Home » Posts tagged 'who' (Page 5)

Tag Archives: who

Olduvai
Click on image to purchase

Olduvai III: Catacylsm
Click on image to purchase

Post categories

Post Archives by Category

State of Emergency Declared in Michigan City After Lead Found in Children’s Blood

State of Emergency Declared in Michigan City After Lead Found in Children’s Blood

Flint, Michigan– “The City of Flint has experienced a Manmade disaster,” said the city’s mayor Monday evening, as she declared a state of emergency over evidently staggering levels of lead in the city’s tap water. Mayor Karen M. Weaver has requested federal assistance to deal with the fallout from over a year’s worth of tainted water delivered to Flint residents and, allegedly, falsely declared safe by government officials.

In September, news broke that lead contamination was on the rise in Flint. Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha of the Hurley Medical Center concluded that since the water supply switched from the Detroit system to Flint River in April 2014, the number of infants and children with elevated levels of lead in their blood had doubled, from 2.1% to 4%. While the rise seems small, it is statistically significant. Even so, Attisha warned: “My research shows that lead levels have gone up. I cannot say it’s from the water. But that’s, you know, the thing that has happened.

The World Health Organization sayslead affects children’s brain development resulting in reduced intelligence quotient (IQ), behavioral changes such as shortening of attention span and increased antisocial behavior, and reduced educational attainment. Lead exposure also causes anemia, hypertension, renal impairment, immunotoxicity and toxicity to the reproductive organs. The neurological and behavioral effects of lead are believed to be irreversible.

The high levels of lead have been attributed to old pipes and plumbing, which researchers say rubs off more into Flint River water than it does other sources. Because the water itself is more corrosive than other supplies, it erodes the pipes it flows through, picking up lead along the way.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

New Ebola Cases Surface in “Ebola Free” Liberia: “The Threat Remains”

New Ebola Cases Surface in “Ebola Free” Liberia: “The Threat Remains”

ebola-suit

The threat from ebola remains quite real, and there is legitimate concern over whether or not the world’s health experts are really capable of containing it.

The West African nation of Liberia has once again been reminded that it must remain vigilant and mindful of the terrible power that ebola has in its capacity to transform into a deadly epidemic.

Just months after being declared ebola free – twice now – the country has again been plagued by new cases.

Authorities aren’t sure how the recent outbreak of ebola happened, but know that it could once again be spreading. Live Science reports:

The death of a 15-year-old boy from Ebola in Liberia — a country that has been declared free of the disease twice — raises the question of why cases are still popping up in the country, experts say.

The teenager, who died Tuesday (Nov. 24), tested positive for the disease last week. His brother and father are also infected, and more than 150 people with whom the boy may have come into contact are now being monitored, according to Reuters. 

“This is concerning and somewhat surprising,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist and a senior associate at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Health Security.

Among other factors, health workers learned during the most recent outbreaks that the virus for ebola can turn up in sperm long after the ordinary incubation period and/or recovery, and can be spread through sexual contact – even six months later:

Ebola could be sexually transmitted as much as six months or more after a patient has fully recovered from the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) and U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have now warned based on recent findings. Until further notice, the agencies said, Ebola survivors should make sure they use safer sex practices, such as those effective at protecting against the transmission of HIV.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Public health, endocrine disruption and the precautionary principle

Public health, endocrine disruption and the precautionary principle

Several years ago over lunch a medical researcher I know told me that industrial chemicals were disrupting the human endocrine system leading to widespread obesity and diabetes. He said his research had revealed an important cause–the decline in the production of testosterone in both men and women (yes, women produce a little testosterone) due to this disruption. When this deficiency was reversed, patients experienced significant improvement in both obesity and diabetes.

That’s not all. He explained that most people believe that poor diet and little exercise are the central cause of obesity and diabetes. No doubt poor diet and exercise are important contributing factors. But when the body’s signaling system fails to indicate when it has had enough to eat, it’s hard for most people to recognize that they need to stop eating. How many of us know people who say that they are hungry all the time? A normal human being with a normal endocrine system should not feel “hungry all the time.”

The link between what has become a sweeping twin epidemic and man-made chemicals is getting wider notice these days. But the link between endocrine disruption, obesity and diabetes is still absent from popular medical accounts such as those found on WebMD for obesity or on official sites such as that of the World Health Organization.

Endocrine disruption has also been linked to cancer, reproductive failure, neurological disorders and developmental problems in fetuses, problems that can lead to illness later in life. In fact, industrial chemicals known to disrupt endocrine function are found in humans and animals worldwide.

The subject of endocrine disruption first burst into the public mind with the publication of Our Stolen Future in 1996 by three scientific researchers. They sought to make the issue more accessible to the public in order to galvanize action.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Case of Glyphosate: Product Promoters Masquerading as Regulators?

