tagged w/ Disease
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US health authorities on Friday urged all boys age 11-12 to get a routine vaccination against the most common sexually transmitted disease, human papillomavirus, or HPV.
Other changes as part of an annual update to US immunization schedules included a recommended hepatitis B vaccine to the protect the livers of adults up to age 60 who have diabetes and a vaccine against whooping cough for pregnant women.
The updates, agreed upon by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report of February 3.
The HPV vaccine has been approved for girls since 2006 but the CDC had not expressly urged it for boys, though boys were included among those who could receive it to prevent certain cancers and genital warts.
Health experts have expressed hope that if pre-teen boys and girls are both encouraged to get the vaccine, the rate of infection will decrease in the general population.
About half of all sexually active adults will get HPV in their lifetime. There are more than 100 types of HPV, and most clear the body on their own, but some strains can linger and lead to cervical, anal or oral cancer.
Only about 20 percent of women aged 19-27 reported having received the HPV vaccine in 2010, up slightly from 17.6 percent in 2009, the CDC said.
The vaccine, currently recommended for girls age 11-26, has faced resistance from some parents over fears that immunizing young girls would encourage them to be promiscuous.
The new guidelines, which were first urged by ACIP in October, call for all males aged 11-12 to get the vaccine too, with a catch up vaccination for those between the ages of 13 and 21 if they missed it.
HPV vaccine also is recommended for males 22-26 years old who have not been vaccinated before and who have weakened immune defenses, who test positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), or who have sex with men.
Read more... here... http://www.theinset.com/2012/02/recommends-routine-hpv-vaccination/US health authorities on Friday urged all boys age 11-12 to get a routine vaccination... more
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Taking aspirin may do more harm tha`n good, according to a study by the Political Economy Research Institute.
The study sought to discover which companies produce the highest “toxic score,” a rating derived from a combination of what the Political Economy Research Institute deems to be a company’s toxic outputs.
The group’s findings were surprising. Bayer Group, makers of Aleve and Aspirin, topped their list of world’s worst polluters, even beating out oil giants Valero Energy Corp., ConocoPhillips and Exxonmobile.
In addition to popular pain medications, Bayer produces a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. This compound has been widely used to create clear, hard plastics. If consumed, BPA can lead to neurological defects, heart disease, diabetes, early onset of puberty in girls, infertility, obesity, breast cancer and prostate cancer, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
It was this particular product that pushed Bayer’s toxic score to the top of the list.
by Dallin Hatch
http://universe.byu.edu/index.php/2011/12/07/bayer-leading-producer-of-a-toxic-chemical/Taking aspirin may do more harm tha`n good, according to a study by the Political... more
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For 17 years, the Hendra virus smoldered in its host bat population, only rarely crossing to humans. Then it exploded, likely triggered by heavy rains and floods in Australia earlier this year. And that has public health doctors nervous about climate change.
"The interesting change was the big floods in January," said a disease ecologist at Pennsylvania State University. "Floods are expected more frequently with climate change – so, if they are linked, climate change may increase disease."
More at the linkFor 17 years, the Hendra virus smoldered in its host bat population, only rarely... more
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the genetic testing lab 23andMe.com can tell you what you're most at-risk of dying from, if you're brave enogh to want to knowthe genetic testing lab 23andMe.com can tell you what you're most at-risk of... more
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Innovations in clinical practice, drugs and other technologies can improve the quality and extent of patients’ lives – but they are often expensive. With budget cuts looming, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) has been charged with helping the government to decide which treatments are sufficiently cost effective to be made available on the NHS. But for those facing life threatening illnesses, can a price be put on life? We ask the public whether medicine should be rationed due to its price and denied according to your lifestyle. For many, this is an affront to the value of human life and most argue that medicine should not be rationed even it only gives us a few more weeks life. Lifestyle however is a different ball game and sadly the idea that healthcare should be rationed for smokers, drinkers and the obese is gaining ground.Innovations in clinical practice, drugs and other technologies can improve the quality... more
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Word that the government is letting BP end its cleanup of the Gulf Coast left many residents seething and fearful over who would monitor or respond to any lingering effects of the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Estimates that 90 percent of the region's shores have been cleaned of oil from last year's spill belie the sentiments of many locals who are likely to think first of BP when they spot tar balls or mats of weathered oil in the sand. Such waste has washed ashore for years from a variety of sources, but the spill's traumatic aftermath has linked it with BP in the minds of many.
