"UN health officials declare Liberia free of Ebola virus; 42 days have passed since last victim’s burial" by Sheri Fink New York Times May 10, 2015
NEW YORK — The World Health Organization declared Liberia free of Ebola on Saturday, making it the first of the three hardest-hit West African countries to bring a formal end to the epidemic.
That was the basis for their founding by slaves. A "liberated" free state of former U.S. slaves, if you will (shameful chapter in AmeriKan history). Sends a mixed me$$age today, actually. Overlords don't want you to free yourselves from debt $lavery; however, Israel, homeland for Jews, that theme. Must be why the propaganda pre$$ is in and out of there in its agenda-pu$hing ways.
“The outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Liberia is over,” the UN health agency said in a statement read by Dr. Alex Ntale Gasasira, its representative to Liberia, at the emergency command center in Monrovia, the capital. The room was packed with reporters, workers from Doctors Without Borders, and other aid agencies and dignitaries, including the American ambassador to Liberia, Deborah R. Malac, who burst into applause, according to health officials present.
Nicely staged and scripted photo op for a phony crisis (it won best picture).
The president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, held a moment of silence for those who had died. She thanked Liberians who had fought Ebola and expressed her gratitude to the country’s international partners and others around the world “whose hearts were with us.” Johnson Sirleaf added, “Let us celebrate but stay mindful and vigilant.”
Then she began shaking hands, a mundane act that seemed monumental in a country where people have been cautioned for months not to touch one another.
Throughout the morning, the president, wearing sneakers and a baseball cap, paid visits to hospitals and met with orphans, widows, and survivors of Ebola.
“The health workers are dancing and clapping and singing ‘no more Ebola,’ ” Gasasira said by phone as he traveled with Johnson Sirleaf.
I pine for the days, long years ago, when I believed.
According to the WHO, there were more than 3,000 confirmed Ebola cases in Liberia, and a further 7,400 suspected or probable cases, with more than 4,700 deaths estimated to have occurred since the outbreak was declared there in March 2014. Among the dead were 189 health care workers.
“I’m particularly struck by the significant progress we have made as a country and as a people,” Tolbert Nyenswah, a senior Liberian health official who leads the country’s Ebola response efforts, said Thursday in an interview. The end of the epidemic was, he said, “a victory for Liberia and Liberians.”
“The only caution is that our subregion is not free yet,” he added, “and we are very much concerned about Guinea and Sierra Leone.”
Yeah, and when you think about it, I am a little concerned seeing the issue resurface. It's good news -- allegedly -- but does it mean a telegraphing of the agenda as it gets warmer?
The White House echoed those worries, congratulating the people of Liberia and pledging to help rebuild the country, but adding in a statement that “we must not let down our guard until the entire region reaches and stays at zero Ebola cases.”
Anything that comes out of this White house is to be meet with skepticism if not dismissal. They forfeited the trust long ago.
In the past week, Guinea and Sierra Leone, which share borders with Liberia, each reported nine cases of the disease, the lowest weekly total this year.
Could be because Guinea shut down the border as Sierra Leone pushed to eradicate it while some sort of coup was taking place:
"Sierra Leone’s vice president has put himself in quarantine following the death from Ebola of one of his security guards. Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana is set to become acting president later Sunday when President Ernest Bai Koroma leaves Sierra Leone to travel to Belgium. Sam-Sumana will carry out his duties from his home. He is the highest-ranking African official to be in quarantine in this Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which is approaching a death toll of 10,000. The news highlights the rise of new cases in Sierra Leone, which has experienced a setback in curbing the spread of Ebola. Sam-Sumana voluntarily decided to quarantine himself for 21 days following the death last Tuesday of one of his security personnel. ‘‘This virus has affected thousands of our people and has nearly brought our country to its knees,’’ Sam-Sumana said Sunday. ‘‘We all have a collective responsibility to break the chains of transmission by isolating the sick and reporting all known contacts, by not touching the dead. . . . We cannot be complacent. We must work together as a nation to end Ebola now.’’
