Category Archives: Profiteering

Organic-Vaccines seeks {more investors and publicity} “compassionate use” of its MERS-CoV vaccine | Vaccine News Daily

Organic-Vaccines, a company specializing in using biotechnology to utilize a patient’s own cells for treatments, recently applied to the World Health Organization (WHO) for compassionate use of the company’s MERS-CoV (Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus) vaccine.

The first confirmed cases of MERS-CoV occurred in Saudi Arabia in 2012. Since then, 804 cases have been reported in the country with 43 percent of patients dying as of Thursday. Worldwide, WHO has reported 887 cases of MERS-CoV as of Oct. 16.

Organic-Vaccines is preparing its vaccine in order to respond rapidly to future MERS-CoV cases. Early preparation is key to protecting health professionals, first responders and citizens, as well as preventing worldwide pandemics.

via Organic-Vaccines seeks “compassionate use” of its MERS-CoV vaccine | Vaccine News Daily.

Rosebud Sioux Tribe: House Vote in Favor of the Keystone XL Pipeline an Act of War

In response to Friday’s vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to authorize the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, the Rosebud Sioux Tribal president announced that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe (Sicangu Lakota Oyate) recognizes the authorization of the this pipeline as an

“act of war.”

The Tribe has done its part to remain peaceful in its dealing with the United States in this matter, in spite of the fact that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe has yet to be properly consulted on the project, which would cross through tribal land, and the concerns brought to the Department of Interior and to the Department of State have yet to be addressed.

“THE HOUSE HAS NOW SIGNED OUR DEATH WARRANTS AND THE DEATH WARRANTS OF OUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN. THE ROSEBUD SIOUX TRIBE WILL NOT ALLOW THIS PIPELINE THROUGH OUR LANDS,” SAID PRESIDENT CYRIL SCOTT OF THE ROSEBUD SIOUX TRIBE.

“We are outraged at the lack of intergovernmental cooperation. We are a sovereign nation and we are not being treated as such. We will close our reservation borders to Keystone XL. Authorizing Keystone XL is an act of war against our people.”

via Rosebud Sioux Tribe: House Vote in Favor of the Keystone XL Pipeline an Act of War.

Dear Senator Ted Cruz, I’m going to explain to you how Net Neutrality ACTUALLY works – The Oatmeal

Good explanation – problem is that folks like Senator Ted Cruz does not care whether he knows or not, or what happens to the Internet. He figures, he has it made now and no matter what he will always have enough money to overcome any barriers he has put up for everyone else to deal with.

 

Dear Senator Ted Cruz, I’m going to explain to you how Net Neutrality ACTUALLY works – The Oatmeal.

In France, Dam Is the Catalyst for a Flood of Young People’s Anger – NYTimes.com

Many of those who gathered to oppose the dam call themselves “Zadistes,” or partisans of the ZAD, the French acronym for zones à defendre, or areas to defend. They say they have come to build an independent society. Increasingly, they are seen as environmental extremists, or “green jihadists,” as Xavier Beulin, the president of the main agriculture union, put it.

“For once, we are fighting a project that represents symbolically what we reject,” said Jordan Samson, a geography student in the southern city of Toulouse. “Our movement is spreading to an entire generation.”

The protests here are the latest aimed at a widening number of projects that the demonstrators criticize as monuments to the overweening ambitions of local politicians and their business connections.

Last month, demonstrations in support of the Zadistes were held across France, including in Nantes, where more than a hundred protesters went on a rampage. In the nearby town of Gaillac, several shops and a memorial to war dead were vandalized.

via In France, Dam Is the Catalyst for a Flood of Young People’s Anger – NYTimes.com.

The Farmworker Story Behind Your Cheap Food | Earthjustice

My name is Andrea Cabrera Hubbard. I started working in the fields as a child, picking squash for half the day and then going to school the other half. At school, my classmates would bully me for working in the fields. I made it to fourth grade and then quit. After that, I worked all day, every day, cutting tomatoes in Mexico. Sometimes the tomato cans were heavier than I was and sometimes we would work 14 to 16 hours a day.