"Everything is just not how it used to be. When you pull a fish up, it doesn't look like it is supposed to look, like they did before," said Ryan Johnson, a fisherman in Pensacola Beach, Fla.
The agreement approved last week by the U.S. Coast Guard ends BP's cleanup responsibility for all but a small fraction of the coast, and marks a shift to restoration efforts that will likely include planting new vegetation and adding new sand to beaches. Under the plan, BP PLC won't be required to clean up oil that washes ashore in the future unless officials can prove it came from the blown-out well that caused the 2010 catastrophe — a link that the company concedes will be harder to establish as time passes and the oil degrades. Still, a top company official said BP is ready to respond to any oil that's deemed its responsibility.
"We are finally at a stage where scientific data and assessment has defined the endpoint for the shoreline cleanup," said Mike Utsler, head of BP's Gulf Coast Restoration Organization. "That endpoint can be reopened."
Such assurances are of little comfort to officials around the region who think that the Coast Guard failed to protect their interests. Louisiana refused to sign off on the cleanup plan, though the Coast Guard said it would carry it out regardless of the state's objections. Among the state's chief concerns is what they perceived as a lack of long-term monitoring required by the plan.
"This has been a unilateral decision. We were supposed to work to make it right, BP said they would make it right," said John Young, the president of Jefferson Parish, a coastal area that was hit hard by the spill. "It's not clean. There are still tar mats and tar balls appearing."
Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange said the plan concerns him and he hasn't decided whether he will go to court to force BP to continue cleanup efforts.
snip
"It may be the end for them, but we're at the end of our rope. Families are suffering; businesses are suffering. It's horrible. We can't catch a fish to save our soul," said Kevin Heier, a 40-year-old commercial fisherman in Hopedale, La.
In Gulfport, Miss., fourth-generation oyster and shrimp fisherman Rudy Toler said he doesn't think it's time to scale back the cleanup. The 31-year-old is convinced the Gulf is contaminated by the spill. He blames BP for the shrimp and oysters he says he's not catching.
"It doesn't surprise me that the government is going to let BP off the hook, because they've let them off the hook before," Toler said Wednesday. "The president said we would be made whole. I think he's turning his back on us too."
He said oil can still be found. "I've never seen these problems before. I've been going out on the water for more than 20 years and I've never seen oil before, even though there is natural seepage."
Similar sentiments are found on Pensacola Beach in Florida, where locals are uneasy even though things look gorgeous this time of year. Kenneth Collins, who rents fishing poles to tourists and spends his days with local fishermen at the Pensacola Beach pier claimed that red fish, cobia, grouper and other fish caught off the pier have oily deposits in their intestines when they are carved up for cleaning
"It's not OK at all. We aren't scientists or anything but we are out there all the time and we can tell things aren't right," he said.
Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Gulf-Coast-upset-over-OK-to-wrap-up-BP-cleanup-2259897.php#ixzz1dKlRMpBG
More at the linkWord that the government is letting BP end its cleanup of the Gulf Coast left many... more
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Floodwater swamped a new area of Thailand's capital on Wednesday as some shops started rationing food and the prime minister warned that parts of Bangkok could be flooded for up to a month.
Residents of Bang Phlad, a riverside district some way from Bangkok's three swamped northern districts, were told to urgently evacuate as floods hit the capital on a second front, deepening anxiety in the city of at least 12 million people, many of whom were expected to flee ahead of a special five-day holiday.
"After assessing the situation, we expect floodwater to remain in Bangkok for around two weeks to one month before going into the sea," Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra told reporters.
"However ... we shouldn't face water as high as two or three meters staying for two or three months as we've seen in other provinces."
Thailand's worst flooding in half a century has killed at least 366 people since mid-July and disrupted the lives of nearly 2.5 million, with more than 113,000 in shelters and 720,000 people seeking medical attention.