I'm working as fast as I can.
Somehow there has to be more to that story.
I'm working as fast as I can.
Somehow there has to be more to that story.
"The country’s opposition party is considering impeachment proceedings against the president and will refuse to cooperate with the government because of the way Sierra Leone’s vice president was fired. The Sierra Leone People’s Party said it will also ask the Supreme Court to review Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana’s removal from office, the party said after an emergency meeting Saturday. President Ernest Bai Koroma fired Sam-Sumana last week, saying such a move was necessary because the vice president had been expelled from the ruling political party. Several groups have called the move unconstitutional.... Sierra Leone’s vice president asked the United States for asylum Saturday, saying he no longer felt safe in his country after soldiers disarmed the security team at his home. Samuel Sam-Sumana was expelled from the ruling All People’s Congress political party last week, accused of ‘‘orchestrating political violence’’ and trying to form a new party (AP)."
Last I saw of it.
Meanwhile, a milestone was made:
Ebola’s death toll passes 10,000; infected aid worker returns to US
But the WHO could have done more?
Oh, sorry I'm not buying the photograph. The only thing you know is what you see -- guys dressed up in hazmat suits with a little girl who looks quite puzzled and a little annoyed that she is being taken by the wrist. That could be from anywhere at anytime. There is no context, and as for taking the propaganda pre$$ word for it.... nope. I suggest a scroll through album if you have the time.
More worrying is the locality of export regarding the recent batch of heroes returning. I'm told of improvements and upgrades before release -- and then the guy got reinfected??
I suppose it's time to leave it there as the threat dims. It's still an emergency and police are enforcing a lockdown, but at least they are getting a BK.
We know return you to the Sunday Globe Special of today:
Nyenswah said Liberia would continue many of the control measures that helped the country vanquish the epidemic, including surveying border areas for sick travelers, testing all dead bodies for the virus, and conducting burials with specially trained teams wearing full protective gear.
“We are being extremely cautious,” Dr. Bernice Dahn, the country’s incoming health minister, said Friday in an e-mail. She added that the country’s priority now was to build its critically deficient health care workforce to provide Liberians with a higher standard of care and help guard against future outbreaks.
A critical question for Liberians is whether the end of the outbreak will draw foreign companies back to the country, whose economy has been battered. British Airways, which came under fire from aid officials after it and several other airlines stopped flying to Liberia and Sierra Leone last August, has not resumed services.
OMG, MONEY is the CONCERN!
Strangely enough, that's where the print copy ended it. I'm going to stay in bed just a bit longer to be on the safe side.
“We keep our global route network under constant review and always take a range of factors into account before we make any changes,” a spokeswoman for the airline said Friday in an e-mail. Kenya Airways restored flights to Liberia several weeks ago. Only Brussels Air and Royal Air Maroc, the Moroccan national carrier, continued commercial air service to the country during the epidemic.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stopped advising US citizens to avoid nonessential travel to Liberia, instead recommending that they “practice enhanced precautions” when going there.
Has nothing to do with Liberia; it's avoiding the TSA.
“The country can get back to business,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the disease centers, said Friday in an interview. “It’s a tribute to the enormous hard work done by Liberians, by the CDC, by partners throughout the US government, and the international community.”
Hmmmm.
For the time being, however, travelers from Liberia to the United States will still be subject to a 21-day monitoring program. “That’s something we’ll be discussing in the coming days with other parts of the US government,” Frieden said.
The WHO has recommended that Liberia maintain an additional three months of “heightened surveillance” for Ebola because of the continuing outbreak in neighboring countries, as well as the possibility that Ebola could re-emerge via sexual transmission from survivors.
So what bioweapon is the U.S. preparing for release?
