Free Republic

Even the elders in Pakistan's Sindh province admit they've never seen anything like it: whole trees encased in webs by millions of invading spiders. The mysterious phenomenon may be an unexpected result of the devastating floods that swept over Sindh in 2010, reports Wired. According to scientists, the spiders likely collected in the trees after fleeing from the rising floodwaters. At their height, the floods covered as much as a fifth of the country and displaced as many as 20 million people. One unexpected blessing from the bizarre post-flood event is that the hungry spiders seem to be significantly reducing...

Fake and poor quality malaria drugs risk crisis in Africa, warn scientists Report calls for measures to prevent circulation of counterfeit and sub-standard medicines that threaten millions of lives Sarah Boseley, health editor guardian.co.uk, Monday 16 January 2012 19.51 GMT Hopes of controlling malaria in Africa could be wrecked by criminals who are circulating counterfeit and substandard drugs, threatening millions of lives, scientists are warning. They are calling for public health authorities to take urgent action to preserve the efficacy of the anti-malarials now being used in the worst-hit areas of the continent. /snip Artemisinins have replaced old medicines such...

It sounds like one of those diseases that should have been wiped out long ago, but malaria, unfortunately, is alive and well, especially in Africa and other tropical, third world locations. Battling malaria is complicated for numerous reasons, among them the difficulty of creating drugs to battle the disease. Now, however, Hebrew University researchers have come up with a novel method of producing the medicine that can treat malaria – using common, everyday tobacco plants. Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, which is transmitted via mosquitoes. Symptoms of malaria include fever, headache, and vomiting, and usually appear between...

Enlarge Image Blood tied. The malaria parasite P. falciparum, which is carried by the Anopheles mosquito (pictured in their larval stage), can't infect red blood cells without a particular protein. Credit: Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute The most dangerous malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is an unusually versatile bug. The single-celled safecracker carries a wide collection of protein "keys" that it can use to jimmy receptor "locks" on the surface of red blood cells, tricking the cells into letting it in. Block one of these entry points with a drug, and the parasite just uses a different key. But now, researchers...

Enlarge Image Promising jab. A baby receives a dose of the experimental malaria vaccine at a trial site in Kilifi, Kenya. Credit: David Poland/PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative The eagerly awaited results from the world's first large-scale trial of a malaria vaccine are in, and they confirm what other, smaller studies had shown: The vaccine, called RTS,S, offers partial protection, cutting episodes of malaria in babies and toddlers in half. Although not nearly as impressive as most vaccines currently in use, experts say the vaccine could help curtail malaria's massive death toll significantly. RTS,S was developed by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Biologicals...

Malaria-carrying mosquitoes are disappearing in some parts of Africa, but scientists are unsure as to why. Figures indicate controls such as anti-mosquito bed nets are having a significant impact on the incidence of malaria in some sub-Saharan countries. But in Malaria Journal, researchers say mosquitoes are also disappearing from areas with few controls. They are uncertain if mosquitoes are being eradicated or whether they will return with renewed vigour. Data from countries such as Tanzania, Eritrea, Rwanda, Kenya and Zambia all indicate that the incidence of malaria is dropping fast. Researchers believe this is due to effective implementation of control...

Is it possible that Chris Matthews has been drunk while hosting his MSNBC show? After all, there are only so many explanations for his horrible and unprofessional habit of slurring nearly every word he says on his TV show! What other TV host could get away with such lazy speech on a national news netwok? What were some of Matthews’s slurring language? He kept saying “Prez Obama” rather than “President Obama”, “Harbra” instead of “Hardball”, and “conserves” instead of “conservatives”.

Should Bill Gates be prosecuted?Bill Gates released a swarm of potentially deadly mosquitoes at a technology conference and yelled, 'There's no reason only poor people should get malaria'. What an idiot. While it is unlikely these mosquitoes were malaria carriers, there are a host of other potentially fatal diseases that mosquitoes carry. Among these diseases are various forms of encephalitis and West Nile virus that are common among North American Mosquitoes. My granddaughter got La Crosse encephalitis from mosquitoes a few years ago. She spent several very scary days in pediatric intensive care. Anyone who would deliberately release these potentially...