Bangkok residents scrambled to stock up on food, but bottled water was nowhere to be seen and some shops restricted customers to small quantities of food to prevent hoarding.
With high tide approaching in the Gulf of Thailand, Seri Supharatid, director of Rangsit University's Center on Climate Change and Disaster, said the city's fate rested with river dykes holding.
"In the worst-case scenario, if all the dykes break, all parts of Bangkok would be more or less flooded," Seri said.
The economic damage is difficult to quantify, but the central bank has revised its growth forecast for Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy to 3.1 percent this year from 4.1 percent. The finance minister's projection was a gloomier 2 percent.
Flooding has forced the closure of seven industrial estates in Ayutthaya, Nonthaburi and Pathum Thani provinces bordering Bangkok, causing billions of dollars of damage and disrupting international supply chains for industry and putting about 650,000 people temporarily out of work.
The cabinet on Tuesday agreed on a 325 billion baht ($10.6 billion) budget to rebuild the country, while city authorities and the Commerce Ministry were meeting with industrial estate operators, hotels and food producers to try to minimize the damage and kick-start a recovery.
SWELLING RIVER
Authorities have called a holiday from Thursday until Monday to allow people to get out Bangkok, although financial markets will remain open.
The rising tide could complicate efforts to drive water from the swelling Chao Phraya river out to the sea, putting more pressure on a city that accounts for 41 percent of Thailand's gross domestic product.
Heavy rain could also deepen the crisis and thunderstorms were forecast for Wednesday.
The floods are expected to take a toll on Thailand's tourism industry, which employs more than 2 million people and makes up 6 percent of GDP. Tourism Minister Chumphol Silpa-archa said arrivals could be 500,000 to 1 million below the government's target of 19 million this year.
Three northern districts of Bangkok have been under water since Saturday, with army vehicles driving at a snail's pace through 1.5 meters of water, ferrying evacuees away.
Some people were being evacuated for a second time, with 4,000 sheltering in Don Muang moving to the province of Chon Buri. Evacuees at a university in Pathum Thani province also had to move on as floodwater engulfed the campus.
To tackle the flooding, the authorities have pumped an estimated 8 billion cubic meters of water daily through canals and a river around Bangkok's east and west toward the sea.
But the large volume of water flowing through the city remains a concern, with the vast Chao Phraya river at record levels and running past high-end hotels, embassies and the Sathorn and Silom areas of the city's business district.
Water has engulfed two areas, with levels climbing higher than half a meter in the densely populated Bang Phlad district near to the Chao Phraya and closer to the commercial heart.
More at the linkFloodwater swamped a new area of Thailand's capital on Wednesday as some shops... more
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More than half of the groundwater monitored in the country's major cities failed to meet standards for drinking, a report by the country's land watchdog said.
Groundwater at 57.2 percent of the 4,110 monitoring stations in 182 cities was classified as bad, meaning people's health could be harmed, according to a Ministry of Land and Resources report released on Wednesday.
The quality of groundwater in most northern and eastern parts of China was worse last year than in 2009, the report said, without stating locations. The level of groundwater had also dropped as a result of overexploitation.
Household sewage, industrial pollution and overuse of fertilizers and pesticides had led to further deterioration of groundwater, Ma Chaode, former director of the World Wide Fund For Nature's freshwater program in China, told China Daily.
Pollution of groundwater and water in rivers and lakes had reached a serious level, he said.
more at the linkMore than half of the groundwater monitored in the country's major cities failed... more
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A breakthrough in low cost water technology, the tippy tap is a simple device for hand washing with running water at no cost to the environment and a marvel for the poor in rural areas, where disease and germs dominate. The idea behind the tippy tap is, just because you’re poor does not mean you have to be dirty. Here’s how to make your own tippy-tap in your front room.A breakthrough in low cost water technology, the tippy tap is a simple device for hand... more
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Kevin Benton had every reason to feel bitter.
During his sophomore year in college, he says, white students harassed him and the only other African-American living on the floor in his dorm in order to get them to move out.
The white students spat on their doors, tore their posters off the wall, and banged on their door at four in the morning. When Benton brought up the problems at a dorm meeting, the other students snickered.