On Friday, the WHO revised its guidelines for survivors, urging men and their partners to abstain from sex or to practice protected sex for at least six months or until two semen tests have been negative for traces of the virus. That advice follows recent scientific evidence suggesting that the last patient to fall ill and die of Ebola in Liberia may have caught the virus from her boyfriend many months after his recovery. Studies have shown that Ebola can persist in semen for some time, even after a man has completely recovered and poses no risk to the general public; studies of the phenomenon are planned.
Yeah, okay. Abstinence is best. It will help control the burgeoning over-population and all that. Whatever the cited $cienti$ts say.
The origins of the outbreak in West Africa remain undetermined, and some scientists believe Ebola is likely to be circulating in wildlife in the region. According to the WHO, four of six countries that suffered previous Ebola epidemics had a recurrence of the disease within three years.
It's the same frikkin' script every time. And I thought science may likely be beyond belief(??). WTF?!!
There are signs that some hygienic habits that were adopted during the epidemic may be sustained in Liberia, including handwashing programs at schools.
Yeah, I do mine every day, several times. Just a habit.
“That practice should become a way of life for us,” said Iris Martor, a nurse and the program director for the nonprofit organization More Than Me, which runs an academy for girls in the West Point slum area of Monrovia. “If we forget ourselves and go back to the careless way of life, there could be another outbreak,” Martor added.
That's all it takes to stay uninfected?
One of Martor’s students, Benetter Kun, 18, is the daughter of Liberia’s last Ebola patient, Ruth Tugbah, who died at a treatment unit in late March. For Kun, as with many family members who lost loved ones, the end of the epidemic was bittersweet.
“It’s a sad moment for me and my family because we are not complete,” she said.
--more--"
So HOW did Liberia liberate themselves from Ebola?
"UN official hails Liberia for efforts in Ebola fight" by Jonathan Paye-Layleh, Associated Press February 20, 2015
MONROVIA, Liberia — Ebola has killed more than 3,800 people in Liberia and nearly 9,200 across Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone since the first Ebola deaths in rural Guinea in December 2013. All three countries have weak health systems that were ill-prepared for such an epidemic.
In a weird way I think the first two color-coded phrases are all you really need know. At least this will be a boon to the medical gear industry and government budgets will need an increase.
Significant gains have been made against Ebola, and now only a small number of cases remain in Liberia. Students returned to schools Monday after a six-month closure, though health officials warned that a single case could trigger a whole new cluster of infections.
But I was told it's been beaten.
Ould Cheikh Ahmed said as one or two cases continue to pop up, people are getting frustrated.
I know how they are feeling.
The United States is also preparing to withdraw by the end of April nearly all of its 2,800 troops fighting the outbreak in West Africa, the White House said last week.
An afterthought, and based on this president's record of "withdrawing" troops I'll bet there is still a force there.
--more--"
Oh, the "head of the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response on Thursday hailed Liberia’s success in the fight against the deadly virus but warned against complacency now."
I can't keep walking on eggshells.
Dimagi gets USAID funding to bring Ebola tracking apps to West Africa
AID = CIA, and the Globe censored the link!!!!
"Liberia calls for Ebola ‘Marshall Plan’ to rebuild economies" Associated Press March 04, 2015
BRUSSELS — Liberia’s president on Tuesday called for an Ebola ‘‘Marshall Plan’’ to help rebuild economies in West African nations devastated by the virus.
(I snorted out of no disrespect. This nation is bankrupt over here and floating on Federal Reserve currency at the moment. This isn't 1945)
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said ‘‘we need our international partners to remain committed to us.’’
Sirleaf told fellow regional leaders and delegates at an international conference on Ebola in Brussels that restoring economic growth in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone is a long-term and costly task.
She said that ‘‘the most important long-term response to Ebola rests on plans and strategies for economic recovery,’’ adding that ‘‘this will require significant resources, perhaps even a Marshall Plan,’’ referring to the vast US plan that helped Europe recover from World War II.