Wealth Does Not Equal Wisdom, Especially When it Comes to PhilanthropyWhat’s with these billionaires? Ted Turner donates hundreds of millions to the United Nations, which is well known for its incredible corruption. The UN oversaw the diversion of tens of billions in the Iraqi Oil for Food Scandal. This literally took away food, shelter, and clothing from its own men, women and children. The highest UN officials oversaw the multi billion dollar scams. The UN "peace keepers" traded food for sexual favors in Africa. After some 17 resolutions demanding to bring Iraq into compliance, the UN still chose to subvert...

Do any FReepers have experience with adverse side effects of malarial preventive meds ?? Our daughter is returning from a Central American country after arriving a week ago for a 6 week student exchange program. We received information thru their network that she was behaving abnormally, itching, depression, not bathing... We thought it was a bad case of homesickness. Then my wife spoke with her and realized it was not our normally happy daughter. She said she was not homesick, but felt depressed, no laughing past 4 days, lost feeling in parts of her body, thoughts about harming herself. The...

Lutheran World Relief, Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod and United Nations Foundation Announce $45 Million Campaign to Fight MalariaLutheran World Relief (LWR), The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the United Nations Foundation announced on Monday an unprecedented partnership to mobilize Lutherans in the United States in the fight against malaria in Africa.The campaign, called the Lutheran Malaria Initiative (LMI), aims to raise $45 million to contribute toward the global goal of eliminating malaria deaths in Africa by 2015. Malaria, a preventable and treatable disease, continues to devastate communities and perpetuate a cycle of poverty. According to the World Health Organization, nearly 1...

House Dem: Climate change bigger health threat than AIDS, malaria By Andrew Restuccia - 04/06/11 12:25 PM ET Just hours before a vote Wednesday on a GOP plan to block Environmental Protection Agency climate regulations, Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.) called climate change a bigger public health threat than AIDS, malaria and pandemic flu. Capps and several other liberal Democrats spoke out Wednesday morning in opposition to the legislation, authored by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.). The lawmakers, who were joined by officials from the American Lung Association and the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Upton...

George Clooney's recent humanitarian trip didn't end as smoothly as one would have hoped. CNN host Piers Morgan took to Twitter on Thursday to say the actor contracted malaria following his recent trip to Sudan. This is said to be Clooney's second bout with the disease. The actor was "taking medication, but feeling rough," added Morgan. A rep for the actor confirms the report, telling the Daily News, "George is completely over the malaria he contracted while in the Sudan during the first week in January." The actor made the statement during an interview on "Piers Morgan Tonight," which...

Major combat operations in the American Revolution ended 229 years ago on Oct. 19, at Yorktown. For that we can thank the fortitude of American forces under George Washington, the siegecraft of French troops of Gen. Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, the count of Rochambeau - and the relentless bloodthirstiness of female Anopheles quadrimaculatus mosquitoes. Those tiny amazons conducted covert biological warfare against the British army.Female mosquitoes seek mammalian blood to provide the proteins they need to make eggs. No blood meal,no reproduction. It makes them bold and determined to bite. Some anopheles mosquitoes carry the malaria parasite, which they can...

Humans may have originally caught malaria from gorillas, scientists say... researchers from the US, three African countries, and Europe have examined malaria parasites in great ape faeces. They found the DNA from western gorilla parasites was the most similar to human parasites. Malaria is caused by a parasite called Plasmodium, and is carried by mosquitoes. The most common species found in Africa, Plasmodium falciparum, causes dangerous cerebral malaria. Over 800,000 people die from malaria each year in the continent. Until now, scientists had assumed that when the evolutionary tree of humans split off from that of chimpanzees -- around five...