The Case of Glyphosate: Product Promoters Masquerading as Regulators?

roundup

On 20 March, the World Health Organisation International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) said that glyphosate was probably carcinogenic to humans. This is just one step below the risk designation of ‘known carcinogen’. The European Unioin is currently in the process of assessing the IARC’s research and will re-evaluate glyphosate.

Aaron Blair, a scientist emeritus at the National Cancer Institute who chaired the 17-member working group of the IARC that classified glyphosate as “probably” cancer-causing, says that the classification is appropriate based on current science. Blair also states that there have been hundreds of studies on glyphosate with concerns about the chemical growing over time and added that in its review the IARC group gave particular consideration to two major studies out of Sweden, one out of Canada and at least three in the US.

He stressed that the group did not classify glyphosate as definitely causing cancer:

“We looked at, ‘Is there evidence that glyphosate causes cancer?’ and the answer is ‘probably.’ That is different than yes… It is different than smoking and lung cancer. We don’t say smoking probably causes cancer. We say it does cause cancer. At one point we weren’t sure, but now we are.”

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, which was primarily responsible $5.1 billion of Monsanto’s revenues in 2014.  The herbicide is also used to support Monsanto’s Roundup Ready crops, which comprise the vast bulk of the balance of its revenue stream. Unsurprisingly, Monsanto has wasted no time in trying to rubbish the WHO findings. The work of cancer specialists from 11 countries was speedily dismissed by Monsanto. In a press release, the company argued the findings are based on ‘junk’ science and cherry picking and are agenda driven.

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ebola: Is it Already Here ?

Ebola: Is it Already Here ?

Ebola is rarely in the news these days. What we should be asking is why it isn’t in the news. It hasn’t gone away, in fact, cases are actually on the increase. The World Health Organisation states:

The steep decline in case incidence nationally in Sierra Leone from December until the end of January has halted. Transmission remains widespread, with 8 districts reporting new confirmed cases. A significant proportion of cases are still arising from unknown chains of transmission.

The report covers the 7days up to the 22nd February and was published on March 4th. The CDC lists almost 24,000 cases and almost 10,000 deaths and both organisations accept that many of the cases have an unknown outcome, that is, they have no idea if the victims lived or died which could mean the death rate from the outbreak is far higher than the official figures suggest.

So why is this not in the news? Have mainstream media outlets been ‘advised’ to reel in their coverage?

I worked for many years in the National Health service here in the UK, and I have been told, several times, by several people that are still working in the NHS that Ebola cases are currently being treated in UK and US hospitals, and that this has been the case in the US since the death of Thomas Duncan in October of last year. The first UK case arrived  a short time later and the patient died. William Pooley, the public face of Ebola in the UK was apparently not the first case as stated but was the first survivor and he also returned to West Africa, which made him the ideal poster boy for the ‘we cured Ebola’ brigade.

I can’t verify that hospitals in the UK and the USA, and in a single instance Australia are reporting Ebola cases as malaria cases to avoid a pubic scrutiny in their handling of Ebola cases. The Australian case was listed as Dengue fever according to these sources.

– See more at: http://undergroundmedic.com/?p=7244#sthash.cyE6HNkL.dpuf

Weaponized Ebola? ISIS Militants Said To Contract Deadly Virus | Zero Hedge

Weaponized Ebola? ISIS Militants Said To Contract Deadly Virus | Zero Hedge.

Forget targeted US airstrikes, ISIS faces a new existential threat. Citing an unnamed source in a Mosul hospital, Iraq’s official pro-government newspaper, al Sabaah, said Ebola arrived in Mosul from “terrorists” who came “from several countries” and Africa. Mashable further confirms, three outlets reported that Ebola showed up at a hospital in Mosul. For now, it’s unclear if any disease experts or doctors in Mosul are even able to test for the Ebola virus; but it would mark the first time the virus had been detected in an area controlled by ISIS, a group that doesn’t embrace science and modern medicine.

As Mashable reports,

Reports that Islamic State militants in Mosul have contracted Ebola swirled though Iraqi media sources on Wednesday. World Health Organization officials said they haven’t confirmed the cases, but the organization has reached out to offer assistance.

“We have no official notification from [the Iraqi government] that it is Ebola,” Christy Feig, WHO’s director of communications told Mashable.

Feig added that WHO is in the process of reaching out to government officials in Iraq to see if they need help investigating the cases, a task that could be a challenge, given the restrictions that would come with operating in ISIS-controlled territory.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ebola death toll rises to 7,588 globally, WHO says – Business – CBC News

Ebola death toll rises to 7,588 globally, WHO says – Business – CBC News.