I don't see it happening. Africa always gets the short end of the aid $tick.
--more--"
Well, that's the last of it and I don't mean to repeat myself, but....
US Ebola centers have been largely unused in Liberia
Yeah, turns out the whole thing was a ruse to get U.S into West Africa and block China, while allowing for the declaration of martial law due to medical purposes here at home. Who is going to argue with a hazmat suit, right?
The thing I will always remember was the CNN video that showed the little boy walk out of the house, lie down, and then CNN cites it as an example of the horrifying event, blah, blah, blah. That always stuck with me, as have other ma$$ media videos that have been exposed as complete frauds.
And what, pray tell, could be the purpo$e of it all at bottom?
"Pediatricians struggle to win over vaccine refusers" by Felice J. Freyer, Globe Staff February 16, 2015
“It’s a real challenge and it’s quite frustrating because these people really don’t listen to the facts,” said Dr. Michael L. Goldfein, a pediatrician who has practiced on Martha’s Vineyard since 1977. “They feel that they have the right to decide whether or not their children can get vaccinated in spite of all the evidence.”
Wanna give it a shot?
As the measles outbreak that began at Disneyland in California spreads across the nation, sickening at least 125 people in seven states, pediatricians walk a tightrope between their strong convictions about the benefits of vaccines and their dedication to a trusting relationship with their patients.
Mice must be spreading it.
Some doctors stop accepting parents who harbor antivaccine beliefs, but most — including Goldfein — keep treating the children of those parents out of concern for the youngsters’ welfare.
Please remember, authority always loves your kids more than you. Thank you.
As for measles, I was told they had been vanquished because "vaccines against German measles were first licensed in 1969, and were included in mass vaccination campaigns. It is now part of childhood shots."
Of course, I was told the same thing in 2005(!!!), and "the outbreak is still a problem in Quebec, where 159 people were sickened after someone visited Disneyland and returned home. Most belong to a religious community with a low vaccination rate."
Just ignore the lack of autism in the Amish.
Regarding the stomach bug going around (me?), "it’s a temporary illness that ends within a week and can be helped with over-the-counter medicines," so you better go run to the drug $tore now!
Related:
"A high school student visiting Massachusetts from Western Europe has been diagnosed with measles, the first reported case of 2015, according to the state Department of Public Health. The Hinton State Laboratory confirmed the illness Tuesday. Because of high vaccination rates in Massachusetts, health officials consider the disease unlikely to spread. But because the measles virus is airborne and highly infectious — it can linger in the air for up to two hours — health authorities are investigating the immunization status of all those known to have had contact with the student while he was infectious."
They wipe it out and it stills comes back.
Immunization rates remain high overall in Massachusetts. In 2013, 96 percent of children age 19 months to 35 months had received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, the fourth highest rate in the nation.
You may want to think twice about that.
But clusters of vaccine refusers can be found, for example, in the Pioneer Valley in Western Massachusetts and on Martha’s Vineyard. And everywhere, pediatricians face fretful questions about vaccines from at least a few parents.
We call it home.
Some doctors fear that if they turn away unvaccinated children, these patients will get poor care from practitioners who oppose vaccination, and the parents will never have occasion to change their minds. Many pediatricians reluctantly agree to a different vaccination schedule than the one recommended, as a compromise to overcome parents’ resistance.
I used to believe in the twin benefits of profit and altruism when it came to pharmaceuticals and maybe that was foolish; however, with so much money to be made out there from a simple shot....
At the same time, as measles makes headlines, doctors are hearing from parents who favor vaccination and worry about unvaccinated children sharing waiting rooms with children too young or sick to be immunized.
“We had a pregnant mom at our office the other week,” said Dr. David P. Norton of Holyoke Pediatric Associates. “She asked, ‘What’s your vaccine-refusal rate? I don’t want my new baby in a waiting room with people who don’t have the vaccine.’ ”
The issue of parents refusing vaccines is so troubling that one large practice — Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates, with 80 pediatricians at more than a dozen sites in Eastern Massachusetts — a few years ago consulted with two bioethicists to weigh whether to turn away people who refuse to vaccinate. The pediatric chiefs reached a consensus that they would continue to take all comers.