I wish I had a shilling for every time someone told me spraying homes with DDT to prevent malaria is like using Africans in evil experiments. I would be a rich woman. That claim is a blatant falsehood. Even worse, it hides the many ways poor Africans really are being used in environmental experiments that cause increased poverty, disease and death. If any people were ever used in DDT experiments, it was Americans and Europeans. During World War II, this insecticide and mosquito repellant was sprayed on tents and around camps to keep American and British soldiers from getting malaria....

Legal immigrants are required to have medical screening to ensure that they do not bring any contagious diseases into the United States. Illegal aliens are not screened and many are carrying horrific third world diseases that do not belong in the USA. Many of these diseases are highly contagious and will infect citizens that come in contact with an infected illegal alien. This has already happened in restaurants, schools, and police forces. Malaria was eradicated from the USA in the 1940s but recently there were outbreaks in southern California, New Jersey, New York City, and Houston. Additionally, Malaria tainted blood...

Legendary pharaoh Tutankhamun was probably killed by the genetic blood disorder sickle cell disease, German scientists said Wednesday, rejecting earlier research that suggested he died of malaria. The team at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in the northern city of Hamburg questioned the conclusions of a major Egyptian study released in February on the enigmatic boy-king's early demise. That examination, involving DNA tests and computerised tomography (CT) scans on Tutankhamun's mummy, said he died of malaria after suffering a fall, putting to rest the theory that he was murdered. But the German researchers said in a letter published...

A new combination treatment for malaria is as effective as the "gold standard" therapy for the disease, but only needs to be taken once a day rather than twice, The Lancet reported on Friday. The new treatment, combining pyronaridine and artesunate, was tested at seven sites in Africa and three in Southeast Asia alongside the standard drugs, artemether and lumefantrine. > Its success against malarial parasites was first found centuries ago in ancient China but was rediscovered by Chinese medical researchers in the early 1970s. >

Discovery may inform new strategies for blocking malaria transmissionWhat: Scientists studying the Anopheles gambiae mosquito – the main vector of malaria – have found that when the mosquito takes a blood meal, that act triggers two enzymes to form a network of crisscrossing proteins around the ingested blood. The formation of this protein barrier, the researchers found, is part of the normal digestive process that allows so-called "healthy" or commensal gut bacteria to grow without activating mosquito immune responses. But there is a downside: The barrier also prevents the mosquito's immune defense system from clearing any disease-causing agents that may...

A type of bacteria that infects many insects may make mosquitoes more resistant to viruses that can be dangerous to humans, researchers have found. The discovery could be helpful in the battles against two painful and sometimes fatal diseases, dengue and chikungunya. Last year, researchers showed they could take Wolbachia bacteria from fruit flies and infect mosquitoes with it, cutting their already brief life spans by half. That discovery was important because most of the malaria transmitted by female mosquitoes is transmitted late in their lives. They must pick up the parasites by biting an infected human, and it takes...

I am a scientist, not a climatologist, so I don’t dabble in climatology. My speciality is the epidemiology of mosquito-borne diseases. As the film began, I knew Mr Gore would get to mosquitoes: they’re a favourite with climate-change activists. When he got to them, it was all I feared. In his serious voice, Mr Gore presented a nifty animation, a band of little mosquitoes fluttering their way up the slopes of a snow-capped mountain, and he repeated the old line: Nairobi used to be ‘above the mosquito line, the limit at which mosquitoes can survive, but now…’ Those little mosquitoes...

Nature has recently published an interesting paper which places severe limits on Darwinian evolution...

Malaria kills nearly a million people each year, mostly children under 5 and especially in Africa. Infected mosquitoes inject immature malaria parasites into the skin when they bite; these travel to the liver where they mature and multiply. From there, they enter the bloodstream and attack red blood cells -- the phase that makes people sick. In a daring experiment in Europe, scientists used mosquitoes as flying needles to deliver a "vaccine" of live malaria parasites through their bites. The results were astounding: Everyone in the vaccine group acquired immunity to malaria; everyone in a non-vaccinated comparison group did not,...

