California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Just 2 Guys Were Responsible for Eliminating Diseases that Maimed Millions of People

bu John Lawrence

Jimmy Carter eliminated guinea worm as a disease that affected millions of people. Guinea worm disease is a painful parasitic infection caused by a thread-like worm that emerges from the skin, typically through the feet or legs. Since 1986, The Carter Center has led the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm disease, working closely with ministries of health and local communities, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and many others. Guinea worm disease could become the second human disease in history, after smallpox, to be eradicated. It would be the first parasitic disease to be eradicated and the first disease to be eradicated without the use of a vaccine or medicine. Guinea worm is a particularly devastating disease that incapacitates people for extended periods of time, making them unable to care for themselves, work, grow food for their families, or attend school. In 1986, the disease afflicted an estimated 3.5 million people a year in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. Today, thanks to the work of The Carter Center and its partners — including the countries themselves — the incidence of Guinea worm has been reduced by more than 99.99 percent to 14 provisional* human cases in 2023.

Bill Gates has reduced river blindness to just a handful of cases. River blindness is a parasitic worm disease transmitted to humans by black flies. It causes blindness and severe skin disease. The Gates Foundation has helped eliminate river blindness in four South American countries and Niger, the first African country to achieve elimination. Fifty years ago, half of people living in West Africa were at risk for river blindness—a neglected tropical disease that, when left untreated, can cause permanent blindness, disfiguring skin conditions, and debilitating itching. In 2023, Niger became the first African country to eliminate the transmission of river blindness and Senegal is on track to become the second country to achieve the milestone. Now, the Gates Foundation is collaborating with Reaching the Last Mile and other global partners to eliminate river blindness and lymphatic filariasis across 39 countries in Africa and Yemen, helping to reduce the number of people requiring treatment by 350 million.

Granted these two men were not singlehandedly responsible for eradicating two horrible diseases affecting millions of people, but their efforts put resources where they needed to be to relieve the suffering of millions of people. Neither of these people have resources anywhere near the resources of the US government. So where does the US government put its resources? About a trillion dollars a year goes into the military-industrial complex fighting wars and getting ready (preparedness) to fight the wars of the future. With a smidgin of these resources, the US could instead eradicate many of the causes of war. According to the World Bank, around 44% of the global population, or roughly 3.5 billion people, live in poverty as measured by the upper-middle-income poverty line of $6.85 per day in 2024. According to the latest UN World Water Development Report, approximately 46% of the world's population lacks access to safely managed sanitation services, meaning they do not have adequate sanitation. According to the latest UN reports, around 26% of the world's population, which translates to roughly 2 billion people, do not have access to safe drinking water. Resource misallocation by the US government perpetuates the status quo and creates rather than solves problems related to world peace.

Jimmy Carter is one of the few Presidents that actually created peace in the world. The Egypt–Israel peace treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., United States, on 26 March 1979, following the 1978 Camp David Accords. The Egypt–Israel treaty was signed by Anwar Sadat, President of Egypt, and Menachem Begin, Prime Minister of Israel, and witnessed by Jimmy Carter, President of the United States. According to the stated goals of the initiative, China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)  aims to promote peaceful development, foster global stability, and contribute to world peace by encouraging economic interdependence, infrastructure development, cultural exchange, and diplomatic connections between participating nations. It's a step in the right direction even if not wholly successful. What is the US doing besides criticising China and gearing up another Cold War? Money spent on the military-industrial complex could be better spent on diplomatic efforts at creating world peace.

Off the Top of My Head

Replace Halloween With a Day Honoring Mother Earth and Its People

by John Lawrence

Americans will spend $10 billion on Halloween this year, a day dedicated to goblins and ghouls. There is enough scariness in the world. What the world needs is not a day dedicated to rotting children's teeth, but a day dedicated to preserving the environment so that they have a stable and hospitable planet to live on. Instead of "trick or treat" how about a day of "how can I serve my neighbor?".No other country celebrates Halloween and makes such a big deal and spending spree out of it. In Latin American countries they celebrate Día de Los Muertos, the Day of the Dead honoring their ancestors. This is totally different from American Halloween which celebrates nothing except the selfish acquisition of candy. American Halloween has no socially redeeming value whatsoever.

What are we teaching children by celebrating Halloween? That American life is all about the acquisition of stuff - in this case candy. And if we don't get what we want we will do harm to others. Instead of a trick why not teach children to do a favor for others. Let's eliminate tricks from Halloween. It's teaching children that it's OK to do harm to others if they don't get what they want. Enormous sums of money are spent on Halloween which could be spent for more constructive purposes like providing funds to help the growing number of refugees around the world including the refugees internal to our own country which the homeless surely are.

Greta Thunberg shines a spotlight on global warming every Friday with her school strike for climate. School Strike for Climate (Swedish: Skolstrejk för klimatet), also known variously as Fridays for Future (FFF), Youth for Climate, Climate Strike or Youth Strike for Climate, is an international movement of school students who skip Friday classes to participate in demonstrations to demand action from political leaders to take action to prevent climate change and for the fossil fuel industry to transition to renewable energy. Let's make Halloween a day for honoring future generations and Mother Earth. We could also make Halloween a school strike for peace because peace is necessary if the world is to cooperate in meeting the challenge of global warming.

The celebration of Halloween sends all the wrong signals to children. Instead of public service, it sends the message of selfish acquisitiveness. Instead of concern for others it sends the message that, if they don't get what they want, they will do you a disservice. Halloween has no redeeming value. It is just a spendfest on candy and costumes which money could be better spent on more worthwhile goods and services for themselves and others. Instead of candy, children should be taught about nutritional literacy and the value of eating healthy foods. But instead children are carefully taught to disregard any concern for others and even the dangers of self indulgence for themselves. Many eat candy until they get sick. Sugar has no redeeming nutritional value, and Halloween has no redeeming social value whether it be honoring our ancestors as the Mexicans do or honoring a planet suitable for habitation by our children and their children. The world is scary enough with the pandemic and climate change. Instead of honoring scariness, let's celebrate the redemption of the planet and the health of the global population.

Off the Top of My Head

Wanted: A Billionaire to Run Ads Directed at Anti-Vaxxers

by John Lawrence

Interview unvaccinated patients dying with COVID, then interview the Moms, Dads and Children left behind after their Mom, Dad or Child has died from COVID. Put together a powerful ad of people who believed the anti-VAXX lies and then got COVID and died and/or were left behind to grieve. Spend millions running these ads, and pretty soon no one will believe the lies and misinformation any more. These ads should be run on all the channels and social media that anti-Vaxxers and Trump supporters watch. So many of the ads running currently are superfluous, their only purpose being to get you to buy more stuff. Instead of spending billions on private space missions, spend some money where it really influences people to do the right thing - TV and social media advertising oriented toward getting people vaccinated.

Advertising could be transformed into a socially meaningful operation. I don't need to see ads telling me to buy more stuff. Force feeding Americans ads to buy more stuff is part of the problem. Americans are over consuming while the rest of the world is barely eating. Americans need to consume less, but advertising could also have a socially redeeming purpose. I don't know what the ethics are of the government itself running ads on TV and social media, but for sure a private party can run ads of any type and description. So why don't they? Powerful ads could be put together to get people to do the right thing and get the vaccine. Dying parents and crying children might convince people not to follow in the footsteps of the unvaccinated. We need that to get the pandemic under control.

Advertise on all the anti-vaxxers' favorite social media platforms. Facebook will target ads for you. So the buys for pro-Vax ads could be targeted at all the anti-vaxxers. This is not only completely ethical; it will save lives. In fact it would be unethical not to do it since Facebook's algorithms are set up to link anti-vaxxrs together. It should be a no brainer to target antivaxxers with pro vaccination material, and the most powerful and poignant material is the remorse of the dying for not getting the COVID shots and the grief of distraucght wives and children at the loss of their husband and parent. Michael Bloomberg and the Gates Foundation, where are you?

Off the Top of My Head

Y'all Better Haul Y'all's Asses Down to the Wiggly Piggly and Get Y'all's Vaccination, Y' Heah?

by John Lawrence

Even Fox News is getting worried that they might be sued for causing unnecessary death as that is exactly what discouraging vaccinations for COVID is. Get serious, folks. Get your F-ing politics out of a public health issue. It's one thing not wanting to be absorbed into a rational society. It's another to put your own, your family's and your neighbor's life at risk. Has it come down to a war between rational people and irrational people? People who trust science and people who don't trust science? There has been this undercurrent of optimism that the pandemic would be over soon and we could all get back to a normal life mainly perpetrated by Republicans but also recently by Joe Biden who just assumed that everyone would take advantage of the vaccine when it became available. WRONG. Republicans want to give Joe a defeat on this even if they have to sacrifice their own lives and the lives of others to do it. They want his Presidency to be a failure, and they are willing to put their lives on the line to do so.