In 2001, I came to the United States and began to work in the fields here in Santa Paula, California. I had a lot of fear and didn’t want to come here, because before I arrived, I had heard that this is the land of the slaves.

Today, I don’t work in the fields anymore, and I am studying English. I’m united with the organization Lideres Campesinas to help other women so they don’t have to live the life I had to live. Working in the fields, there’s a lot of abuse. The bosses, foremen and supervisors are the most abusive to the workers. I think most field workers would share their stories but because of the fear, nobody speaks up. The laborers think they are going to be deported, so they would rather keep silent and hold back the pain from all the chemicals they use.

via The Farmworker Story Behind Your Cheap Food | Earthjustice.

Three glasses of milk a day can lead to early death, warn scientists – Telegraph

Dairy councils and lobbyists across the globe are going to attack this study pronto and on a jobs basis, not science!

 

“A higher consumption of milk in women and men is not accompanied by a lower risk of fracture and instead may be associated with a higher rate of death.”

via Three glasses of milk a day can lead to early death, warn scientists – Telegraph.

AKA: No profit/no life! Without Lucrative Market, Potential Ebola Vaccine Was Shelved for Years – NYTimes.com

Almost a decade ago, scientists from Canada and the United States reported that they had created a vaccine that was 100 percent effective in protecting monkeys against the Ebola virus. The results were published in a respected journal, and health officials called them exciting. The researchers said tests in people might start within two years, and a product could potentially be ready for licensing by 2010 or 2011.

It never happened. The vaccine sat on a shelf. Only now, with nearly 5,000 people dead from Ebola and an epidemic raging out of control in West Africa, is the vaccine undergoing the most basic safety tests in humans.

Its development stalled in part because Ebola was rare, and until now outbreaks had infected only a few hundred people at a time. But experts also acknowledge that the lack of follow-up on such a promising candidate reflects a broader failure to produce medicines and vaccines for diseases that afflict poor countries. Most drug companies have resisted spending the enormous sums needed to to develop products useful mostly to poor countries with little ability to pay for them.

via Without Lucrative Market, Potential Ebola Vaccine Was Shelved for Years – NYTimes.com.

It Looked Like a Stabbing, but Takata Air Bag Was the Killer – NYTimes.com

Hien Tran lay dying in intensive care this month after a car accident, as detectives searched for clues about the apparent stab wounds in her neck.

An unlikely breakthrough arrived in the mail a week after she died from her injuries. It was a letter from Honda urging her to get her red Accord fixed, because of faulty air bags that could explode.

“The air bag,” said Tina Tran, the victim’s twin sister. “They said it was the air bag.”

Ms. Tran became at least the third death associated with the mushrooming recalls of vehicles containing defective air bags made by Takata, a Japanese auto supplier. More than 14 million vehicles from 11 automakers that contain the air bags have been recalled worldwide.

via It Looked Like a Stabbing, but Takata Air Bag Was the Killer – NYTimes.com.

Check for any corn ingredients and then choose something else to eat – EPA Approves Popular Weed Killer For Genetically Modified Crops

The Environmental Protection Agency has approved a new version of a popular weed killer to be used on genetically modified corn and soybeans.

The EPA said Wednesday that it will allow the use of a 2,4-D weed killer called Enlist Duo, a new version of the popular herbicide used since the 1940s. It is designed to be used on corn and soybeans grown with engineered seeds approved by the Agriculture Department last month. When used together, farmers can spray the fields after the plants emerge, killing the weeds but leaving crops unharmed.

The agriculture industry has anxiously awaited the approvals, as many weeds have become resistant to glyphosate, an herbicide commonly used on genetically modified corn and soybeans now. Enlist includes a combination of both 2,4-D and glyphosate.

Critics say they’re concerned the increased use of 2,4-D could endanger public health and more study on the chemical is needed. The USDA has said that if both the seeds and herbicide are approved, the use of 2,4-D could increase by an estimated 200 percent to 600 percent by the year 2020.

via EPA Approves Popular Weed Killer For Genetically Modified Crops.

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.