Category Archives: human rights

Ebola, Experimental Drugs and Informed Consent: Should Those At Risk Simply Take What The Doctor Orders?

West Africans have nothing to fear from European nations and firms who want to experiment and maybe find a cure, for which they will charge billions? lol White Europeans and White Americans have never taken advantage of or lied to West Africans before have the? rotflol Tests on African-Americans without their informed consent were OK, until people found out what was really going on – giving men VD and seeing how long it took to die, giving massive radiation to dying people saying it might cure them, when they were really testing the amount of radiation soldiers might be able to endure before dying? wtf!

Ebola, Experimental Drugs and Informed Consent: Should Those At Risk Simply Take What The Doctor Orders?.

It seems that if we’re fortunate enough to find a drug that works, soon, treating Ebola will require trust that approximates a leap of faith (in medicine), and beneficence – that doctors will order and give these drugs because they think they’re more likely to help than harm those affected. Without that trust, we’ll be stuck, unable to give therapy to most people infected or at risk. Is it possible that meaningful consent can be a barrier to care?

In 2014 UK – Shame on Cameron! Rickets returns as poor families find healthy diets unaffordable | Society | The Guardian

Dr John Middleton, from the FPH, said the calls would come in the faculty’s manifesto to be published next month and warned that ill-health arising from poor diets was worsening throughout Britain “through extreme poverty and the use of food banks”.

He saidthat obesity remained the biggest problem of food poverty as families are forced into choosing cheap, processed high fat foods just to survive. “It’s getting worse because people can’t afford good quality food,” he said. “Malnutrition, rickets and other manifestations of extreme poor diet are becoming apparent. GPs are reporting rickets anecdotally in Manchester, the East End of London, Birmingham and the West Midlands. It is a condition we believed should have died out.

“The vitamin deficiency states of gout, malnutrition being seen in hospital admission statistics are extreme manifestations of specific dietary deficiencies or excesses, but they are markers of a national diet which is poor. Food prices up 12%, fuel prices up double-figure percentages and wages down is a toxic combination, forcing more people to eat unhealthily.”

via Rickets returns as poor families find healthy diets unaffordable | Society | The Guardian.

Ashraf Rifi’s Priorities: Trying To Make Burning The ISIS Flag Illegal in Lebanon | A Separate State of Mind | A Lebanese Blog

The ISIS flag has holy Muslims symbols, but burning it is not insulting Islam, it’s a protest to what ISIS is doing to the people of Iraq, the people of Syria, the people of Lebanon and to our Lebanese army. It’s a protest against the beheading of James Foley, Ali Al Sayyed, the many, many more Sunni muslims who were killed by ISIS and whose deaths are ignored by many. The real insult to Islam here is the existence of ISIS.

What Ashraf Rifi is asking for today is an insult to those people first and foremost and not an insult to Islam. It’s an insult to the intellect of any Lebanese person who wants their freedom of expression to remain intact in this country. It’s an insult to every single Sunni who’s having their entire reputation tarnished as a sect that doesn’t accept others, is still hung up on shallow appearances and is going more and more in its own bubble.

Sunnis in Lebanon today have many, many problems. Their politicians are one of those problems. In Lebanon today, it’s fine to burn a flag with the star of David. It’s fine to burn a flag with a Cross. But when it comes to burning the flag of a terrorist organization, all bets are off?

We need bold statements like Aliaa Magda Elmahdy’s against ISIS. We need to burn their flag. We need to rise beyond their terrorism. We need to get over the limited view of religion at a time when the people of ISIS are using religion to kill people.

If the prophet Muhammad were alive today, he’d be the first person burning that flag down. Ashraf Rifi should have known better.

via Ashraf Rifi’s Priorities: Trying To Make Burning The ISIS Flag Illegal in Lebanon | A Separate State of Mind | A Lebanese Blog.

The Brits Spin is beating out the Blair spin to get Brits into Iraq last time! Britain Raises Terrorism Threat Level to ‘Severe’ – NYTimes.com

Friday and the spinning is easy – The new designation is the second highest after “critical,” meaning that an attack is expected imminently.

The assessment is made by a panel of security experts and officials, independent of government officials. Several European nations have voiced fears that their citizens who have joined the Sunni militant Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, will return home trained and equipped for terrorist acts. But the British response seemed to be among the most drastic.

“The increase in the threat level is related to developments in Syria and Iraq where terrorist groups are planning attacks against the West,” Ms. May said, without offering direct evidence of those plans.

“Some of these plots are likely to involve foreign fighters who have traveled there from the U.K. and Europe to take part in those conflicts,” she said. “The British public should be in no doubt that we will take the strongest possible action to protect our national security.”

She added: “We face a real and serious threat in the U.K. from international terrorism. I would urge the public to remain vigilant and to report any suspicious activity to the police.”

In what seemed a related development, Mr. Cameron told a news conference that new laws would facilitate the seizure of the passports of suspected British jihadis. He said he would provide more detail in a statement to Parliament on Monday covering what he called legislation to fill “gaps in our armory.”