Facebook should have a responsibility to get the anti-vaxers off their social media. Researchers have found just 12 people are responsible for the bulk of the misleading claims and outright lies about COVID-19 vaccines that proliferate on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. So why isn't Facebook and Twitter just canceling their accounts? Free speech isn't the issue here. Free speech shouldn't apply to speech that can play a significant part in getting people killed. A pandemic that has caused more deaths than all of the US' wars put together is not s trivial issue. If someone advocated a terrorist attack on social media, they would be taken off right away ad probably arrested. This issue is many, many times more deadly but people are pussy footing around it as a free speech issue. It's not. Problem is Facebook makes most of its money from conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and other assorted nut cases. If it takes a government board to censor Facebook, I'd be for it. Facebook is not a benign operation. It has done more harm than good all the while making billions for a very few people.

NPR reported:

"The 'Disinformation Dozen' produce 65% of the shares of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," said Imran Ahmed, chief executive officer of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which identified the accounts.

Now the vaccine rollout is reaching a critical stage in which most adults who want the vaccine have gotten it, but many others are holding out, these 12 influential social media users stand to have an outsize impact on the outcome.

After this story published on Thursday, Facebook said it had taken down more of the accounts run by these 12 individuals.

These figures are well-known to both researchers and the social networks. They include anti-vaccine activists, alternative health entrepreneurs and physicians. Some of them run multiple accounts across the different platforms. They often promote "natural health." Some even sell supplements and books.

Many of the messages about the COVID-19 vaccines being widely spread online mirror what's been said in the past about other vaccines by peddlers of health misinformation.

This is a transcript with Jim Sciutto and Elizabeth Cohen on CNN:

SCIUTTO: Yes, here are some those numbers. Last week more than 23,000 children caught COVID-19. That is nearly double what was reported at the end of June. It comes as children in some major school district are now heading back to class this month or in a couple of weeks. Let's begin with CNN's Senior Medical Correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen. Listen, the data doesn't lie, right. I mean it's clearly coming back principally in unvaccinated areas. Tell us what the numbers tell you.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, you know, we thought we were done with this and now here we are and there are two reasons for this. One this Delta variant, which has been called the variant on steroids. And also that so many, half the country is still not fully vaccinated allowing this variant to do its thing which is does so well.

So let's take a look at the growth of the Delta variant. If you look at this graph, on the far left, that was where we were in late May, 3 percent of the COVID out there was the Delta variant. Now look, less than two months, this Delta variant went from being 3 percent of the COVID that's out there to being 83 percent of the COVID that's out there. It just shows you how fast it took over.

And why was it so fast? Well number one it replicates fast in the body. It just knows how to do what viruses are supposed to do. It gets in there and just makes copies and copies and copies of itself very quickly. So in one study they took nasal swabs and they looked at the viral load, for Delta the viral load in the nose was 1,000 times higher than when they looked in the noses of people who had the original strains. So that just tells you right there that it is so much more transmissible.

Children going back to school are the ones most at risk now. It's the stupidest decision ever to send them back to school just as the most dangerous variant is spreading like wildfire. They did remote learning from home last year when the danger was far less great. Now just because some politicians have decided that we must have children back in schools this fall regardless of what is happening with COVID, they are all being put at risk. Smart and caring parents won't put their children in that situation and will keep them home, home schooling them or studying remotely. Sending unvaccinated children to school in a war zone is the height of stupidity and irresponsibility.

Off the Top of My Head

A Word to the Wise Falling on Deaf Ears

by John Lawrence

All those unvaccinated people who refuse on principle to get vaccinated are food for fodder for the delta variant of the coronavirus. They insist they are free to remain unvaccinated and bear no responsibility to society to not infect others should they be infected. Furthermore, those who believe in conspiracy theories and other nonsense that has no basis in fact and those who have been politicized to believe that "doing the right thing" is so Democratic, those who are too macho to get a vaccination, are the ones who are going to get sick and die, and they will take down their unvaccinated friends with them. But they are too proud to do the right thing either to save their own lives or the lives of those around them. They are too proud and macho to have "common sense" or to act "rationally". That's what eastern elites do. They are beer drinking, pick-up driving, tatooed-to-the-hilt good 'ol boys who go duck hunting and treasure their gun collections. No namby pambyness for them.

These people who refuse to get vaccinated even when the more transmissble and deadly delta variant is running rampant are self nominating for the Darwin award. The Darwin award recognizes individuals who have contributed to human evolution by selecting themselves out of the gene pool by dying via their own foolish actions. Or by their own stupidity or ignorance. Those who are proud of their ignorance. "Oh, fuck it", they say, "I aint wearing no mask and I'm tough enough that no virus is going to bring me down." Ignorance and stupidity has been politicized to be a hallmark of the Republican party. They feel like they are the "real Americans." They are by and large Trump supporters and true believers in lies and conspiracy theories that Fox new, Republican leaders and social media spew forth. They could give a shit about putting themselves or others at risk. They just want to see President Biden fail in his goal of getting 70% of the American people vaccinated by July 4. They are looking forward to their victory in that regard.

Some people have been wondering why the Republican base seemingly votes against their own interests economically. Well we don't have to wonder any more. Tribal interests trump even economic interests for them. If you voted your economic interests, everyone except the upper 10% would vote Democratic. But that would mean they would have to throw in their lot with immigrants, people of color, poor people and the homeless, something they re too proud to do. So they remain staunch supporters of showmen, entertainers and snake oil salesmen, so-called leaders who can get them riled up, leaders who can get their red blooded blood boiling. Trump rallies have the flavor of the crowd at a wrestling match or a Mixed Martial Arts event. Blood lust, sweat and orgiastic hate, the impetus of the mob. Mob violence is what Trump rallies subtly evoke. Us against them, them being people of color and immigrants who happen to be people of color.

As Yogi Berra used to say, "It ain't over till it's over," and that's certainly true of the coronavirus. The longer it persists in the human population, the human population of the world, the longer the virus has to mutate and evolve into more deadly and transmissable variants. It's a war between the virus and us. It doesn't matter if the US population has herd immunity. What is necessary to defeat the virus is herd immunity of the entire population of the world.

Off the Top of My Head

The Code Breaker

by John Lawrence, March26, 2021

The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson is an exciting new book which details the efforts and the knowledge to edit genes known as CRISPR. That means cutting into the DNA genome and removing "sick" genes and/or replacing them with the correct genes. The book details the quest to discover the mechanism by which this is possible. The book focuses on Jennifer Doudna but many researchers, many of them recent immigrants or workers at foreign universities, are involved. The fundamental insights can be explained in a few sentences. They noticed that bacteria have been fighting off viruses successfully for billions of years, and they were doing this by incorporating the virus DNA into the data base of their own genome. Upon encountering a new virus the bacteria knew how to encode that virus's DNA so that they could identify it in an attack in the future. Secondly, the bacteria knew how to dispatch a portion of RNA that would travel to the site of the virus and encode an enzyme that would then destroy the virus. The messenger RNA knew precisely where to point the enzyme which then cut the virus DNA thereby destroying it. So the e. coli bacterium has known how to edit genes for billions of years. The trick is to figure out exactly how the bacterium does this.

So Jennifer Doudna and cohorts did just that: They figured out how a bacterium cuts a virus's DNA precisely in a certain location. That's what the book is about. That's what gene editing is about. Gene editing is in its infancy, but it has already been used to correct the genetic mutation which causes sickle cell anemia which is caused by the mutation in one gene. Experimentally, it has been shown that if this gene can be cut out and replaced by one that contains the correct genetic information, the disease can be cured. If this can be done early in the development of an embryo, the correct gene can even be transmitted to succeeding generations. An estimated 8 million children are born each year with severe genetic disorders or birth defects. Gene editing can possibly correct some or all of these defects. In order to do this the enzyme which cuts the gene out of the DNA must be told precisely where to cut, and the correct gene must somehow be implanted precisely at this location and the DNA reconnected. In theory the whole idea is very simple. Figuring out how to do this either in the laboratory or in actual animals, much less in humans, is the hard part.

Whether or not this research will lead to an understanding of the origins of life is an open question. Perhaps there is a sub-atomic entity sort of like a neutrino which is massless and ubiquitous in the universe which is the progenitor of life wherever conditions are propitious. Perhaps it is able to generate an organism with the minimal genome, something which has never been discovered in nature. Even a virus which has the simplest known genomic structure has three thousand base pairs, compared to the three billion base pairs in human genomes. A base pair consists of the 4 nucleotides called A, C, G, T   which comprise one rung of the DNA ladder. So a successful gene edit would have to identify the precise rung of the DNA ladder where the mutation had occurred which means at least one of the 4 letters of the base pair was incorrect and correct it.

