portugal a papal bull known as Romanus Pontifex. In this papal bull, Nicholas directed King Alfonso to “capture, vanquish, and subdue the saracens, pagans, and all other enemies of Christ,” to “put them into perpetual slavery,” and “to take all their possessions and property.” Pope Nicholas claimed that those who were not Christian did not have the right to be viewed as human beings. To emphasize this point, Pope Nicholas also issued the papal bull Dum Diversas, which legalized slavery as an act of a just war. Under the authority of these two papal bulls, King Alfonso traveled up and down the western coast of Africa claiming all the lands that he discovered, and enslaving the people. This gave rise to a monumental expansion in the African slave trade, which followed Columbus to this country.

Forty years after King Alfonso pillaged the West African coastline, Columbus set off to find Asia. By that time, a well-known tradition of Christian “discovery” had been established in Europe. This gave Columbus the express authority to take possession of any lands that he discovered that were not already under Christian rule. Following his accidental discovery of the Americas, Columbus returned to Europe where Pope Alexander VI ratified Spain’s claim to the lands that he had discovered, by issuing the papal bull Inter Cetera. Inter Cetera granted Spain the right to officially conquer the lands that Columbus had discovered during his 1492 voyage. Thus, acting under the authority of the Catholic Church, Columbus returned to the Americas where he engaged in heinous acts of genocide,

via Columbus’ Discovery.

Got Insurance? Companies still say: “Screw you for being ill!” You Still May Pay A Steep Price For Prescriptions – Kaiser Health News

Sandra Grooms recently got a call from her oncologist’s office. The chemotherapy drugs he wanted to use on her metastatic breast cancer were covered by her health plan, with one catch: Her share of the cost would be $976 for each 14-day supply of the two pills. {14+ years of exclusive sales and gouging all the way for people trying to stay alive}

“I said, ‘I can’t afford it,’” said Grooms, 52, who is insured through her job as a general manager at a janitorial supply company in Augusta, Ga. “I was very upset.”

Even with insurance, some patients are struggling to pay for prescription drugs for conditions such as cancer, arthritis, multiple sclerosis or HIV/AIDS, as insurers and employers shift more of the cost of high-priced pharmaceuticals to the patients who take them.

via Got Insurance? You Still May Pay A Steep Price For Prescriptions – Kaiser Health News.