He drew a distinction between previous assessments that the main threat to British security came from Al Qaeda, which has broken with ISIS because of its extreme tactics.

The group spilled across the border from Syria in June to strike at north and central Iraq, leaving a trail of executions and beheadings and threatening minority groups. “What we are facing in Iraq now with ISIL is a greater threat to our security than we have seen before,” Mr. Cameron told a news conference, using an alternative name for ISIS.

via Britain Raises Terrorism Threat Level to ‘Severe’ – NYTimes.com.

Simple – Wannabe Caliph Erdogan is anti-educated professional females! Why are pro-AKP Twitter users targeting female journalists? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East

Zaman also for the first time wrote openly about the “rape and murder” threats female journalists Melis Alphan, Sirin Payzin, Selin Girit, Tugce Tatari, Banu Guven, Nuray Mert and Ece Temelkuran received during the 2013 Gezi Park protests. Professor Yasemin Inceoglu at the Galatasaray University communication department told Al-Monitor, “All these journalists are professionals. The attacks against them are nothing but an open threat to silence those few critical minds in the media. I certainly don’t understand the silence of some other female journalists — playing the three monkeys, when their colleagues are subject of such a lynching campaign.”

Although there are campaigns in support of these female journalists, it is something else to stand up against a strong government and a crowd backed and encouraged by this government. “We did not file a lawsuit against those threats because of the sensitive environment back then,” Karan told Al-Monitor. “And I have no knowledge that our security enforcement did anything against it, even when these threats were made public.”

The government’s pressure cost both Zaman and Karan their jobs at the Haberturk daily newspaper, with Zaman now writing for Taraf and Karan for Cumhuriyet. Karan said, “I did not lose the job after one incident, but Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu literally lashed out at me in three separate live TV interviews. I remember well the one in December 2011 when I asked him — based on the information I was receiving from my sources inside Syria — about the Salafist groups that were spreading fear and [their activities] being no less of a threat than those of [Syrian President Bashar al-] Assad. He said then that they know Syria street by street, quarter by quarter, while denying the Salafist threat and entirely blaming Assad. Today, we know the result.”

Karan told Al-Monitor that Davutoglu’s appointment as prime minister means nothing but the continuation of pressure on the media. “As long as journalists talk about what the government does in a positive light, there is no problem. Their policies are not supposed to be questioned. Therefore, media freedom is going to shrink even further, if this situation continues.”

via Why are pro-AKP Twitter users targeting female journalists? – Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East.

I Quit Eating Only Salad or Eating Only Cake — Because I am Worthy, Loved & Beautiful. | Rebelle Society

{This applies to women and to men – good thoughts}

I’ve got news for you: You weren’t put into this universe to fail. You were born to make mistakes and learn and grow and rise up despite loss and heartache. Our bodies are our vehicles in which we are able to accomplish this.

Our bodies do not fail us.

Through every disease, every sickness and every injury, we are taught what it means to be better, to be more, to be stronger. When we love our bodies for what they are, when we treat them with respect, when we are thankful beyond measure for all that they allow us to experience, we rise.

We are born to rise, to become, to unbecome, to screw up and to learn. Find a way of living and loving that allows you to do this, and go do it.

You are irreplaceably beautiful. Yes, you are.

 

via I Quit Eating Only Salad or Eating Only Cake — Because I am Worthy, Loved & Beautiful. | Rebelle Society.

Right-wing Jews perform prayers in central West Bank village | Maan News Agency

Dozens of right-wing Israeli settlers raided the northern West Bank village of Kifl Haris in Salfit district in the central West Bank overnight escorted by Israeli troops and performed Jewish prayers.

Locals told Ma’an that the settlers arrived at the shrine of Muslim prophet Thul-Kifl which the Jews identify as the Biblical prophet Ezekiel.

They spent the night at the place, located in the center of Kifl Haris, performing Jewish prayers before leaving in the early morning hours.

via Right-wing Jews perform prayers in central West Bank village | Maan News Agency.

Do the Taco or Beer Challenge

“You find yourself a fucking taco, or a fucking beer, or a fucking taco and a beer, then you eat the fucking taco or drink the fucking beer or eat and drink both the fucking taco and the beer, and then you donate some money to an abortion fund. You fucking film yourself doing this shit and then you send us the fucking video and we put it on the fucking internet.”

Andrea Grimes started the challenge as a bit of a joke, after seeing the “ice bucket challenge” take off. Tacos and beers have about as much to do with abortion as ice buckets have to do with ALS — but they’re much, much more enjoyable.

And actually, you can make the challenge even more simple. You can skip the filming part and even the eating/drinking part (although I can’t imagine why you’d want to pass on that) and just donate to an abortion fund. As Grimes writes, “The Taco or Beer Challenge is about doing what’s right for your own taco and beverage needs, just like having an abortion—or not—is about doing what’s right for yourself and your family.”

As we remind you pretty regularly around these parts, access to abortion in this country is treated as a privilege, not a right — and abortion funds play a critical role in filling that gap and helping to ensure that everyone who needs an abortion can afford to get one.

You can find an abortion fund serving your community here.

via Do the Taco or Beer Challenge.