So I theorize that a life progenitor would have to be something that is ubiquitous in the universe and capable of starting life with a minimal genome which consists of only a few base pairs. This is a mystery but certainly not the only one. Gravity is an every day phenomenon but no one has detected a graviton which is thought to be the physical entity that distorts space time according to Einstein's theory of relativity. No one understands the "dark energy" which is thought to be responsible for the fact that the universe is not only expanding but accelerating. No one understands what Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" which has been demonstrated to be a reality in quantum theory. Just as the line is blurred between what is material and what is massless energy, the line is blurred between what is spiritual and what is material. Is the creation of life in the universe a physical, material phenomenon or a spiritual one?

Off the Top of My Head

There is No Such Thing as a National Solution to a Global Crisis

by John Lawrence, October 9, 2020

The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation announced its 2020 Goalkeepers report with the above words. COVID-19 has killed more than 850,000 people worldwide. Every year until this one the world has made progress towards reducing poverty and disease. Notice the Gates foundation emphasis on the world as one coherent unified organism rather than just on US national boundaries. The pandemic knows no national boundaries. Until it's stamped out worldwide, the US is vulnerable. The foolishness of spending a trillion dollars a year on the US military which was powerless to do anything about the pandemic has been demonstrated. International cooperation is crucial to ending this pandemic, as well as others which are likely to follow, and reducing the conditions of poverty and disease in the world which breed war and terrorism. When will the US get its priorities straight?

The Goalkeepers report tracked 18 indicators included in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In recent years, the world has improved on every single one. This year, on the vast majority, we’ve regressed.There is also a worldwide recession that the military and military-industrial complex is powerless to do anything about. The US is not an island. Pandemics, global warming - these are problems affecting the whole world not just the US. Nations that have the resources need to assist other nations that don't have the resources. That means that the developed world has to help the developing world to combat these problems: disease, poverty, weaponization, global warming.

In 2015, 193 world leaders agreed to a series of 17 ambitious goals to end poverty, fight inequality, and stop climate change by 2030. The Global Goals are within our reach, but we must remain committed—embracing what works and addressing what doesn’t, while holding ourselves and others accountable. In 2016 President Trump dropped out of global cooperation with his America First policy. That has gotten the US nowhere. Whichever countries handle the pandemic intelligently are going to come out of the recession as world leaders. That won't be the US unless Joe Biden gets elected and is able to turn the shambles of Trump's response to the pandemic around.

The first and most important goal is ending poverty. Eradicating poverty is not a task of charity, it's an act of justice and the key to unlocking an enormous human potential. Still, nearly half of the world’s population lives in poverty, and lack of food and clean water is killing thousands every single day of the year. Together, we can feed the hungry, wipe out disease and give everyone in the world a chance to prosper and live a productive and rich life. The second goal is zero hunger. Hunger is the leading cause of death in the world. Our planet has provided us with tremendous resources, but unequal access and inefficient handling leaves millions of people malnourished. If we promote sustainable agriculture with modern technologies and fair distribution systems, we can sustain the whole world’s population and make sure that nobody will ever suffer from hunger again.

The third goal is good health and well-being. Over the last 15 years, the number of childhood deaths has been cut in half. This proves that it is possible to win the fight against almost every disease. Still, we are spending an astonishing amount of money and resources on treating illnesses that are surprisingly easy to prevent. The new goal for worldwide Good Health promotes healthy lifestyles, preventive measures and modern, efficient healthcare for everyone. The fourth goal is quality education. Education liberates the intellect, unlocks the imagination and is fundamental for self-respect. It is the key to prosperity and opens a world of opportunities, making it possible for each of us to contribute to a progressive, healthy society. Learning benefits every human being and should be available to all.

The fifth goal is gender equality. Gender bias is undermining our social fabric and devalues all of us. It is not just a human rights issue; it is a tremendous waste of the world’s human potential. By denying women equal rights, we deny half the population a chance to live life at its fullest. Political, economic and social equality for women will benefit all the world’s citizens. Together we can eradicate prejudice and work for equal rights and respect for all. The sixth goal is clean water and sanitation. This will require major infrastructure development. It's not rocket science. The techniques involved are well known in the developed world. One in three people live without sanitation. This is causing unnecessary disease and death. Although huge strides have been made with access to clean drinking water, lack of sanitation is undermining these advances. If we provide affordable equipment and education in hygiene practices, we can stop this senseless suffering and loss of life.

Actually I would put clean water and sanitation right up there with ending poverty. It would put an end to many of the diseases that occur in the underdeveloped world. The emphasis on healthy living and basic creature comforts needs to spearhead the use of resources worldwide. That means that developed nations have to give back to the underdeveloped ones instead of putting their further enjoyment and well being first which is the gist of America First. Global cooperation to combat global problems needs to take precedence over preparations for war and bullying other nations by the most powerful ones. The negligence and incompetence with which Trump has treated the COVID pandemic, the withdrawal of the US from universal institutions, almost assures that the US will assume a secondary status in the world unless the next administration can make up for the damage Trump has done and set us on a new and more constructive course.

Off the Top of My Head

The Relationship Between Poverty and Pandemic

by John Lawrence, July 20, 2020

Some people think these are 2 independent phenomena that have nothing to do with each other. In fact they're interrelated. The viruses spill over from animal host reservoirs into human beings when humans are in close contact with animals. As farms, villages, agricultural and mining operations encroach on animal habitat, spillover is not far behind. Many poor people get their only protein from 'bush meat', that is wild animals of all sorts. Especially in China but elsewhere as well people eat all kinds of exotic species. This makes it more likely that there will be a transfer of animal viruses to humans. The virus probably originated from a bat in Wutan's so-called 'wet market' where they sell all kinds of animals both wild caught and farm raised.

Sanitation in many parts of the world leaves a lot to be desired. Diseases of all kinds are rampant. Some of these are confined to local areas, but some like COVID-19 can spread to the rest of the world and cause a pandemic. An estimated 2.5 billion people, more than 35% of the world’s population, lack access to adequate sanitation. Disease started in these areas can spread to the rest of the world in a pandemic so the more the developed world can do to improve these conditions in poor areas of the world, the more the developed world is protecting itself from potential future pandemics. Unsafe drinking water, inadequate availability of water for hygiene, and lack of access to sanitation together contribute to about 88% of deaths from diarrheal diseases.

Water, sanitation and hygiene has the potential to prevent at least 9.1% of the global disease burden and 6.3% of all deaths. The impact of clean water technologies on public health in the U.S. is estimated to have had a rate of return of 23 to 1 for investments in water filtration and chlorination during the first half of the 20th century. Over half of the global population or 4.2 billion people lack safely managed sanitation services. (WHO/UNICEF 2019).

Furthermore, the strain on the world's potable water supply is being exacerbated by climate change. Glaciers store about 70% of the world's fresh water. They release this water gradually during summer months as the glaciers melt. Since the climate is getting warmer, glaciers are releasing water earlier in the year and much of it is just running off never to be productively used. Then when water is really needed later on, the glaciers are spent for the year. Glaciers are receding because of climate warming so that they are containing less and less fresh water each year in the first place. The cold season in which glaciers add more ice to the glaciers is getting shorter each year so there is less ice to begin with. More than 1.4 billion people depend on water from the rivers of the Himalaya. The main rivers are the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Ganges and the Yellow River. The first 3 drain through India, the last through China.

As earth's population increases there are not only more mouths to feed, there is a greater need for fresh water the supply of which is diminishing. This leads to less crop production, starvation and even worse sanitation and personal hygiene. There is more pressure to trap and eat bush meat which can contain deadly viruses which can spread to the rest of the world as the current pandemic did. Therefore, if we want to live in a safe, habitable world we need to start thinking about sustainable water and food supplies for everyone on the planet and better hygiene and sanitation for all the world's people, not just the few in developed countries. It is more important to spread the knowledge of safe water and sanitation systems as well as sustainable agricultural practices. Population control in one form or other is also necessary because the planet can only support a limited number of people especially if they are all living middle class lifestyles. We need to rethink what a sustainable lifestyle is and not consume a disproportionate percentage of earth's resources.

Cuba to the Rescue, But Don’t Tell the American People

Published on Thursday, April 23, 2020

by Jacobin

As we move through this crisis, we see the tragedy of the rich superpower with its privatized, dysfunctional health care system failing its people, while its impoverished neighbor — under constant attack from the superpower — reaches out to help the world.

by Medea Benjamin

 

17 Comments

Doctors and nurses of Cuba's Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade pose with a portrait of Cuban late leader Fidel Castro as they are bid farewell before travelling to hard-hit Italy to help in the fight against the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, at the Central Unit of Medical Cooperation in Havana, on March 21, 2020. (Photo: Yamil LAGE / AFP via Getty Images)

While Bernie Sanders paid a political price for uttering something positive about Cuba’s literacy program, the current pandemic has shown the whole world the heroic side of Cuba’s health care system.

I saw this heroism firsthand when I worked with Cuban doctors in poor, remote villages in Africa. It was the 1970s and I was a young woman employed as a nutritionist with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. My colleagues were good people who were helping to feed hungry children. They also made hefty salaries and lived a wealthy lifestyle they could never afford back home. The Cubans were different. They lived simply, worked under the harshest conditions, and earned almost nothing for their services. Their motivation was purely to help people in need.