Artemisinin-based medicines fail a growing number of patients in Cambodia. The malaria parasite, carried by mosquitoes, is growing resistant to artemisinin-based drugs.James Gathany / CDC Malaria parasites in Cambodia are becoming increasingly resistant to the drug hailed as the world's best chance to eradicate the disease.Artemisinin-based drugs are currently the best weapon against malaria, a disease which kills around a million people every year and is spread by mosquitoes carrying malaria parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum. These parasites have already developed resistance to drugs such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, once the front line against the disease, so hopes have been...

Culture/Society Editorial EditorialSource: The Telegraph (U.K.)Published: 07/19/2001 Author: Terence KealeyPosted on 07/18/2001 16:55:32 PDT by Pokey78 THE World Health Organisation, Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the UN environmental programme and its development programme, USAID, and almost all the other international representatives of the great and the good now campaign against DDT. But, perversely, the Third World still uses it. To those who believe that America under George W Bush and his gas-guzzling, permafrost-drilling accomplices is the source of all global pollution, this Third World defection is disappointing. Where are the virtuous blacks when we need them? DDT was introduced...

Yesterday Chris Matthews invited on Salon.com's Editor in Chief Joan Walsh to link the Holocaust Museum shooter to Rush Limbaugh but it was the "Hardball" host himself, on Thursday's show, who connected Sarah Palin to James von Brunn as he wondered if the Alaska Governor was "getting very close to the edge," of the same "attitude" of the "far right," and questioned "Is she talking their language?" After playing a clip of Palin expressing her concern that the federal government could get more involved in the running of the states, something any governor of a state would rightfully be worried...

In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result. The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim "is to achieve a 30% cut...

For two years the United Nations paid lip service to the truth that the insecticide DDT is a vital component of malaria control, but last week UN abandoned science in favor of superstition. The result is UN promotion of more dangerous and less efficient malaria control techniques. On May 5th, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Environment Program announced plans to reduce DDT use by 30% by 2014 and completely eliminate it by around 2020. In the mean time, the UN will roll out initiatives in 40 countries to test non-chemical methods of malaria control. In particular...

Yeah, it was a big joke when there was a race for the first to have a millions "tweeps" -- twitter friends. But Ashton Kutcher won the crown and he made a silly situation mean a lot more when he promised to make a big donation to help fight malaria.Malaria infects 300-500 million people worldwide annually, according to UNICEF statistics. Nearly 1 million people die each year from the mosquito-borne disease. The majority of deaths are to children in sub-Saharan Africa. You can read more about what Christian organizations are trying to do at this link:http://everydaychristian.com/news/story/1787/and you can make a donation to World Vision's...

This is Bakouma Kpatekatola, a young man from the West African nation of Togo. In 2003, when Bakouma was 9 years old, my family became his sponsor through the Childreach-Plan USA organization. In the years since we became occasional pen pals; a few times a year we'd get a letter from him, in his native French, along with an English translation from his caseworker. Continued

"Climate Change" does. About the only thing that climate change is demonstrably the cause of is a complete abandonment of irony and reason by those who preach it. This is yet another illustration of how rampant climate change envirodorkism beats up on poor people. This sick, twisted movement is full of faux do-good nutcases who couldn't intellectually grasp the obvious if it broke into their closed minds with a crowbar.

To make his point about the deadly and fearsome plague of malaria, Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes on the unsuspecting crowd at the Technology, Entertainment Design Conference in Long Beach, California. Did Gates plan on infecting some rich folks to prove his point? The answer is yes, although Gates quickly pointed out that the pests released were not malarial. Mr. Moneybags only intended to infect his audience with guilt. And guilt-inducement is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel. It has become the go-to move for so-called progressives when intellectual argument fails and one can't muster the facts...

TED, the annual gathering of the most pretentious people from the fields of technology, entertainment, and design, just got punk'd. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates released a swarm of mosquitos into the crowd. Ending malaria is a particular passion of Gates's, whose Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has spent millions fighting the disease. But he apparently didn't feel like TED attendees were taking the threat seriously. "Not only poor people should experience this," Gates said as he let the bugs loose on his audience, according to Facebook manager Dave Morin. (eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and Twitter CEO Ev Williams confirm the...