"I felt like I was being bullied, being targeted," he says now of his college experience 19 years ago. "I knew I couldn't retaliate in any way or I'd lose my basketball scholarship."
This was the first time in his life Benton had encountered racism and it hit him hard. He had trouble sleeping, and then over the next several months he suffered panic attacks. Admitted to the hospital, he was found to have hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, or thickening of the muscles in the heart. The disease is the leading cause of heart-related sudden death in people under 30.
So sick he couldn't walk, Benton lay in his hospital bed bitter and resentful.
"I thought to myself, 'I've never hurt anybody. I serve in the community. I work with youth. I wrestled with God -- why did this happen to me?'" he remembers.
Just then, a janitor walked by and grabbed Benton's hand, and prayed aloud to God to heal him. "As soon as she said, 'Amen,' I felt like someone had poured cold water on my head and made my heart shrink," he says.
Benton forgave the students who had tormented them, and three days later, he walked out of the hospital. "If I hadn't forgiven them, I'd be dead," says Benton, now healthy and a social worker for the Philadelphia Department of Human Services.
Feeling persistently resentful toward other people -- the boss who fired you, the spouse who cheated on you -- can indeed affect your physical health, according to a new book, "Embitterment: Societal, psychological, and clinical perspectives."
In fact, the negative power of feeling bitter is so strong that the authors call for the creation of a new diagnosis called PTED, or post-traumatic embitterment disorder, to describe people who can't forgive others' transgressions against them.
"Bitterness is a nasty solvent that erodes every good thing," says Dr. Charles Raison, associate professor of psychiatry at Emory University School of Medicine and CNNHealth's Mental Health expert doctor.
(read more at link)Kevin Benton had every reason to feel bitter.
During his sophomore year in college,... more
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Addiction is “not simply a behavioral problem involving too much alcohol, drugs, gambling or sex,” the American Society of Addiction Medicine declared this week. Instead, the society notes, “Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry.”
In other words, addiction is not just about the actof raising a bottle to the lips, drawing deeply on a cigarette or bingeing guiltily in chocolate bars in private. There just might be something amiss in your head that compels you to behave that way.
“The disease is about brains, not drugs. It’s about underlying neurology, not outward actions,” said Michael Miller, past president of the ASAM who oversaw the crafting of the society’s new definition, in a statement.
(read more at link)Addiction is “not simply a behavioral problem involving too much alcohol, drugs,... more
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Amid the graves of Somalia's children
CNN...
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Burying a child: A mother's unending grief
Sanjay Gupta MD
By Sanjay Gupta, M.D., Chief Medical Correspondent
August 11, 2011 11:25 a.m. EDT
Fight to save Somali kids
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Gupta's visit with Somalian refugees brings disturbing memories
He recalls the grieving mother of a boyhood friend who died
Thousands of Somalian parents have buried their children this summer
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Editor's note: Dr. Sanjay Gupta takes you deep inside the misery of the largest refugee camp in the world, "SGMD," Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 a.m. ET
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Dadaab, Kenya (CNN) --
When I was in the third grade, a classmate of mine died of leukemia. None of us knew he was sick, only that his mother hadn't let him attend school in a while.
More than 30 years later, I still remember the awful day my mom told me my friend had passed away. I made a card for his mother, and walked to their house to deliver it. She was too overcome to take any visitors, but thanked me and took the card. I can recall her broken up face when she shut the door.
Over time we lost touch, but during the holidays a couple of years ago, I stopped by her home to pay a visit. She recognized me right away, smiled and invited me in for a cup of coffee. And then, while hanging my jacket, she began to tremble and cry.
So many years later, the sorrow was just under the surface. The experience left an indelible impression on me, one that I better understood after becoming a parent myself. It violates a natural order of life to bury your own child, and I am not sure the grief ever goes away.
That's the position 30,000 Somali parents found themselves in this summer. And, 600,000 more children may be buried before the end of the year. In just about any other place on Earth, those numbers would scream out from international headlines, but not here in East Africa.