They called it internationalism and said it was their revolutionary duty to repay their debt to society. They quoted Che Guevara: “The life of a single human being is worth a million times more than all the property of the richest man on earth.”

I was inspired, and ended up moving to Cuba. Four years, a marriage, and a baby later, I was accused by the Cuban government of writing articles critical of the revolution and deported. Certainly, I saw and experienced aspects of the Cuban system I disliked, but I never lost my admiration for the country’s public health system and its commitment to international solidarity.

It is truly inspiring that this small, poor island has basic health indicators equal, or better, to those of the world’s richest countries. This is even more remarkable after it has faced a brutal US blockade and sanctions for sixty years. Cuba’s infant mortality rate of 4 per 1,000 live births is lower than in the United States — and that’s according to the CIA! There’s little food on the store shelves and shortages in the pharmacies, but, as Cubans say, “We live like poor people, but we die like rich people.” That’s because their life expectancy of seventy-nine years is the same as in the United States, despite the fact that Cuba spends less than about $800 per person per year on health care compared with $11,000 in the United States.

Like most of the world, Cuba is now grappling with coronavirus. As of April 20, there were 1,137 confirmed cases, with 38 deaths. But Cuba’s free and universal health care system, including a robust cadre of health professionals, puts the island in a better position to deal with this crisis than most countries. With its intense focus on training health professionals, Cuba has the highest density of physicians in the world. Its ratio of medical professionals to patients is roughly three times higher than in the United States.

Cuba not only trains its own doctors; it trains doctors from all over the world. The island of only 11 million people is home to the world’s largest international medical school, the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM). Since its founding in 1999, the school has trained over 35,000 young people from 138 countries, including the United States. And here’s the kicker: it’s free.

Pastors for Peace, the group that selects US students coming from the “humblest and neediest” communities, says the scholarships include full tuition, dormitory housing, three meals per day, textbooks, school uniforms, and a small monthly stipend. While graduates from US medical schools leave saddled with six-figure debts, the only debt ELAM students have is a commitment to practice medicine in low-income and medically underserved communities. That’s why you’ll find ELAM graduates like Dr. Melissa Barbar on the front-lines in the Bronx fighting coronavirus today.

If that doesn’t make you teary-eyed, just look at the brigade of doctors taking off for international missions to the most COVID-19 affected area of Italy, Lombardy. “We are not superheroes,” intensive care specialist Leonardo Fernandez told Reuters as the first brigade left Havana. “We are revolutionary doctors.” As of April 1, Cuba had sent 800 medical personnel to fight COVID-19 in sixteen countries, from Angola to Andorra, and more are on their way.

For Cuba, medical assistance has been a hallmark of the revolution: helping Chilean earthquake victims in 1963; Nicaraguans and Hondurans devastated by Hurricane Mitch in 1998; Indonesia tsunami victims in 2004; Haitians after the disastrous 2010 earthquake and subsequent cholera outbreak. Teams were also dispatched to Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone to fight Ebola in 2014.

Gradually, this “army of white coats,” as Fidel Castro called them, not only responded to emergencies overseas but began serving as family doctors in poor communities around the world. Poorer countries pay only the medical teams’ expenses or seek international support to compensate Cuba; wealthier countries pay more.

But the Trump administration poses a significant challenge to Cuban social programs. When he came to power, his administration launched an all-out attack on the Cuban economy: placing new restrictions on US travel to the island, reducing the amount of remittances Cuban Americans could send back home, interfering with the transport of Venezuelan oil to the island, and trying to sabotage Cuba’s medical collaborations.

Anti-Cuba zealots in the Trump administration have been enticing Cuban doctors working overseas to defect, paying journalists to write negative stories, slapping sanctions on Cubans in charge of the program, and strong-arming countries to expel Cuban doctors.

The crux of the attack has been to paint the program as a form of modern slavery because the doctors only receive about a quarter of the money the countries pay for their services. But Cuban health professionals volunteer for these assignments — they want the experience, they earn much more than they would back home, and they know the rest of the money goes to support Cuba’s national health care system.

The Trump administration has been successful in convincing the right-wing governments that came to power in Bolivia, Brazil, and Ecuador since 2018 to send about 9,000 Cubans packing. In a tragic twist, these same countries are now overwhelmed with coronavirus and lamenting the loss of experienced professionals.

As we move through this crisis, we see the tragedy of the rich superpower with its privatized, dysfunctional health care system failing its people, while its impoverished neighbor — under constant attack from the superpower — reaches out to help the world. We see Trump desperate to deflect from his catastrophic bungling of this pandemic, including defunding the WHO in what a prestigious medical editor called “an appalling betrayal of global solidarity,” while Cuba’s army of white coats have become the embodiment of global solidarity.

But if you are an American with political ambitions, you might think twice before saying something good about Cuba’s health care system.

Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace, is the author of the new book, Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her previous books include: Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the U.S.-Saudi Connection; Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control; Don’t Be Afraid Gringo: A Honduran Woman Speaks from the Heart, and (with Jodie Evans) Stop the Next War Now (Inner Ocean Action Guide). Follow her on Twitter: @medeabenjamin

© 2019 Jacobin

Off the Top of My Head

How Can Something Lifeless Cause So Much Trouble?

by John Lawrence, March30, 2020

So it isn't clear whether or not the coronavirus is alive or dead. There are differing definitions of life. But regardless, it is well known that chemicals react with each other. There are the well known chemical compounds, carbon dioxide and H₂O. The chemicals involved in a virus are much more complicated organic compounds, but, nevertheless, they are all things that react with or are attracted to each other. The building blocks of life, DNA, are all made up of things that react with each other to create very complex chemical compounds. We might assume that all that is needed for life to form are these chemical reactions. But still there is something missing even when all the chemicals are present in the right combinations - some kind of spark that would turn a non living compound into a living compound. A virus like the coronavirus is a very simple form of life consisting of a single strand of RNA wrapped in a protein "envelope." So how can such a simple thing which, depending on your definition of life, is either alive or dead wreak so much havoc?

My theory is that it can't be explained by chemical reaction or attraction. There must be something else going on. There seems to be some intentionality to the virus. It knows enough to invade human or animal cells and use their material to make copies of itself. It is self-replicating using the host's contents in a parasitic manner. Just like many life forms, a virus wants to make copies of itself similar to what animals and humans want to do. This is one of the characteristics of life. Parasites invade hosts and use the host to further their own interests, and one of their interests seems to always be to expand their number. So maybe the definition of life has to do with intentionality and reproduction.

It certainly has to do with evolution. Darwin explained evolution, but it may not only have to do with random mutation and natural selection. Random mutation is one thing, but maybe there can be intentionality as well. Consider hairlessness. It could be just sexual selection that less hairy apes were considered more sexually attractive so that eventually hairier apes died out as the more hairless ones reproduced. Or maybe subconsciously apes came to desire less hairy mates, and that subconscious intention caused a genetic change which determined the hairlessness of their offspring. Or it could be a combination. The same process could be true insofar as standing upright. Apes can do it, but it's not as comfortable as being on all fours due to the bone configuration in their hips. Maybe a desire or intention to not be on all fours led to a genetic change in the configuration of their hips. Eventually that's what had to happen so that standing upright is more natural for human beings than being on all fours.

Russian scientists have domesticated foxes after natural selection of the more docile ones over a number of generations. They've also done the same thing with wolves, but they found that as non-aggressive as these wolves are with humans, they are still not able to bond with human beings the way dogs do. They think that's because docile wolves are still not genetically identical to dogs even though dogs evolved from wolves. Perhaps the docility of non-aggressive wolves led eventually to the genetic changes that created dogs who are both docile and capable of bonding.

What this boils down to is that scientists still don't really understand what life is and what evolution is, what forces lead to the origination of life, whether or not those forces are ubiquitous in the universe or not. Just as human beings were potentially part of the universe even before they existed in it, maybe the universe has this potential everywhere under the right conditions. Maybe it is part and parcel of the universe rather than something added to the universe. If so, then we would expect that there would be life in many places in the universe in addition to planet earth.

Off the Top of My Head

One Positive Thing: Lower Pollution and Greenhouse Gases

by John Lawrence, March 24, 2020

Among all the negative things that are happening because of the coronavirus, there is at least one positive thing: air pollution and the emission of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) is way down. The pandemic is shutting down industrial activity and temporarily slashing air pollution levels around the world according to satellite imagery. There are fewer cars on the roads, fewer airplanes flying, fewer ships at sea. The downturn in economic activity means that less power is being consumed; therefore, less coal is being shoveled into power plants around the world. It's a veritable demonstration that it is possible to reduce pollution, reduce global warming and in other ways have a cleaner, healthier planet.