I will below.
“We do our patients a disservice if we present it as a ‘my way or the highway’ decision,” said Dr. Benjamin Kruskal, a pediatrician and Harvard Vanguard’s chief of infectious diseases. “It’s an ongoing conversation, not a one-time decision.”
Dr. Lisa S. Lehmann, a top bioethics specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and one of the ethicists Harvard Vanguard consulted, said pediatricians have to balance parents’ right to decide what’s best for their child against the health of other patients.
There are many good reasons, she said, why some patients have lost trust in medicine. Doctors need to regain that confidence and realize that, over time, people can change their minds, she said.
It's an epidemic across all AmeriKan institutions and authority. It's the symptom of the endless lies.
But one Harvard Vanguard office took a different path. For at least the past decade, Harvard Vanguard Kenmore Pediatric Practice has told parents of prospective patients that if they are unwilling to immunize their children, they should choose another practice. Dr. Anita Feins, chief of Kenmore Pediatrics, said the group had two concerns: the physicians’ ability to work in partnership with parents and the health of other children in the practice who might be exposed to vaccine-preventable illnesses.
Nationally, measles outbreaks have increased in recent years along with the number of people refusing vaccines, a trend traced to a subsequently discredited 1998 research paper that drew a connection between the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine and autism.
Who is telling us it is di$credited?
A discredited media.
Although many studies have since disproven that theory, concerns linger, often vague worries about putting “impurities” into children’s bodies.
Yeah, such vague worries about what we put into our bodies, says the corporate $hill of a pre$$. GMos, tainted vaccines, poisoned food and water, whatever! Now roll up that sleeve.
The parents who question vaccines, doctors say, tend to be relatively wealthy and educated, do their own research online, and often favor alternative medicine and “natural” lifestyles.
AAAAAAAHHH!
Hurt the doctor's feelings!
Yes, herbal supplements require stronger federal regulations.
Children are required to be vaccinated before attending school, but parents can obtain exemptions. In Massachusetts, the exemption can be medical or religious, but the religious exemption is commonly used by those who merely have a philosophical objection.
Dr. Jonathan Schwab of Northampton Area Pediatrics said as many as 10 percent of his patients resist vaccinations, but he never turns them away. “First, I explain what the vaccines are for, and what the diseases are, and then I try to understand what their concerns are,” Schwab said. “I’ve had successes and failures.”
Efforts to change minds with the facts can backfire.
As if you would find facts in a newspaper.
A study published last year in the journal Pediatrics tested four different approaches: a leaflet debunking the vaccine-autism link; a leaflet about the dangers of the diseases that the vaccine prevents; images of children who have those diseases; and a mother’s narrative recounting her infant son’s hospitalization with measles.
And, of course, we should believe any agenda-pushing study cited by the ma$$ media -- and knock those global-warming critics that get energy funding (and that vis not an endorsement of energy conglomerates; I wanted renewable solar and wind. Government could have supplied us all with power for what it cost the Wall Street bailout, bit you go pay that carbon tax to save the world because the propaganda pre$$ said so. talk about ill).
The mixed me$$ages really need to stop.
To the researchers’ surprise, none of these measures changed parents’ decision to forgo vaccination, and in some cases, the interventions strengthened parents’ determination not to vaccinate.
(Blog editor smiles; people aren't as dumb as they think)
Dr. Gary L. Freed of the University of Michigan, one of the study’s authors, said that rather than confronting parents about deeply held beliefs, doctors would do better to emphasize their shared concern for the child. “The first thing is to realize that parents believe they’re acting in the best interest of their child,” said Freed, a pediatrician.
You thought otherwise?