Inside the Dadaab Refugee Camp, a mass burial site sits within walking distance of the close cluster of tents. Amin Hassan took me to see the tiny burial site of her 1-month old daughter, Addison.
It was nearly lost among all the other shallow, hastily dug graves. Small sticks mark these raised plots of dirt with nothing else except bits of colored plastic trash stuck in the ground and blowing in the wind.
There are no nameplates, no flowers and no reminders of their lives. People here just vanish.
"She was perfectly healthy when she arrived," Amin told me.
They had left Somalia in search of food and water, and felt relief when they finally reached the camp. It may have been contaminated water that caused little Addison's intractable diarrhea and vomiting or an overwhelming infection.
Pertussis or whooping cough is something they see quite often here. "And measles," one of the doctors told me.
Many of these infections are wildly contagious, especially among the hundreds of thousands of un-vaccinated kids in these camps.
As I stood and spoke to Hassan, with all those tiny burial sites around us, I couldn't help but think of my friend and his mother. I thought of that unnatural order of parents burying their children.
I thought about Hassan's lifelong grief.
Amin Hassan dug the grave for her daughter by herself.
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.Amid the graves of Somalia's children
CNN...
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Burying a child: A... more
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They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And I've always believed them.
Until now.
Now everything has changed. Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years suffocated by a lie.
There was a time when love was the most important thing in the world. People would go to the end of the earth to find it. They would tell lies for it. Even kill for it.
Then, at last, they found the cure.
If love were a disease, would you take the cure. Watch the trailer and decide.They say that the cure for love will make me happy and safe forever. And I've... more
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In episode 50 of MicrobeWorld Video, Vincent, Michael, and Stanley recorded episode #8 of the podcast This Week in Microbiology live at the 2011 ASM General Meeting in New Orleans, with guests Andreas Baümler, Nicole Dubilier, and Paul Rainey. They spoke about how pathogens benefit from disease, symbioses between chemosynthetic bacteria and marine invertebrates, and repetitive sequences in bacteria.In episode 50 of MicrobeWorld Video, Vincent, Michael, and Stanley recorded episode #8... more
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There have been more than 400 cases of the disease this year, including the death of a six-year-old last month.
Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13858115There have been more than 400 cases of the disease this year, including the death of a... more
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US scientists claim to have discovered a dangerous new plant disease linked to genetically modified crops and the pesticides used on them.
The research, which is yet to be completed, suggests the pathogen could be the cause of recent widespread crop failure and miscarriages in livestock.
Emeritus Professor Don Huber from Perdue University says his research shows that animals fed on GM corn or soybeans may suffer serious health problems due to the pathogen.
“They’re finding anywhere from 20 per cent to as much as 55 per cent of those [animals] will miscarriage or spontaneously abort,” he said.
“It will kill a chicken embryo for instance in 24-48 hours.”
(read the rest at link)US scientists claim to have discovered a dangerous new plant disease linked to... more
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Africa is the home of many new, and old, bacteria, virus and fungus, that have been major threats to humanity in the past. This threat has worsened with the advent of airflight travel. Indeed, the U.S. has had at least two close calls with Ebolavirus.
Diseases that have been considered eradicated will, predictably, often turn up again in Africa. With unstable social situations, such as brought on by war, disease can spread literally like wildfire.
The latest is the outbreak of poliomyelitis. Right now it is in Chad and Yemen, as well as Sudan, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia, but since there is an active war in Yemen, in which the U.S. is now secretly participating, with thousands of Yemen civilians fleeing their country--we are looking at a big threat of polio becoming, again, a living terrorist in our lives.
This calls for an improved quality of polio vaccine for vaccination of children. So far, in 2010 and 2011, the response to this international threat has been inadequate, and WHO designates it as "high risk" for spread internationally.
Just a reminder that war can spread very bad diseases (polio not being one of the worst) that can be transported back to us by the military contractors, soldiers, etc. who are active in the war.
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Poliomyelitis in Chad
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Chad is experiencing outbreaks of both wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1 -
65 cases in 2011) and wild poliovirus type 3 (WPV3 - 3 cases).