Paul Monks, professor of air pollution at the University of Leicester, predicted there will be important lessons to learn. “We are now, inadvertently, conducting the largest-scale experiment ever seen,” he said. “Are we looking at what we might see in the future if we can move to a low-carbon economy? Not to denigrate the loss of life, but this might give us some hope from something terrible. To see what can be achieved. It seems entirely probable that a reduction in air pollution will be beneficial to people in susceptible categories, for example some asthma sufferers,” he said. “It could reduce the spread of disease. A high level of air pollution exacerbates viral uptake because it inflames and lowers immunity.” Agriculture could also get a boost because pollution stunts plant growth, he added.

One of the largest drops in pollution levels could be seen over the city of Wuhan in central China which was put under a strict lockdown in late January. The city of 11 million people serves as a major transportation hub and is home to hundreds of factories supplying car parts and other hardware to global supply chains. According to NASA, nitrogen dioxide levels across eastern and central China have been 10-30% lower than normal.

This period, when the pandemic is not under control, is an opportunity to think differently about the economy. What are essential goods and services? Definitely we need food, clean water and sanitation services. We need garbage collection. People need enough money to supply essential needs for themselves. We could also ask what are inessential needs? Some of these are going to sporting events, going to movie theaters especially when we can watch movies at home, going to music events at arenas especially when we can listen to music at home, going on cruises. With the increase of capabilities for working from home, going into the office is not a necessity for a lot of workers. This can be increased with the result that there will be fewer cars on the road, less rush hour traffic and less GHG emissions. Getting cars off the road is a long term goal for a green economy. This would mean fewer car sales, but it would be better for the environment.

We should ask what are essential activities to keep people healthy and safe and think about doing away with other activities which don't increase the health and welfare of human beings. After dithering for years over the homeless situation, homeless people are being put up in motels and hotels post haste as a public health issue. This is a positive development and goes to show that the homeless situation could have been ameliorated years ago if we had the will to do it. The provision of money to average Americans will not hurt the economy. It will only help the economy. During the 2008 Great Recession trillions of dollars were given to the banks to bail them out. Much of this money went to bail out investors and hedge funds which had made huge bets on the economy. Many of these bets paid off, and their bets were covered in full by the Federal Reserve when the individual Wall Street banks couldn't cover them. Obviously, these rich people did not need that money to continue to cover their own 'essential needs' or the needs of their families. It was money given to gamblers while Joe six pack got zilch. We don't need an economy which caters to rich gamblers and showers them with money when they bet the economy will go down bringing suffering to millions.

At this point the Fed has the capability of bailing out the average American family especially if they have lost their jobs so they can continue to eat and pay rent. This support for average Americans will function also to stabilize the economy and maintain GDP but at a lower level. Perhaps the 70% level that consumption contributes to GDP cannot be maintained, but this might actually be a good thing by eliminating things that are not essential to the health and welfare of the population while driving air pollution and greenhouse gasses down. Neel Kashkari President of the Minneapolis branch of the Federal Reserve siad on 60 Minutes that the Fed needs to be "overly generous" to the average family, something they weren't when the economy tanked in 2008. The Fed is committed to not letting any banks or major US businesses go under. They could just as well make sure that no American families go under. Andrew Yang's idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) not only helps families survive. It will help the economy survive.

Off the Top of My Head

President Trump: "We're All in This Together"

by John Lawrence, March 17, 2020

Does that include the homeless, Mr. Trump? Are the homeless over 65 being asked to shelter in place? Does that mean that they keep their same place on the sidewalk? Does it mean that they social distance 6 feet from the next homeless person? Or does it mean that gatherings of 10 or more in homeless shelters need to disperse? Does it mean we should close down the homeless shelters? Does it mean that NIMBYS who don't want parking lots open to homeless people living in their vehicles need to shut their mouths? We want to know, Mr. President. Youth wants to know.

There are 500,000 homeless Americans living on the streets. Are they being asked to shelter in place? It's ridiculous. Rather than have a crash program to put them into single room occupancy units (SROs), they are not even mentioned, not even considered in the President's speech, nor of those of his "team." The coronavirus should sound a clarion call to do something about the homneless situation. Where do you think a pandemic would spread? Probably among the dense crowding of homeless people in San Diego, Los Angeles and Seattle. Especially places where it has been raining a lot. I saw a policeman stop his squad car in the middle of traffic the other day, turn on his patrol lights and deliver a sandwich to a woman who was sitting alone on the sidewalk in the pouring rain. God bless him! My rider told me that his family were all police and they did that a lot. If so, good on them. I know the police are dealing with the homeless a large part of their time which costs money. Also the emergency rooms. Probably bbetween the police and the emergency rooms more money is spent on the homeless than it would cost to put them in SROs.

A few short years ago there was an outbreak  of hepatitus A among the homeless in San Diego and elsewhere. The Washington Post reported:

The hepatitis A outbreak in Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and San Diego, long considered a model of savvy urban redevelopment, is the extreme result of a booming state economy, now driving up home prices after years of government decisions that made low-cost housing more difficult to build.

Unlike in some other large U.S. cities, the homeless population in San Diego has been rising sharply, outstripping the local government's ability to manage its scope. State lawmakers passed more than a dozen measures in the recent legislative session to address the state's lack of affordable housing, none of which will help resolve the crisis in the short term.

Nowhere is the need more urgent than in this prospering city, where the number of people living on the streets rose 14 percent in the past year, tracing a hepatitis A outbreak that thrives in unsanitary conditions. Health officials believe an epidemic that has infected more than 500 people statewide since March began in San Diego County, where 19 people have died as a result of the disease, nearly all of them homeless.

So the hepatitis A outbreak was an epidemic, a few short steps from a pandemic. Washing stations were provided then, and washing stations are being provided now, but so far nothing much has been done about the homeless situation in San Diego and elsewhere. Measure C on the ballot recently, which would have provided $25 million a year to address various issues dealing with the homeless population, failed because it didn't quite achieve a two thirds majority. It garnered about 64% of the vote while it needed 67% to become law. So close but no cigar. So now what? More hand washing stations evidently.

Governor Newsom has moved hundreds of homeless people into hotel rooms “to get people out of these encampments.”. This was after a homeless person died from the coronavirus. The Mercury News reported:

Officials have also said they plan to distribute trailers around the state where homeless people can shelter or be quarantined. And on Monday Newsom said shelters were working to create distance between beds to help stop the spread of the virus.

California has more than 100,000 residents who sleep on the streets on any given night, including thousands of people in the Bay Area.

“We will overwhelm ourselves if we don’t move with real urgency in this space,” he said.

Newsom said his team had identified more than 900 hotels that could be suitable for housing the homeless. His team, he said, was in the process of negotiating to convert some of them into temporary living quarters for the homeless.

Now that there is some urgency in dealing with the homeless situation, you'd think that the state would move to a more permanent solution or are they waiting for the coronavirus to subside so they can just let the homeless go back to living on the street. By the way, "Officials also said that homeless people would be exempt from a Bay Area-wide order to shelter in place. But they urged homeless people to seek shelter and said local governments should work to make shelter available as soon as possible." Really??

UPDATE:

From Voice of San Diego:

Supervisor Nathan Fletcher also noted the county is working to secure at least 2,000 motel rooms for vulnerable San Diegans – whether they are homeless, nursing home residents or simply don’t have a safe place to stay – who may be awaiting a test result or showing symptoms of coronavirus but not require hospitalization.

As of Monday, Fletcher said, the county had secured 227 rooms and the Regional Task Force on the Homeless is working to obtain more motel rooms for homeless San Diegans who are at risk of coronavirus who have not been referred by a healthcare provider.

Off the Top of My Head

Wouldn't It Be Great If This Level of Arousal Was Mustered for Global Warming?

by John Lawrence, March 14, 2020

The coronavirus is a world wide event affecting us all everywhere on planet earth. The other thing that affects us all on planet earth is global warming which, if nothing much is done about it, will result in the deaths of far more people. In fact it could be the entire human and mammal population. The coronavirus is a clear and present danger whereas global warming is a fuzzier and somewhere off in the future danger which, if not acted on now, will creep up on us until it's too late. The danger signs are all around us, but some of them are so far away that they are "out of sight, out of mind." Take sea ice for example.

The most recent Arctic report card from the U.S. government’s leading ocean scientists documents the precipitous loss of multiyear sea ice. When they began measurements in 1985, government scientists calculated that multiyear ice made up 16% of the total. This year, that had dropped to only 1% of Arctic sea ice—a 95% reduction in multiyear ice over the last 33 years. A comprehensive review of satellite data acquired at both poles is unequivocal in its assessment of accelerating trends, say scientists. Between them, Greenland and Antarctica lost 6.4 trillion tons of ice in the period from 1992 to 2017. This was sufficient to push up global sea-levels by 17.8 mm.

