Category Archives: human rights

VDU’s blog: Zika virus: pathology, postulates and questions…

There remain a few of voids around the ZIKV/microcephaly topic that I can and have listed below…

  1. How long has ZIKV been in Brazil and in what numbers?
  2. What are the real (not affected by extra attention/poor reporting) rates of microcephaly in Brazil?
  3. Do real rates of microcephaly diagnoses vary by region/state?
  4. What are the real rates of microcephaly in countries other than Brazil?
  5. How many microcephaly diagnoses have been infected with ZIKV?
  6. How many infections by other viruses including Dengue virus (DENV)?
  7. Is microcephaly a seasonal diagnosis?
  8. What other possible causes of microcephaly also occur with a seasonal pattern?
  9. Are DENV and Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and other mosquito-borne virus infections seasonal?
  10. Is ZIKV seasonal?
  11. Is mosquito treatment and/or mosquito breeding in this region seasonal?
  12. Apart from Pyriproxyfen, what other pesticides are in use and are they all equally safe?
  13. What has been excluded from having a role in causing a GBS or microcephaly diagnosis so far?
  14. What are the data supporting this?
  15. What about other chemicals that have been associated with microcephaly, for example Isoretinoids in cosmetics [22]
  16. What is the tissue distribution of the ZIKV receptor(s) and are we happy we know what that receptor(s) is/are [23]?
  17. Does ZIKV cross the blood-brain and placental barriers in the absence of microcephaly?
  18. What does ZIKV do in foetal, or infant/child/adult, brain tissue?
  19. Is it destructive or inflammatory and does it constantly produce new virus or does it enter some type of latency?
  20. How long does ZIKV persist in foetal tissues?
  21. Are there long-term disease consequences from ZIKV infection of brain tissue that stretch into adulthood?
  22. Does ZIKV persist in the adult central nervous system or anywhere else apart from semen (and what is the upper limit of persistence in semen)? Do DENV, CHIKV, JEV etc persist?
  23. Are the mutations observed between ZIKV lineages and within lineages important for viral virulence, transmissibility or for the clinical course of disease?
  24. Is ZIKV present in and/or able to persist in the eye (during or after conjunctivitis) or in other organs?
  25. Are there mums with evidence of past ZIKV infection who have delivered completely healthy babies?
  26. Do these babies have any other issues?
  27. How has the study of ZIKV infection in mums been done – by unbiased selection and testing or testing only those with symptoms?
  28. When would we expect to see signs of microcephaly among pregnant mothers in Colombia and other countries with large outbreaks of ZIKV?

Source: VDU’s blog: Zika virus: pathology, postulates and questions…

(it is not easy, is it?)

Mitch McConnell Says the Next President Should Appoint Scalia’s Successor – So much for supporting the US Constitution!

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader and Republican of Kentucky, said in a statement that the next president, not President Obama, should appoint a successor to Justice Antonin Scalia.

Source: Mitch McConnell Says the Next President Should Appoint Scalia’s Successor

Dresden′s Church of Our Lady celebration defies xenophobia with music | Music | DW.COM | 26.10.2015

Destroyed by Allied bombs in World War II, Dresden’s iconic Church of Our Lady was restored 10 years ago. In a city now marked by xenophobic tendencies, the anniversary is celebrated with music that evokes community.

Source: Dresden′s Church of Our Lady celebration defies xenophobia with music | Music | DW.COM | 26.10.2015

They Mad: Beyonce’s Middle Finger Salute to White America | Dame Magazine

What’s really behind the backlash to Queen Bey’s Super Bowl performance

They’re not just mad at Bey – they’re made at the Black women leading the Black Lives Matter movement.  They’re mad at #SayHerName.  They’re mad at the recent news that Black women activists refuse to endorse a political candidate for the presidency.  They’re mad because we be all up and down these fiber-optic streets clapping back and engaged in wig snatchery when racists come for us.

White anger is rooted in a long, deep history of needing to control the Black female body, mind and output. White America likes its Black women to be downtrodden, preferably subservient, suffering from any of the countless maladies and dysfunctions they create and maintain through racist and economic oppression, and coddling their fragile emotions.

This moment of White anger and down-by-the-riverside tears reveals deep-seated need to control our blackness. To dominate and define everything we say and do to serve their agendas. And Beyoncé brilliantly slayed all of that history and exploitation in “Formation.” She issued a clarion call to celebrate our Black selves in all of our diverse glory, and to connect to the fight for justice, be it via Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the Civil Rights Movement or Black Lives Matter.  The sight of leather, berets and Afros, not to mention Bey displaying her body on top of a police car and drowning it in the video, compels White panic.  Worse yet, she brought the unapologetic politics of Blackness into the Super Bowl, the yearly celebration of white masculinity.

– See more at: http://www.damemagazine.com/2016/02/12/they-mad-beyonces-middle-finger-salute-white-america#sthash.a20OLyAV.dpuf

Source: They Mad: Beyonce’s Middle Finger Salute to White America | Dame Magazine

Katya Kazbek: Discourse in Danger – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

By Katya KazbekIt’s hard to imagine a time when Russia was not in a state of political tempest. And it’s even harder to imagine a time when the tumult was not creating exquisite lite

Source: Katya Kazbek: Discourse in Danger – Guernica / A Magazine of Art & Politics

When asked about his attempts at publishing books that would not be welcome by the nomenclature, Ilya Danishevsky only managed to give an example of an upcoming work: a book on Petr Pavlensky, the Russian artist who gained prominence by nailing his scrotum to the ground in the Red Square. Pavlensky is currently detained at a criminal psychiatric ward after he set fire to a door leading to the FSB (formerly KGB) headquarters. This publication is an admirable pursuit. The main problem in Russian publishing, however, is not the impossibility of putting out more books that challenge this paradigm. It’s more likely the fact that there are not many of such books at all. And with all due respect to the panelists who do their best to create the new Russian avant-garde, it may be up to the new generation of millennials, born with Putin already in power, to actually change the literary dialogue on a larger scale.

Netanyahu: Israel needs walls to defend itself against wild beasts – PNN

Biggest Fail Yet?

“Will we surround all of the State of Israel with fences and barriers? The answer is yes. In the area that we live in, we must defend ourselves against the wild beasts,” he added.Netanyahu’s comments came during a visit to the southern Israeli border with Jordan, where he was viewing the first stage of the planned “security barrier” that will stretch across the entirety of Israel’s eastern border.

Source: Netanyahu: Israel needs walls to defend itself against wild beasts – PNN

FAO – News Article: FAO calls for international action on antimicrobial resistance

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an emerging public health threat requiring a globally coordinated effort to counter the risks it poses to food security, FAO Deputy Director-General Helena Semedo said Wednesday.Overuse and misuse of antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents foster increasing resistance among the very microbes that cause the infections and disease they were designed to quell, threatening to reverse a century of progress in human and animal health, she said.”We have to help save live-saving drugs,” she told European ministers of health and agriculture at a conference on antimicrobial resistance in Amsterdam.Aside from the human health considerations, the emergence of microbes resistant to antibiotics and other pharmaceutical agents puts animal health at risk and consequently has an impact on rural livelihoods and food security. “AMR is a global threat that in this inter-connected world cannot be solved in Europe alone,” Semedo said.

Source: FAO – News Article: FAO calls for international action on antimicrobial resistance