The global death toll from Ebola has risen to 7,588 out of 19,497 confirmed cases recorded in the year-old epidemic raging in West Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

The virus is still spreading intensely in Sierra Leone, especially in the north and west, with 315 new confirmed cases reported in the former British colony in the week to December 21, it said. These included 115 cases in the capital Freetown.

“The neighbouring district of Port Loko experienced a surge in new cases, reporting 92 confirmed cases compared with 56 the previous week,” the WHO said.

In Sierra Leone, information about how to prevent and treat Ebola was provided to more than 5,000 households between 10 and 17 December as part of a major awareness campaign, it said.

In Guinea, 156 confirmed cases were recorded during the same period, “the highest weekly case incidence reported by the country in this outbreak”, the WHO said.

“This largely due to a surge in cases in the south-eastern district of Kissidougou, which reported 58 confirmed cases – one-third of cases reported in the country in the past week.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ebola death toll in three African countries hits 7,373: WHO | Reuters

Ebola death toll in three African countries hits 7,373: WHO | Reuters.

The death toll from Ebola in the three worst-affected countries in West Africa has risen to 7,373 among 19,031 cases known to date there, the World Health Organization said on Saturday.

The latest data, posted overnight on the WHO website, reflected nearly 500 new deaths from the worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since previous WHO figures were issued on Dec. 17.

Sierra Leone accounts for the most cases, 8,759, against 7,819 for Liberia. But Sierra Leone’s death toll of 2,477 is far less than 3,346 recorded in Liberia, leading some experts to question the credibility of the figures reported by Freetown.

Sierra Leone’s government this week launched a major operation to contain the epidemic in West Africa’s worst-hit country.

President Ernest Bai Koroma said on national television that travel between all parts of the country had been restricted as part of “Operation Western Area Surge”, and public gatherings would be strictly controlled in the run-up to Christmas.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Sierra Leone district faces Ebola lockdown – Africa – Al Jazeera English

Sierra Leone district faces Ebola lockdown – Africa – Al Jazeera English.

Authorities in Sierra Leone have imposed a two-week lockdown in the eastern district of Kono after health workers uncovered a surge of Ebola infections in the area where the epidemic was thought to be largely under control.

The worst outbreak of Ebola on record has killed 6,533 people in the three West African countries most hit by the disease – Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea – and infected 18,118 people, the World Health Organization [WHO] said on Thursday.

Sierra Leone, with a shortage of treatment centres and trained staff, has overtaken Liberia as the worst affected nation, and until now, the recent spread was believed to be centred on western areas around the capital Freetown.

However, the WHO said on Wednesday that it had found bodies piled up at the only hospital in Kono, a district of about 350,000 people bordering Guinea.

Officials from the WHO, health ministry and US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) discovered 87 bodies had been buried in 11 days.

Night-time curfew

Kono District Ebola Response Centre said it was placing the area on lockdown, allowing only essential vehicles in and out and introducing a night-time curfew.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BBC News – Ebola crisis: Sierra Leone bodies found piled up in Kono

BBC News – Ebola crisis: Sierra Leone bodies found piled up in Kono.

Health officials in Sierra Leone have discovered scores of bodies in a remote diamond-mining area, raising fears that the scale of the Ebola outbreak may have been underreported.

The World Health Organization said they uncovered a “grim scene” in the eastern district of Kono.

A WHO response team had been sent to Kono to investigate a sharp rise in Ebola cases.

Ebola has killed 6,346 people in West Africa, with more than 17,800 infected.

Sierra Leone has the highest number of Ebola cases in West Africa, with 7,897 cases since the beginning of the outbreak.

Ebola deaths in West Africa

Up to 3 – 6 December

6,346

Deaths – probable, confirmed and suspected

(Includes one in the US and six in Mali)

  • 3,177 Liberia

  • 1,742 Sierra Leone

  • 1,412 Guinea

  • 8 Nigeria

Getty

The WHO said in a statement on Wednesday that over 11 days in Kono, “two teams buried 87 bodies, including a nurse, an ambulance driver, and a janitor drafted into removing bodies as they piled up”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BBC News – Ebola outbreak: Virus still ‘running ahead of us’, says WHO

BBC News – Ebola outbreak: Virus still ‘running ahead of us’, says WHO.

The Ebola virus that has killed thousands in West Africa is still “running ahead” of efforts to contain it, the head of the World Health Organization has said.

Director general Margaret Chan said the situation had improved in some parts of the worst-affected countries, but she warned against complacency.

The risk to the world “is always there” while the outbreak continues, she said.

She said the WHO and the international community failed to act quickly enough.

The death toll in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone stands at 6,331. More than 17,800 people have been infected, according to the WHO.