While people are perhaps overly concerned about the coronavirus, not much concern is being generated about antibiotic resistant germs. According to the CDC's report, "Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2019", more than 2.8 million antibiotic-resistant infections occur in the U.S. each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result. In addition, 223,900 cases of Clostridioides difficile occurred in 2017 and at least 12,800 people died. Actually this is something to be more concerned about than the coronavirus. Farmers have been feeding antibiotics to farm animals to get them to grow bigger and fatter sooner with the result that antibiotics have become more ineffective in humans. Shortly they won't be effective at all and people will die from all sorts of bacterial infections. Yet the free enterprise system has let farmers maximize their profits by getting farm animals to market sooner by the use of antibiotics.

In addition pharmaceutical companies are getting out of the business of developing new antibiotics because it's unprofitable. Business Insider reported in an article entitled, Pharmaceutical companies are backing away from a growing threat that could kill 10 million people a year by 2050:

Just two years after Novartis announced it would embrace the challenge of searching for cures for life-threatening infections known as superbugs, the drugmaker said last week it would exit antibacterial and antiviral research.

Novartis' retreat follows a growing trend of big pharmaceutical companies — including AstraZeneca, Sanofi, and Allergan — that are exiting from this type of research because of a lack of profit.

That leaves Merck, Roche, GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer as the remaining pharmaceutical companies with active antibiotic programs, according to Nature Biotechnology. Only 12 antibiotics have been approved since 2000.

Isn't this starting to sound like a broken record? There are no antibiotics being developed because it's not profitable. Farmers are allowed to feed farm animals antibiotics because it's more profitable. Green house gasses are spewed into the atmosphere because it's more profitable than rapidly developing renewable energy forms of transportation. One of the positive aspects of the coronavirus is that greenhouse gas emissions are down because of decline in automobile travel (commuting to work and events), air travel and cruise ship travel. In fact the economy would basically have to shut down to address global warming unless rapid investment in renewable energy infrastructure was ramped up simultaneously which would take up the slack from cutting down the oil based economy. In that respect alone the Green New Deal represents a far reaching and super intelligent understanding of just what is at stake. Global warming must be addressed while substituting an oil based economy for a renewable energy economy. If those two things don't happen at the same time, either the economy will go down the tubes or the planet earth will go down the tubes.

But America, due to its conservative economic attitude that diminishes the role of government in the economy and exalts the unregulated free market based economy, is powerless to do anything about those things that the free market system finds to be unprofitable. China, with its more authoritarian government, didn't hesitate to take drastic steps in dealing with the coronavirus with the result that the pandemic is all but over with in China. Meanwhile, it rages in other parts of the world particularly since the US has offshored all its pharmaceutical production to China thus maximizing profits for the pharmaceutical industry which charges average Americans enormous prices and produces prodigious profits.

How to Respond to the National Emergency

by Robert Reich

Monday, March 9, 2020

CEOs of the major Wall Street banks have been summoned to the White House to discuss the coronavirus its economic fallout. I’m told Trump administration is considering more corporate tax cuts, tax cuts targeted to the airlines and hospitality industries, and a temporary payroll tax cut. 

The bank CEOs will approve of all these. 

But they would be useless. They’d be too slow to stimulate the economy, and wouldn’t reach households and consumers who should be the real targets. And they’d reward the rich, who don’t spend much of their additional dollars, without getting money into the hands of the poor and middle-class, who do. 

In short, our imminent coronavirus and economic crises won’t respond to trickle-down economics. 

Instead, Congress must immediately enact an emergency $400 billion. 

The money should be used for

1. Coronavirus testing and treatment. 

2. Paid sick leave and family leave this year, renewable for next year if necessary.

3. Extended Medicaid and unemployment insurance.

4. Immediate one-time payments of $1000 to every adult and $500 per child, renewable for next year if necessary.

I don’t think this is an over-reaction to what’s imminent. It will help us prevent a health and economic calamity. 

'Unconscionable': Senate Republicans Block Emergency Paid Sick Leave Bill as Experts Declare Coronavirus Outbreak a Pandemic

Published on Wednesday, March 11, 2020

by Common Dreams

"Every last one of them should lose their jobs."

by Julia Conley, staff writer

 

88 Comments

Some commuters opt to wear respiratory masks during the afternoon commute at Montgomery BART station in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, March 4, 2020. (Photo: Ray Chavez/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)

Critics lambasted Senate Republicans on Wednesday after Sen. Lamar Alexander blocked a vote on an emergency paid sick leave bill hours after the World Health Organization officially declared the global coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) moved to speed the proposal through the legislative process so senators could quickly vote to guarantee all American workers 14 days of paid sick leave in the event of a public health emergency.

"For many of our workers―restaurant workers, truck drivers, service industry workers―they may not have an option to take a day off without losing their pay or losing their job," Murray said. "That's not a choice we should be asking anyone to make in the United States in the 21st century."

Claiming the bill would be an "expensive" and burdensome mandate for employers, Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, blocked the Senate from voting on the bill, saying it must be voted on first by the GOP-controlled Health Committee.

"This is unconscionable. Every last one of them should lose their jobs," said Alex Wall of CAP Action, of the Republican senators.

In the middle of a GLOBAL PANDEMIC, Senate Republicans just blocked emergency paid sick leave.

Yes, you read that right. This is unconscionable. Every last one of them should lose their jobs. https://t.co/fDwXGoCW7x

— Alex Wall (@AlexBWall) March 11, 2020

Murray, who sponsored the Senate bill, had argued that "may not have an option to take a day off without losing their pay or losing their job" if they become ill or if their children's schools close as a precautionary measure.

"That's not a choice we should be asking anyone to make in the United States in the 21st century," she said.

As Common Dreams reported Wednesday, public health experts are urging workplaces to adopt flexible sick leave policies in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 1,100 people in the U.S. so far. Allowing sick people to stay quarantined for at least 14 days could keep the American health system from becoming overloaded, they say.

The Democrats' plan fell far short of sick leave policies in many other industrialized nations. In the U.S., more than a quarter of workers aren't granted any paid sick leave from their employers.

Journalist David Dayen echoed Wall's sentiment that Senate Republicans must face consequences for blocking the bill.

"This is really bad, but also the ads write themselves, so perhaps not the end of the story," he tweeted.

Jacobin columnist Abi Wilkinson wrote on social media that senators, many of whom are old enough to be vulnerable to the coronavirus, are accustomed to being "cushioned from the impact of their decisions" and have likely not considered that they may interact with service industry workers who will be forced to work even when sick.

Killing off your own strongest voting demographic is a bold strategy https://t.co/OVZNYciVhS

— Abi Wilkinson (@AbiWilks) March 11, 2020

Presumably the median age of GOP Senators is fairly high too, do they realise this means the people who serve their coffee and clean their bathrooms are going to have to come in sick?

— Abi Wilkinson (@AbiWilks) March 11, 2020

"A bunch of septuagenarians with cadillac health care plans just told the working class to keep toiling through a pandemic even if it kills them," writer Brian Merchant added.

---

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Off the Top of My Head

Russia and Saudi Arabia Selling Oil at $40 a Barrel. US Fracking Industry in Deep Debt. Can't Survive at That Price.

by John Lawrence, April 11, 2020

As if the coronavirus was not a big enough threat to the US economy, Russia and Saudi Arabia are in a price war over oil driving the price down to $40 a barrel. The world now needs less oil because of the coronavirus, but Russia is still producing at the same rate. Not to be outdone Saudi Arabia is also maintaining its same level of production producing a glut on the world market. To be profitable at all the US shale oil industry needs prices to be at least $60 a barrel. So effectively, Russia is forcing the US fracking industry, which is totally overleveraged in the first place, into bankruptcy. To boot Russia can produce oil for less money than Saudi Arabia. The US has sanctioned Russia's oil industry in terms of the NORD II pipeline to Europe and its Turkstream pipeline to Turkey, but there is no way that Trump can sanction the price of a barrel of oil if Russia floods the market.

Market Watch reported:

The rapid growth of the U.S. shale industry is at the heart of a Russia-versus-Saudi Arabia crude-oil price war that threatens to upend a global economy already under threat from the spread of the coronavirus, experts said Monday.

“Russia has made no secret of the fact that it is concerned about the growth of the U.S. shale industry and of its view that repeated output cuts by OPEC were effectively handing market share to U.S. producers,” said Caroline Bain, chief commodities economist at Capital Economics, in a Monday note.

Russia’s rejection last week of a Saudi push for additional production cuts prompted Saudi Arabia over the weekend to slash prices on crude exports in a move analysts said was aimed at taking market share from Russia. But it was Russia’s longstanding frustration with rapidly growing U.S. shale industry that prompted Moscow to resist the push for additional production curbs.

Saudi Arabia over the weekend slashed prices on oil exports, a move that traders took as a sign that the Riyadh was ready to take on Russia in a global price war that would flood the world with crude at the same time demand is curtailed by the COVID-19 outbreak.