The Disneyland outbreak has brought home the disease’s scary reality, and Freed believes the tide has turned. Small outbreaks in day-care centers, once little noticed, are making the news. Parents who vaccinate are suddenly aware of the risks their children face because of those who don’t.
Yeah, let's divide people over the most basic aspect of life on this planet: one's children. The agenda-pushing never stops!
And on Martha’s Vineyard, Goldfein said, a half-dozen parents who previously refused vaccination have brought their children in for shots.
Victory!
--more--"
Related: More parents ask to delay vaccines, study suggests
Authority blew it, and all they had to do was tell the truth. They chose lies and greed.
Here is another Sunday Globe Special that was to be titled Oregon Orders Vaccinations:
"Oregon considers banning most nonmedical immunization exemptions" by Sheila V Kumar, Associated Press March 01, 2015
SALEM, Ore. — Jennifer Margulis has her children vaccinated and gets shots herself. But she doesn’t like the idea of government telling parents they must get their children immunized.
That is why she spoke at a recent legislative hearing to oppose an amendment to an Oregon bill that takes aim at the state’s highest-in-the-nation rate of nonmedical vaccine exemptions.
‘‘I really feel this is an assault on parental freedom and medical choices. I am really strongly in favor of vaccines. I get into trouble among people in Southern Oregon for speaking out about why I chose to vaccinate my kids,’’ said Margulis, a parent from Ashland, a city in Oregon with a high vaccination exemption rate.
If the bill passes, Oregon would join Mississippi and West Virginia as the only states allowing exemptions solely for medical reasons, and no longer for religious, philosophical, or personal reasons. Washington, California, and Vermont are considering similar bills that remove either the personal, religious, or philosophical exemptions.
Last year, Oregon put into effect a law requiring parents with kindergartners to consult with a health professional or watch a one-hour educational video before shots are waived.
That bill was prompted by Oregon’s high rate of exemptions for kindergartners — about 7 percent. Nationwide, the median exemption rate was 1.8 percent for last year’s class, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
They really want to get that needle into you, this government that loves you so much it lies to you at every turn!
Exemption figures for this year have not been released. But some legislators say they are hearing of antivaccine parents who go through the motions when they attend the consultations.
That's what I'm doing.
‘‘People can look at the video at school-based health centers and they’ll sit there and multitask,’’ like looking at their iPhones, said state Senator Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, Democrat of Portland. ‘‘Most of them go in saying pretty clearly, ‘OK, I’ll sit through this thing, but it’s not gonna change my mind.’ ”
Steiner Hayward, a family physician promoting the bill, said she has also heard of parents badgering doctors into signing waivers.
Parents are horrible! That seems to be the opinion of the agenda-pushing mouthpiece of authority.
Parents who choose not to vaccinate their children have become lightning rods during the scare over a measles outbreak traced to Disneyland. The CDC says 133 people from seven states, including one from Oregon and two from Washington, were linked to the outbreak.
None more so than this girl.
The CDC has said the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine is 97 percent effective at preventing measles. They say vaccines are the best defense against many diseases and the suggested vaccine schedule can protect newborns from serious infections when they are at their most vulnerable.
But there are pockets of parents around the country who choose to delay or forgo certain shots, or opt out of state-recommended vaccine schedules.
Some cite religious reasons for opting out, while others prefer alternative medicines. Others spurn government mandates.
Bunch of crazy f***s, right?
Under the Oregon proposal, families who decide against shots would be barred from sending their children to schools or day-care centers, though they still could use online charter school programs or homeschool their children.
Maybe it would be better not to then. Get a home charter going.
The Legislature has been holding public hearings on the proposal. Testimony has been heated, and has sometimes focused on parents’ rights to make choices.
Parents opposed to the bill say the number of vaccines is unnecessary and questioned their safety.
How dare they!
Those who spoke in favor of the bill said the shots benefit the child receiving them and those who are too young or unable to get immunized.