The WPV3 outbreak has been ongoing since November 2007, and Chad is
therefore considered to have re-established WPV3 transmission. A WPV1
outbreak began in September 2010 (as a result of a newly-imported
virus from northern Nigeria), and has since been intensifying.
Originally restricted to the greater N'Djamena area, WPV1 has spread
in 2011 to other areas of the country, to the south (including areas
bordering Central African Republic [CAR] and Cameroon) and to the east
(including areas bordering Sudan).
Historically, Chad has been associated with further international
spread of poliovirus. Between 2004 and 2006, WPV1 spread from eastern
Chad into Sudan, and subsequently to other areas of the Horn of
Africa, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Indonesia, resulting in 1230 cases in
these countries and over USD 500 million in international emergency
outbreak response costs. Additionally, in 2008 and 2009, WPV3 from
southern Chad spread into Cameroon and CAR.
The 2 outbreaks in Chad require urgent action to improve the quality
of vaccination activities in order to reach a higher proportion of
children with oral polio vaccine (OPV) across the entire country, and
particularly in the greater N'Djamena area, in the south and in the
east of the country. Due to gaps in the quality of acute flaccid
paralysis (AFP) surveillance at subnational levels, additional
undetected WPV circulation cannot be ruled out.
To urgently address the situation, the Government of Chad with the
technical support of partners has just finalized a 6 month national
polio emergency plan. National immunization days (NIDs) using bivalent
OPV have been conducted in May [2011], with further supplementary
immunization activities (SIAs) planned for June [2011]. The Government
of Chad and partners are working to ensure that technical support is
allocated to priority areas; special strategies will be used to reach
high-risk populations and technical capacity to fill subnational
surveillance gaps will be scaled up. As part of efforts to increase
accountability for programme implementation, key indicators will be
regularly monitored. Under the National Polio Emergency Plan, heads of
district administrations will be charged with overseeing
implementation reviews following each SIA, and providing summaries
with clear outcomes and recommendations to provincial governors, whose
offices will oversee direct oversight of the operationalisation of the
plan. At the national level, monthly implementation reports will be
prepared by the Ministry of Health and shared with the office of the
Prime Minister.
Throughout 2010 and 2011, countries neighbouring Chad -- notably
Cameroon, CAR, and Sudan -- have all conducted multiple SIAs, to
minimise the risk of re-infection. It is important that countries
across central Africa and the Horn of Africa strengthen AFP
surveillance in order to rapidly detect any poliovirus importations
and facilitate a timely response. Countries should also continue to
boost routine immunization coverage against polio to further
strengthen population immunity and minimize the risk of any
importation.
Potential for international spread
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In 2010 and 2011, outbreak response has been inadequate. Given the
uncontrolled and widespread geographic transmission of both WPV
serotypes, historical spread to neighbouring countries, recent
geographic expansion of WPV1 across Chad (including close to the
borders with CAR and Sudan), the World Health Organization (WHO) rates
as high the risk of further international spread. With the Hajj
(pilgrimage to Mecca, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) expected to begin in
early November [2011] and Ramadan in early August [2011], it is
anticipated that pilgrims are now beginning to move across west and
central Africa, further increasing the risk of polio spread. The
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia last month [May 2011] issued polio vaccination
requirements for travellers to the Hajj.
WHO recommendation
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WHO recommends that all travellers from polio-infected areas be fully
vaccinated prior to travel. As per recommendations outlined in WHO's
International travel and health (ITH), travelers to and from Chad
should be fully protected by vaccination. Travelers to Chad who have
in the past received 3 or more doses of OPV should be offered another
dose of polio vaccine before departure. Any unimmunized individuals
intending to travel to Chad require a complete course of vaccine.
Travelers from Chad should have a full course of vaccination against
polio before leaving Chad, with a minimum one dose of OPV before
departure. Some polio-free countries may also require travelers from
Chad to be immunized against polio in order to obtain an entry visa.
--
[From the description of the situation in Chad, there is significant
cause for concern -- the history of prior exportations of cases in
neighboring countries combined with an acknowledged weakness in acute
flaccid paralysis (AFP) surveillance suggesting a high likelihood that
there are as yet undetected cases of polio, is a worrisome situation.