The fracking industry has survived basically on zero percent interest loans from Wall Street. The whole American economy is based on no interest loans with the Federal Reserve providing quantitative easing whenever banks or major industries needed money. The average American pays through the nose for a loan. The whole economy is on life support, and it would collapse unless it is continually salvaged by government deficit spending and the Fed flooding the markets with liquidity. The fracking industry and the banks that carry its loans are in trouble now because Russia is essentially controlling the price of oil and pricing it below what the fracking industry needs just to pay on its debts. Now that the world needs to consume far less oil because of restrictions on travel, less greenhouse gasses are going into the atmosphere. This is the silver lining which is not being talked about.

So now the world is at war, not one nation towards another nation, but the whole world vs the coronavirus. Finally the world is coming together against a common enemy. So far the world has not come together in the same way in the common fight against global warming. If it can come together in the fight against the coronavirus, why can't it come together in the fight against global warming which is far more serious. The coronavirus is so far only killing the elderly with underlying conditions. So nursing homes have to be very concerned about their patients, but so far in the US young people that have acquired the virus generally get over it just as they would with the flu virus. The coronavirus may kill millions, but global warming has the potential of killing billions.

'There Is Genuine Panic': Fears of Global Financial Meltdown as Human Toll of Coronavirus Grows

Published on Monday, March 09, 2020

by Common Dreams

President Donald Trump described as "the worst person to be in charge in this moment" as the number of known coronavirus cases in the U.S. topped 500 over the weekend.

by Jake Johnson, staff writer

 

46 Comments

Traders work the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on March 5, 2020 in New York City. (Photo: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Fears of a financial meltdown at least on the scale of the 2008 crisis intensified Monday as global markets were gripped by panic resulting from the spread of the coronavirus across the globe and the ensuing oil price war launched by Saudi Arabia over the weekend.

"The fear today is about a global recession," said Thomas Hayes, chairman of management firm Great Hill Capital, as markets headed for their worst day since the 2008 crash.

"Trump won't let people infected off of a cruise ship and into quarantine because he likes 'the numbers being where they are.' He'd rather keep the numbers down than help these folks. This is literally the worst person to be in charge in this moment."
—Jamil Smith, Rolling Stone

As the Washington Post reported Monday morning: "U.S. futures pointed to heavy losses on Wall Street on Monday. Overseas, London's FTSE 100 fell more than 8 percent to its lowest in three years; Japan’s Nikkei index slumped more than 5 percent and Australia's benchmark shed more than 7 percent. Oil prices suffered the sharpest plunge since the 1991 Gulf War, while 10-year U.S. bond yields dropped to a record low as investors sought safety."

While some urged caution in interpreting the meaning of daily market fluctuations, analysts said there is reason to fear that destructive economic crisis is on the horizon. Chris Weston, head of research at the Melbourne-based web trading platform Pepperstone, told The Guardian that "there is genuine panic" in the market, noting that he hasn't "seen anything like this for years."

Escalating market turbulence and warnings of a worldwide economic fallout came as the human toll of the coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, continued to grow. In the United States, the number of recorded cases surpassed 500 across 34 states and deaths rose to 22 as the Trump administration's lack of preparedness was on full display Sunday morning.

Asked about the White House's plan for the 3,500 passengers and crew members aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship—which is set to dock Monday at the Port of Oakland after 21 people on the vessel tested positive for COVID-19—U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson insisted that "the plan will be in place."

Pressed to elaborate, Carson admitted the plan "hasn't been fully formulated."

STEPHANOPOULOS: The Grand Princess is docking tomorrow. What's the plan for the 3,500 people on board?

BEN CARSON: They're coming up with one

S: It docks tomorrow

C: The plan will be in place

S: Shouldn't you be able to say what it is?

C: It hasn't been fully formulated pic.twitter.com/J717Q7q0DG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 8, 2020

U.S. President Donald Trump, for his part, told reporters Friday that he would prefer that the passengers remain aboard the Grand Princess because he doesn't want "to have the numbers double because of one ship," referring to the number of known coronaviruses cases in the United States.

"This is 25th Amendment stuff," tweeted Jamil Smith, senior writer for Rolling Stone. "Trump won't let people infected off of a cruise ship and into quarantine because he likes 'the numbers being where they are.' He'd rather keep the numbers down than help these folks. This is literally the worst person to be in charge in this moment."

Trump's remarks came just hours after the president falsely claimed that his administration "stopped" the spread of coronavirus in the U.S.

"The [coronavirus] tests are all perfect. Like the letter was perfect. The transcription was perfect. This was not a perfect as that, but pretty good." -- is Trump referring to the transcript of his phone call with the Ukrainian president here? pic.twitter.com/FU5XxPTu7Z

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 6, 2020

Meanwhile, Italy on Sunday ordered what the New York Times described as "an unprecedented peacetime lockdown of its wealthiest region," restricting movement for as much as a quarter of the country's population as the country struggled to contain the coronavirus outbreak.

"The Italian outbreak—the worst outside Asia—has inflicted serious damage on one of Europe's most fragile economies and prompted the closing of Italy's schools," the Times reported. "The country's cases nearly tripled from about 2,500 infections on Wednesday to more than 7,375 on Sunday. Deaths rose to 366."

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Off the Top of My Head

Finally, We're All in This Together

by John Lawrence, March 1, 2020

What has brought all the world together finally realizing their common humanity - the Coronavirus. You might think global warming would bring us all together to fight a common enemy, but, no, it took the threat of a pandemic. Global warming would only kill us more slowly; coronavirus is a clear and present danger. It can't be licked by taking up arms. It knows no national boundaries. Global warming is akin to the story of the frog who, put in a pot of water on a stove whose heat is gradually increased, realizes something is wrong too slowly until it's too late and he can't move his limbs to jump out. So he perishes. With the coronavirus you have to change the story. The frog is put into the pot of water and the heat is turned up rapidly. The frog, not being stupid, realizes something is wrong in time to jump out.

So will the present state of world affairs in which the US uses its dominance in arms to tell the rest of the world what to do work this time? You bet your bootie it will not. Will sanctions work? You bet your bottom dollar they will not. Only COOPERATION with the other countries of the world will work to solve this crisis. We will reluctantly have to put aside out arms, our F-35s, our wonderfully advanced ships, plane and missiles not to mention our very advanced drones, even our Space Force. All these tools of mass control and domination will have to be put aside because they are of no use whatsoever in winning the war against the coronsvirus. Finally, we will have to have some compassion for our enemies.

Finally, we are forced to realize how intertwined our economies really are. If China goes down, all the supply chains for Apple products among others go down. The US economy goes down. Will this wake us up that finally we must cooperate with China to get anything done or will we go back to the animosity of sanctions and military threats in the China Sea once this crisis is resolved. Probably we will because there is too much money at stake to carry on with cooperation with other nations. The military-industrial complex needs to get back to business as usual before too much time goes by and too many profits are held in abeyance or go down the drain prematurely.

Is the US capable of manufacturing anything or have those capacities been delegated to other countries while at the same time we are demonizing other countries whom we are doing business with or they are doing business with? Will they withhold their consumer products and even more inportant - vital necessities - as a pandemic shuts down production. Will US sanctions on countries reduce their abilities to control the virus while inexorably it spreads to our "Homeland"? If only we hadn't sanctioned them, maybe they would have been better able to check the virus in their own countries. Instead it may spread more rapidly to the country that sanctioned them.

Let's face it. With the threat of a worldwide pandemic, there are no allies; there are no enemies; there are no rivals. There are only human beings who will die one by one. No one is exempt. The mighty, the low - all are at risk. Kings and princes, oligarchs and billionaires, those with health insurance, those without. Let the rich pay and the market relegate those who cannot to the dustbin while the dustbin claims people regardless of their wealth. God forbid that those in high places are reduced to the lot of commoners. Even then will they refuse to pay for healthcare for all out of their largesse, maybe even out of their self interest realizing that the virus does not discriminate

Off the Top of My Head

What the World Needs Now

by John Lawrence, October 28, 2019

No, we don't need another aircraft carrier. We don't need another Aegis weapon system. We don't need a Paladin tank. What the world needs now is proper sanitation. An estimated 1.8 billion people (25% of the world's population) don't have access to adequate sanitation. They have no running water. They have no flush toilets. Because of this, approximately 140 million people develop dysentery each year, and about 600,000 die. Most of these deaths occur in developing countries among children under age five. They all die for lack of something we take for granted - a flush toilet and an adequate sanitation system. Access to safe sanitation reduces child diarrhea by 30 percent and significantly increases school attendance by the way. 

Because latrines in developing countries are such gross and smelly places, about 892 million people, or 12 percent of the global population, practice open defecation. Seventy-six percent (678 million) of the 892 million people practicing open defecation in the world live in just seven countries, India being the largest. What happens with the latrines is that the poop is hand scooped out and dumped in the rivers where it contaminates the water that children play in, and they get dysentery. All for the lack of something that Americans and Europeans take for granted - a flush toilet.