“In Liberia we are beginning to see some good progress, especially in Lofa county [close to where the outbreak first started] and the capital,” said Dr Chan.

Cases in Guinea and Sierra Leone were “less severe” than a couple of months ago, but she said “we are still seeing large numbers of cases”.

‘Hunting the virus’

Dr Chan said: “It’s not as bad as it was in September. But going forward we are now hunting the virus, chasing after the virus. Hopefully we can bring [the number of cases] down to zero.”

The official figures do not show the entire picture of the outbreak. In August, the WHO said the numbers were “vastly under-estimated”, due to people not reporting illnesses and deaths from Ebola.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Belgian expert: WHO messed up Ebola response – Africa – Al Jazeera English

Belgian expert: WHO messed up Ebola response – Africa – Al Jazeera English.

A Belgian scientist who helped discover Ebola in 1976 has accused the World Health Organisation (WHO) of mismanaging the current outbreak response.

Peter Piot, an award-winning microbiologist, told Al Jazeera that “we wasted too much precious time”.

“It took three months for the WHO to find out there was an Ebola outbreak. That I understand. Guinea had a poor laboratory infrastructure,” said Piot in an interview due to be aired on Saturday.

“I have much more of a problem with the fact that it took five months for WHO, for the international health regulations committee, for that’s what it is, to declare this a state of emergency.

“It took a thousand dead Africans and two Americans who were repatriated to the US because they were infected. There’s no excuse for that… It took too long.”

Tarik Jasarevic, a spokesman for WHO, told Al Jazeera by email that “declaring a public health emergency of international cncern is not a measure of WHO’s operational response”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

2014 Goals for Ebola Treatment May Not Be Met, U.N. Health Officials Say – NYTimes.com

2014 Goals for Ebola Treatment May Not Be Met, U.N. Health Officials Say – NYTimes.com.

GENEVA — The World Health Organizationexpressed doubt on Monday about achieving important United Nationsbenchmarks in battling Ebola, saying the year-end goals of isolating and treating all patients and safely burying all the dead would be major challenges.

However, the W.H.O. said, significant progress has been made in reversing the upward trajectory of Ebola cases in many places across the three West African countries ravaged by the disease.

Among the biggest challenges now, the agency’s top official for the Ebola response said, is to track down every person potentially exposed. To do this, the organization plans to nearly double the number of its experts on the ground to assist 20,000 community health workers.

“To get to zero you have to find every case,” the official, Bruce Aylward, assistant director general for emergencies, told reporters at a briefing here.

The geography of Ebola has shifted, further complicating the efforts to eradicate it: For instance, in Guinea, Ebola is now thought to be in nearly twice as many districts as it was just two months ago, when the United Nations established a new mission to coordinate the international response. And in Sierra Leone, Ebola is ravaging the western part of the country, while only a handful of new cases are surfacing in previous hot spots.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

WHO reports sharp rise in Ebola deaths – Africa – Al Jazeera English

WHO reports sharp rise in Ebola deaths – Africa – Al Jazeera English.

The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak on record has reached nearly 7,000 in West Africa, according to the World Health Organisation.

The toll of 6,928 dead showed a leap of just over 1,200 since the WHO released its previous report on Wednesday, according to a Reuters news agency report.

The UN health agency did not provide any explanation for the abrupt increase, but the figures, published on its website, appeared to include previously unreported deaths.

A WHO spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

Just over 16,000 people have been diagnosed with Ebola since the outbreak was confirmed in the forests of remote southeastern Guinea in March, according to the WHO data that covered the three hardest-hit countries.

Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia have accounted for all but 15 of the deaths in the outbreak, which has touched five other countries, according to previous WHO figures.

In a separate development, Sierra Leone will soon see a dramatic increase in desperately needed treatment beds, but it is not clear who will staff them, a top UN official in the fight against the disease has said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

47 already dead in Madagascar plague outbreak — RT News

47 already dead in Madagascar plague outbreak — RT News.

Over 40 people have already died in a plague outbreak on Madagascar and the UN World Health Organization (WHO) has warned of a “rapid” spread of the bacterial disease carried by rats in the capital Antananarivo.

The death toll of the bubonic plague outbreak in Madagascar has risen to 47, Secretary-General of the Health Ministry of the island state Philemon Tafangy said on Tuesday, while the number of suspected plague cases reached 138.

The first reported case on the island was a man from the village of Soamahatamana on August 31. He later died on September 3.

On November 4, the Health Ministry notified the WHO of a plague outbreak. Since then, plague cases have been reported in 16 Madagascan regions – two percent of which are the pneumonic form.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Olduvai IV: Courage
Click on image to read excerpts

Olduvai II: Exodus
Click on image to purchase

Click on image to purchase @ FriesenPress