--more--"
Health food nutties trust pharma! Maybe long ago, vaccine makers, but not now$$.
Early exposure to peanuts helps prevent allergies in youths
Peanut allergies are because the adjuvants to the vaccines are peanut-based so body will accept them.
And how many times are we going to be told something for 40 years only to have the officialdom say "No, no, wrong, our bad, blah, blah, but trust us now."
Related: Rats exonerated in spread of Black Death; gerbils implicated
I rest my frikkin'case!
Now say aaaaah:
"Drug-resistant germ may spread in hospitals; Throat scope cited as culprit" by Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times February 20, 2015
WASHINGTON — Federal officials warned health care providers across the country Thursday that difficult-to-clean medical scopes inserted down the throat might be infecting patients with dangerous drug-resistant bacteria.
The alert from the Food and Drug Administration came a day after California hospital officials reported two patients had died and seven more had fallen ill because of what they said were improperly sterilized scopes at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
A deadly superbug that may have been transmitted during procedures using the devices was the likely cause, the hospital said. The germ, known as CRE, is estimated to kill about half its victims because it is resistant to almost all antibiotics.
If you don't want to get sick, avoid the hospitals.
The CRE germs usually strike people receiving medical care in hospitals or nursing homes, including patients on breathing machines. Healthy people are rarely, if ever, affected. But the bugs attack broadly, and the infections they cause are not limited to people with severely compromised immune systems, such as those with cancer, said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“This is exactly what we are worried about,” Frieden said in an interview, referring to the infections in California. “CRE is becoming increasingly common in hospitals around the US. If we aren’t careful, it may well get out into the community and make common infections, like urinary infections, and cuts, potentially deadly.”
The devices implicated in the California cases are inserted down the throat and through the stomach to the top of the small intestine, an area called the duodenum. Called duodenoscopes, they are used to diagnose and treat problems in the digestive system such as gallstones or cancer.
About 500,000 such procedures are performed annually in the United States, according to the FDA. The devices themselves pose little risk to patients, but their complex design, which includes microscopic crevices nearly impossible to reach with a brush, makes them difficult to disinfect.
I don't think you are sticking anything in me.
--more--"
Related: Maker of Device in 'Superbug' Outbreak Lacked FDA Clearance
Better heighten the scrutiny.
Also see: US to fight antibiotic-resistant germs
They going to stop creating them?
"Bioethics panel urges preparation for next epidemic, calls Ebola quarantine attempts a mistake" by LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attempts to quarantine health workers returning from Ebola-stricken West Africa were a mistake, the president's bioethics advisers said Thursday.
The U.S. has a moral responsibility, as well as a self-interest, in helping to fight public health emergencies around the globe, said the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues.
It's ANOTHER EXCUSE to INTERVENE WHEREVER THEY WANT!
The panel examined the U.S. response to the Ebola outbreak that devastated Liberia, Sierra Leona and Guinea over the past year. It concluded that the nation must improve its health infrastructure and emergency response to be ready to respond quickly to next major disease outbreak, and it urged that ethics expertise be part of that planning.
"Make sure we learn from history," said University of Pennsylvania president Amy Gutmann, who chairs the commission.
Yup, we sure do!
Among the most controversial questions last year was whether to quarantine health workers and others who arrived in the U.S. from the outbreak zones and had no symptoms of concern.
Why wouldn't you?
Ebola isn't contagious until symptoms arise, and federal health officials recommended daily monitoring for fever during the virus' incubation period. Yet several states last fall attempted to impose quarantines instead, responding to public panic.
Driven by the agenda-pushing media.
The bioethics panel heard testimony that worry about quarantine deterred health workers from volunteering to help — and concluded that policies like travel curbs or quarantine should be based on science and use the least restrictive means necessary.
The bioethics panel also recommended that:
—A single U.S. health official be placed in charge of coordinating the government response to health emergencies.
A czar, if you will.