Clean water and adequate sanitation should be the basics provided to every human being worldwide. Instead the US is more concerned with the development of weapons systems. It took one very wealthy and intelligent American, namely Bill Gates, to decide to do something about this problem. He attacked it with all the considerable resources at his disposal and came up with a sanitary toilet that required no electricity or running water. Also a sanitation system was developed that required no electricity or running water. The problem was that these inventions were too expensive to deploy on a mass basis.

Gates has also done much to eradicate polio in the world. Again due to his considerable mental and financial resources, polio was almost eradicated in Nigeria until Boko Haram intervened and started killing vaccination workers. In India polio has been entirely eradicated. In 1988, when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched, polio was present in more than 125 countries and paralyzed about 1,000 children per day. Thanks to immunization efforts that have reached nearly 3 billion children, the incidence of polio has decreased by 99 percent since then. India, which was long considered the most difficult place to end the disease, hasn’t reported a polio case since 2011. Today, polio is found only in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria. These are the exact places that terrorism runs rampant. Maybe a functioning sanitation system would go a long way to eliminate terrorism as well.

But why isn't the United States with its considerable resources doing more to improve the lives of the world's population thus eliminating the breeding grounds for terrorism? There is USAID started by President John Kennedy. In FY 2016, USAID invested more than $441.5 million toward water and sanitation efforts in 47 countries and regions, including 13 high-priority countries. The Gates Foundation in and of itself spends almost that much in this area. Surely, a great country like the US could do a lot more. It spends 10,000 times as much on weapons systems development as it does on the development of basic life saving sanitation and clean water systems in the developing world. These are the US national priorities.

Bill Gates is trying to reinvent the toilet, not exactly a high tech undertaking. This is from the Gates website:

Bill Gates Launches Reinvented Toilet Expo Showcasing New Pathogen-Killing Sanitation Products That Don’t Require Sewers or Water Lines

Gates Foundation and Global Partners Announce Commitments to Advance Commercialization of Disruptive, Off-Grid Toilet Technologies

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

206-709-3400

[email protected]

follow @gatesfoundation

BEIJING, November 6, 2018 – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, with the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC), today joined global innovators, development banks, private-sector players, and governments at the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing. Together, they committed to accelerate the commercialization and adoption of disruptive sanitation technologies world-wide over the next decade. Rapid expansion of new, off-grid sanitation products and systems could dramatically reduce the global human and economic toll of unsafe sanitation, including the deaths of half a million children under the age of 5 each year and the more than $200 billion that is lost due to health care costs and decreased income and productivity.

Note how involved China is. If the US wants to make America great again, perhaps they should take a page out of China's book and participate in making the world a better place instead of just a better place for US weapons sales. China is taking a leading role in making the world a better place with its Belt and Road initiative and now with its efforts to reinvent the toilet. All the US is trying to do is to slow down China in a pathetic attempt to compete with them.

Off the Top of My Head

Third World Diseases Creeping Back Into America

by John Lawrence

One of the places that Professor Philip Alston, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, recently visited was Lowndes County Alabama. There there is an endemic crisis of hookworm, a disease that has been eliminated from most advanced industrialized countries, but not from Alabama. Loundes County is in the "black belt", a terminology that once referred to the black soil that forms a crescent through the state because it was so fertile. It was a great place to grow cotton in the slavery days, and many of the descendants are still there. Today the term is just as apt as a reference to them.

The Guardian reports:

Trump’s undermining of human rights, combined with the Republican threat to pare back welfare programs next year in order to pay for some of the tax cuts for the rich they are rushing through Congress, will hurt African Americans disproportionately.

Black people are 13% of the US population, but 23% of those officially in poverty and 39% of the homeless.

The racial element of America’s poverty crisis is seen nowhere more clearly than in the Deep South, where the open wounds of slavery continue to bleed.

It seems that in this Black Belt many families don't have access to adequate sanitation. Thousands of families live amid open sewers of the kind so common in the underdeveloped world, and, therefore, a disease of the developing world is thriving in the world’s richest country. Lowndes County is a majority black county that was the epicenter of the civil rights movement having been the setting of Martin Luther King’s Selma to Montgomery voting rights march in 1965. Despite its proud history, 70% of households in the area either “straight pipe” their waste directly onto open ground, or have defective septic tanks incapable of dealing with heavy rains.

The septic tanks back up into toilets and sinks when it rains, an unpleasant and unhealthy situation to say the least. Open sewage in Alabama. Homeless urinating and defecating on the streets of San Diego, LA and San Francisco. Hookworm, Hep A. Soon more once eradicated diseases will make their presence felt. Climate change wreaking havoc in Houston and Puerto Rico. It seems there is plenty of money for the war machine, but none for infrastructure, or health care. The health care system and infrastructure will have to wait because there is more killing to do in Third World countries while America becomes one of them itself.

Hepatitis A outbreak among homeless a byproduct of California’s housing crunch

From the Washington Post:

 

By Scott Wilson October 25 at 5:51 PM 

A homeless man sleeps along 14th Street in the East Village area of downtown San Diego on Sept. 26. (Sandy Huffaker/For The Washington Post)

SAN DIEGO — California’s exorbitant housing costs are driving a public-health crisis here, as a ­developing-world disease is racing through homeless encampments in cities along the coastThe hepatitis A outbreak in Los Angeles, Santa Cruz and San Diego, long considered a model of savvy urban redevelopment, is the extreme result of a booming state economy, now driving up home prices after years of government decisions that made low-cost housing more difficult to build.

Unlike in some other large U.S. cities, the homeless population in San Diego has been rising sharply, outstripping the local government’s ability to manage its scope. State lawmakers passed more than a dozen measures in the recent legislative session to address the state’s lack of affordable housing, none of which will help resolve the crisis in the short term.

Nowhere is the need more urgent than in this prospering city, where the number of people living on the streets rose 14 percent in the past year, tracing a hepatitis A outbreak that thrives in unsanitary conditions. Health officials believe an epidemic that has infected more than 500 people statewide since March began in San Diego County, where 19 people have died as a result of the disease, nearly all of them homeless.

Extremely rare in the United States, and rarely fatal when it does occur, hepatitis A attacks the liver and causes symptoms such as fever, nausea and jaundice. It is spread when a person ingests food or water tainted by the feces of someone who is infected — that is, it is a virus that stalks the unclean places where the poor are often consigned to live. California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) declared a state of emergency as the result of the outbreak this month.

“An epidemic like this in California — are you serious?” said Timothy Berry, 48, who lives amid the mattresses and tarps lined up along 16th and Island streets outside God’s Extended Hand mission.

Berry lives below the brushed-steel apartment buildings that in recent years have remade this city’s downtown, on streets that crews now power scrub with bleach. Portable toilets and hand-washing stations mark downtown corners in the shadows of buildings where sea kayaks are visible through the glass balconies of $2,000-a-month studios.

The first of three large, city-sanctioned tents opened earlier this month to bring some of the more than 9,000 homeless people into sanitary conditions, at least temporarily. A vaccination program that already has protected more than 65,000 residents continues with guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has called this outbreak the deadliest since it began tracking the disease in the United States two decades ago.

Paulina Bobenrieth, a nurse with the public health department, gives a hepatitis A vaccine to a homeless man in San Diego on Oct. 4. A hepatitis A outbreak has killed numerous homeless people and sent hundreds to hospitals. (Sandy Huffaker/For The Washington Post)

But the long-term solution is simple and elusive: constructing more housing that those on the streets, and the estimated 500,000 San Diego County residents living a missed paycheck away from homelessness, can afford.

continue reading ...

Hepatitis A Outbreak Tests Local Medical Community

From the San Diego Union-Tribune, September 23, 2017:

Virus is infecting more vulnerable populations

By Paul Sisson

 

 

Dr. Darcy Wooten is an infectious disease specialist at UCSD and has been treating patients with hepatitis A

 

As jaundice faded and abdominal pains subsided in July, it looked like the 61-year-old homeless man lying in a bed at UC San Diego Medical Center had beat the hepatitis A infection that had attacked his already-damaged liver.

But, after five days of positive medical signs, those symptoms unexpectedly returned, thrusting him back into a fight that his doctors thought was finished.

Dr. Darcy Wooten, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Diego and no relation to Dr. Wilma Wooten, the county’s public health officer, said the virus’ return was devastating for her patient.

“It’s hep A today, but it’s going to be something else tomorrow if we don’t address those underlying infrastructure issues,” Wooten said.

“Over the course of a week and a half to two weeks he went into liver failure and died,” Wooten said. “It was a case of relapsing hepatitis, which occurs in 10 percent of patients, but it’s not something I have seen in my career before.”

In recent months that has been the experience in several San Diego hospitals closest to the places where the region’s ongoing hepatitis outbreak has continued to grow. These are cases that no one has seen in recent memory.

“Hepatitis A illness is usually pretty mild. They may seek care or they may not seek care, but, in the past, it has usually not been severe enough to be admitted to the hospital,” Wooten said.

However, the situation has been different in this case because hepatitis A is infecting homeless people and drug users, a population known to be medically vulnerable.