A team of Monash University researchers led by Professor James Whisstock has made a major breakthrough in the international fight against malaria, which claims the life of a child across the world every 30 seconds. The research, performed in collaboration with Professor John Dalton at the University of Technology, Sydney, provides a new approach to treating and controlling the disease that is contracted by half a billion people and causes around 1 million deaths a year. The team, based at the Monash University ARC Centre of Excellence in Structural and Functional Microbial Genomics, has been able to deactivate the final...

“That spirit of looking out for one another, that core value that says, ‘I am my brother’s keeper, I am my sister’s keeper,’ that spirit is most evident during times of great tragedy. It’s most evident during times of great hardship, it’s most when natural disasters strike. We all understand that we have to come together.” – Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (D-Ill.) on the campaign trail, Sept. 2, 2008 Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) frequently claims on the hustings, as part of his campaign for the presidency, that he would like to usher in a new era of “change” where Americans...

June 10, 2008, 6:00 a.m. Drug Resistance Is DeadlyPharmaceutical knock-offs may threaten our ability to treat malaria. By Roger Bate Thai government officials, led by commerce permanent secretary Siriphol Yodmuangcharoen, will meet with their Washington counterparts on June 10, hoping to persuade the U.S. Trade Representative to remove Thailand from its “Priority Watch List.� Thailand is one of nine countries listed, earning its place because of intellectual property-rights violations by the previous Bangkok government — which broke patents on AIDS and heart drugs, undermining its trade relationship with the U.S., and harming foreign investment. While the U.S. will continue...

While Chinese and Indian government-backed companies continue to produce DDT for their own public health programmes, and for export, no western company has produced DDT for over a decade. Major chemical companies such as Bayer, Dow Chemical, Du Pont and BASF produce alternative products, and have incentives to see DDT phased out. Bayer actually agitated against the use of DDT, abusing its position as private sector delegate to the Roll Back Malaria Partnership, as reported in the Financial Times. AFM was alone among advocacy groups to raise this as a concern. The reality is that DDT is probably the most...

Inconvenient Truths and Global Crises by: Bethany Stotts, May 05, 2008 Many of the world’s tragedies can be traced back to radical environmentalist movements, argued Competitive Enterprise Institute Fellow Iain Murray at a recent book forum. He said, “Rather…the mainstream model, the paradigm if you will, for receiving very desirable environmental ends has an inbuilt capacity for enduring disaster.” In his new book, The Really Inconvenient Truths, Murray argues that most destructive environmentalist movements following Rachel Carson display a similar trajectory: 1. “create a populist moral fervor;” 2. “deride anyone who opposes you as evil;” 3. “get the laws passed;”...

Environmentalists have condemned a trial plan to deploy millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in Malaysia to fight dengue fever, a report said Sunday. A mosquito bloated with blood it inserts its stinger into a human's arm. Environmentalists have condemned a trial plan to deploy millions of genetically modified mosquitoes in Malaysia to fight dengue fever, a report said. Malaysia has expressed concern about the insect-borne scourge after 25 people were killed in the first three months of the year. The New Sunday Times newspaper said the genetically modified (GM) male mosquitoes will be first freed in Ketam island, a fishing...

In a ceremony in the Oval Office this morning, President Bush officially proclaimed April 25, 2008 to be Malaria Awareness Day (Transcript) America is a compassionate country that feeds the hungry and protects the vulnerable because we believe every human life has inherent dignity and matchless value. As the people of Africa continue their struggle against malaria, we offer our support and steadfast commitment. We call on all nations to join us in a great humanitarian effort. The president made a brief statement on the economy (Transcript) before boarding Marine One with First Lady Laura Bush for a day trip...

Today, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee will hold a hearing on the implications of climate change for human health. Malaria will top the menu, but so will ignorance and disinformation.The lead witness will be Dr. Jonathan Patz of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has suggested that U.S. energy policy may be "indirectly exporting diseases to other parts of the world." Dr. Patz, the World Health Organization (WHO) and others claim that global warming is now spreading disease and may be the cause of some 160,000 deaths a year.In 2007, for example, WHO pointed to rising temperatures...