—Health officials communicate early, often and clearly, to explain the rationale behind health policies to a frightened public.
Like we are going to believe they have our best interest at heart.
—The quest for Ebola vaccines continue with the same urgency. "The opportunity will be lost if we do not act now," Gutmann said.
That kind of talk brings back the same old shock doctrine that is constantly employed by the elites.
--more--"
Related: New tack to block HIV raises prospect of vaccine for AIDS
And if you don't want the shot, they have a pill for before and after.
NEXT DAY UPDATE:
Liberians cheer Ebola outbreak’s end
But, "at the same time, officials have warned about new cases of Ebola that continue to be reported in neighboring Guinea and Sierra Leone."
"Debate over vaccine exemptions to come roaring through Maine" by Alanna Durkin Associated Press May 11, 2015
AUGUSTA, Maine — The furious debate over vaccine exemptions that has divided parents and lawmakers across the country will rear its head in Maine this week, when the Legislature begins to consider proposals designed to make it harder for people to forgo inoculating their children.
The measures face fierce criticism from those who are skeptical about the safety of vaccines and believe lawmakers are trying to trample parents’ rights. But supporters — and general scientific consensus — say bolstering vaccine rates is essential to protect residents’ health.
Okay. (Blog editor sees that, sags his head, surrenders his ship, rolls up his sleeve, and believes the pre$$)
‘‘We hope just to tighten things up a little bit, give a little stronger voice to the importance of immunizations,’’ said Dr. Lisa Ryan, a pediatrician in Bridgton and president of the Maine Medical Association.
The percentage of unvaccinated children in Maine schools is on the rise. Lawmakers across the country introduced bills to tighten vaccine rules after a measles outbreak at Disneyland sickened 147 people in the United States, including 131 in California. Many of those who got sick were not vaccinated because of personal reasons or because they were too young.
That's covered above. Next patient.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of former US attorney general Robert Kennedy and nephew of former president John F. Kennedy, who has lobbied lawmakers from California to Vermont to reject such bills, plans to attend Monday’s hearing. He said in an interview that he supports vaccines and has inoculated all six of his children, but he promotes the idea that the vaccine preservative thimerosal is linked to autism.
Oooooooooh! Now I know why Bob Kennedy Jr is on the outs a bit. Not even faith in environmental dogma can save him I guess. He's some sort of conspiracy theorist now, blah, blah, blah.
Speaking of the Kennedy's, article right above that in the today's pointed pos:
"McConnell said he believes several bills being worked on in the Senate will pass with bipartisan support as tensions ease and parties cooperate, including a bill on cybersecurity and an update of the No Child Left Behind law. McConnell said that as majority leader he is giving more power back to committees, so senators feel a sense of ownership for bills that emerge from those subgroups. The audience included...."
He was speaking from where?
It's all in the elitism now.
Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that vaccines are extremely safe and that there is no link between vaccines and autism.
Okay, you first.
The mercury-containing chemical has been removed or reduced to trace amounts in all routine childhood vaccines, except from some flu vaccines, since 2001.
So it's still in there for little bodies to.... aaaaah, I can hardly go on anymore. I'm sorry.
--more--"
LePage gonna veto that?
UPDATE:
"Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, who opened the 10-day meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, with a speech Monday, called the WHO “the only international organization that has universal political legitimacy on global health issues.”
She says that when they have no legitimacy at all.
"The latest Ebola figures are the highest in Guinea in more than a month, just as officials hoped the outbreak was finally coming under control. Instead of being snuffed out as officials had hoped, at least 27 new cases have occurred in a week, marking a significant spike."
Also see:
CDC tacking trail of Lassa fever
A plan to combat drug-resistant superbugs takes shape
BU scientist uses existing drugs in fight against Ebola
Takeda will consolidate vaccine labs in Mass.
Kind of scaring me now that I know anthrax was sent here.
I'd say try acupuncture, but....