Now that Nigeria appears to be approaching interruption of
transmission, there seems to be a chance that Chad will replace
Nigeria as and exporter of cases in the region.
-----------------Africa is the home of many new, and old, bacteria, virus and fungus, that have been... more
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New data released in Germany strongly suggest that it is locally produced bean sprouts that are the source of the deadly E. coli outbreak after all.
"It's the bean sprouts," said Reinhard Burger, head of Germany's centre for disease control.
"People who ate sprouts were nine times more likely to have bloody diarrhoea than those who did not," he added.
Officials initially blamed the E. coli, which has killed 29 people, on imported cucumbers from Spain, then the bean sprouts before wrongly claiming that it wasn't the bean sprouts.
Mr Burger, who heads the Robert Koch Institute, warned that the outbreak was not over. He told reporters on Friday that even though no tests of the sprouts from a farm in Lower Saxony had come back positive, the epidemiological investigation of the pattern of the outbreak had produced enough evidence to draw the conclusion that it was in fact the bean sprouts that were making people ill.
The institute, he added, was lifting its warning against eating cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, but keeping it in place for the sprouts.
Some 3,000 people have been taken ill with the German outbreak of E. coli, which involves a previously unknown strain of the bacterium.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13725953New data released in Germany strongly suggest that it is locally produced bean sprouts... more
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The story of the Battle of Blair Mountain starts in the southern coal camps of West Virginia, a time when King Coal reigned supreme, openly and without apology.
Mining companies owned workers' homes; they owned the schools, the air and water; they owned the police and even private armies. They owned miners' lives.
Which is why murder seemed permissible. When a notorious strikebreaker shot down labor hero Sheriff Sid Hatfield, who refused to be bought by the coal companies, more than 10,000 enraged miners and pro-union forces rose up in Mingo and Logan Counties and converged on Blair Mountain. A private army of management mercenaries shot guns and dropped leftover bombs from WWI—it was the nation's largest armed conflict since the Civil War and the largest labor confrontation ever.
Don't know about the Battle of Blair Mountain? There's a reason for that. West Virginia—a state still dominated by the coal industry and its political interests— has resisted highlighting the battle in history books and has denied commemoration attempts. When the federal National Register of Historic places chose the historic site for protection, the state—working with coal company lawyers—contested the decision. The site was de-listed last year, when West Virginia state officials submitted a "revised" list of 57 landowners supposedly objecting to the historic preservation decision. The list even included 2 dead people.
This Battle of Blair Mountain continues today. Coal companies stand literally to erase this history by obliterating the mountain.
Massey Energy and Arch Coal hold several permits in various stages to mine this land in the very worse form of strip mining on this planet: Mountaintop removal mining (MTR). One active mountaintop removal site is already blasting away the mountain and is moving within a few hundred yards of the historic battle site. Massey Energy, of course, is the company responsible for killing 29 of its workers last April in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion. Since then, it has come under extreme fire for its tens of thousands of violations of safety law and its corporate culture of profits before people. Not to mention, by Massey's own records, they've had 67,000 violations of just one of the environmental statute. It's influence among West Virginia politicians, of course, is far-reaching.
All across Appalachia today, mountaintop removal mining is destroying mountain communities by ripping apart its landscape, environment, health, heritage and economic prospects. Mining companies come in, break the law, reap profits, and leave a wasteland. In MTR regions in W. Va, companies are exploding dynamite the power of a Hiroshima-sized bomb—every single week. This form of mining isn't good for jobs either. Ripping up the mountain rather than carefully extracting coal is "efficient" -- i.e. it replaces people with machines to enhance company profits. As is noted in the wonderful documentary The Last Mountain, which is being released this week, while Appalachian coal company profits and production have skyrocketed in recent decades, at the same time some 40,000 mining jobs have been lost.
This is a new "Battle of Blair Mountain" taking place today --- and raising national awareness about this amazing story could help pressure an agency that hardly ever received much attention to reconsider its decision. This victory would be a huge symbolic win for the Appalachian communities, and for the organized labor movement around the country, which is again under siege today.
contThe story of the Battle of Blair Mountain starts in the southern coal camps of West... more
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