SEATTLE  —  Within the next 18 months, medical researchers will be asking people in Seattle to volunteer to be exposed to the deadliest form of malaria to help them test the effectiveness of vaccine candidates.The Seattle Biomedical Research Institute is collaborating with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative to accelerate malaria vaccine research by opening a new vaccine testing center in Seattle's south Lake Union neighborhood.Scientists at the center will use early testing of vaccines to weed out those that don't work so they can speed up research on the ones that are effective. Malaria vaccine testing has already begun...

Last year, challenging global health orthodoxy, Bill and Melinda Gates called for the eradication of malaria. That is, for exterminating the parasite everywhere and forever, except perhaps in laboratory storage, as has thus far happened to just one disease in history, smallpox. Their call, delivered at a malaria conference that they had convened in Seattle, was, in Mrs. Gates’s language, “audacious.” Her husband went further, asking, “Why would anyone want to follow a long line of failures by becoming the umpteenth person to declare the goal of eradicating malaria?” To many public health leaders, that remains a good question. While...

Mr Bush handed out bed nets on his visit to Arusha President George W Bush has said the US will help provide 5.2 million mosquito nets as part of a broader campaign to tackle malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.Mr Bush announced the plan during a visit to a hospital in Arusha, Tanzania, where he is on the second leg of a tour of five African countries. He said it would provide free nets for every Tanzanian child aged one to five. Malaria is the main cause of death for children in Africa, killing a child every 30 seconds, the UN...

As high waters recede, officials rush to ward off onset of disease VILLAHERMOSA, MEXICO — Holding her pale, 18-month-old grandson in her arms in Tabasco's flooded state capital, Marisela Aceituno wondered whether the infant's vomiting and diarrhea was a sign of the dreaded C word. Cholera. "Everything I give him he throws up," Aceituno said as she stroked Christopher's curly brown hair. With animal carcasses rotting in doorways and disease-carrying mosquitoes in the air, Mexican authorities are racing to prevent Tabasco from turning into a hot zone. Cholera, malaria and dengue fever, they say, could pose an even bigger risk...

Tuesday, 30 October 2007, 11:55 GMT Blood findings bring malaria hope Researchers could be a step closer to a cure for malaria after discovering people with blood group O are naturally protected from its most severe forms. Edinburgh University has found blood type O people are significantly less likely to experience the most life-threatening effects of malaria. It is hoped the discovery will help develop drugs which mimic the properties of red cells. Red cells in O group blood prevent malaria worsening. "We may be able to reduce the number of children dying from severe malaria in sub-Saharan Africa"Dr...

Malaria isn’t history. According to the World Health Organization(WHO), malaria kills more than one million people each year. More than 40% of the world’s population is at risk, in areas such as Africa, Central America, Hispaniola, India, the Middle East, Oceania, South America, and Southeast Asia. Children and pregnant women are most at risk. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) report that malaria is the fourth leading cause of death for children under five years of age worldwide. A child dies of malaria every 30 seconds.

The world’s most promising malaria vaccine has been shown to work in infants less than a year old, the most vulnerable group, according to a study being published today. The study, being published in The Lancet, a British medical journal, was small, comprising only 214 babies in Mozambique, and intended to show only that the vaccine was safe at such young ages. But it also indicated that the risk of catching malaria was reduced by 65 percent after the full course of three shots. “We’re now a step closer to the realization of a vaccine that can protect African infants,”...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have developed an experimental vaccine that could, theoretically, eliminate malaria from entire geographic regions, by eradicating the malaria parasite from an area's mosquitoes. The vaccine, so far tested only in mice, would prompt the immune system of a person who receives it to eliminate the parasite from the digestive tract of a malaria-carrying mosquito, after the mosquito has fed upon the blood of the vaccinated individual. The vaccine would not prevent or limit malarial disease in the person who received it. An article describing this work was published on the Web site of...