Free Republic

One of the biggest problems confronting higher education is the fact that most students entering colleges and universities lack basic social science skills and knowledge. In a recent survey of college students in Buffalo, for example, almost half did not know who George Pataki is. Eighty percent had no idea, correct or incorrect, as to what communism is. Nearly the same number of students couldn’t define capitalism. For whatever reason, social science education in America has collapsed at the high school level. For a democracy that relies on an informed electorate, such ignorance is toxic.

‘We cannot allow it to be said by history that the difference between those who lived and those who died in the great storm and flood of 2005 was nothing more than poverty, age or skin color.” - Representative Elijah Cummings It’s painfully difficult for me to wrap my mind around images of Americans lying dead by the score, their corpses being eaten by rats and dogs. As a brave new America trudges forward into the 21 st Century armed with a new set of national priorities, there’s something acutely unnatural about this disaster. First of all, it didn’t have...

In early November of 2004 I wrote about George W. Bush’s first post-reelection appointment – his selection of anti-abortion activist Dr. W. David Hager to head the FDA’s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee. This was the same Dr. Hager who wrote that women suffering from PMS need only to turn to the bible for help. In his private practice he refused to prescribe birth control medication to unmarried women. As a Republican political activist Hager opposed the sale of birth control drugs he identified as abortifacients. In essence, by putting an avowed opponent of reproductive health in charge of reproductive...

It’s becoming perfectly clear that if all eligible voters are allowed to vote in the upcoming US presidential election, and if all of those votes are properly counted, George W. Bush’s political career will be over. Fool Me Once… Former Bush voters are popping up everywhere, proclaiming their plans to switch over and oppose the man who duped them. Old school conservatives are appalled at Bush’s neo-liberal trade policies and his assault on civil liberties and the constitution. Pious evangelicals are speaking out about all the lies, greed and mistreatment of the poor. The Gipper’s son, Ron Reagan Junior, just...

SARS Epidemic May Reemerge, CDC Director Warns Wed June 18, 2003 03:04 PM ET CHICAGO (Reuters) - Like deadly flu epidemics of the past, SARS may reemerge later this year as a global health threat, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. Dr. Julie Gerberding pointed out that infectious diseases like SARS and monkeypox are spread around the world by travelers or by trade in exotic animals. "This is the new normal: emerging infectious diseases ... that create immediate global concerns because of the movement of people and animals," Gerberding said in a...

TORONTO -- Test results on a man who died at an Oshawa hospital early this month show evidence he may have been infected with SARS. But officials said yesterday it was too soon to suggest SARS had spread to another hospital in the region because testing of specimens produced conflicting findings. If it turns out this is a case of severe acute respiratory syndrome, it will raise many questions about how the man contracted the disease. He was known to have been in close proximity to two SARS patients at the hospital, but died too soon after contact for them...

<p>CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- One of two patients being monitored in the Triangle for possible exposure to SARS died Friday. Preliminary tests from the Centers for Disease Control were negative. Meanwhile, dozens of people in the Triangle are under quarantine for possible exposure to SARS.</p>

Toronto's most notorious export, may have spread in this tightly knit university town. With one confirmed case of SARS in its midst, employees at a University of North Carolina support building learned yesterday two more of their colleagues are in isolation and suffering from respiratory illness. The news heightened anxiety among the town's residents. "We are very highly concerned," North Carolina state epidemiologist Dr. Jeffrey Engel said in an interview. "That concern will last until we can determine whether there have been secondary infections in this case." Pete Reinhardt, director of health and safety at UNC, said the two show...

NEW SARS OUTBREAK HITS A further 20 possible cases of Sars have been detected in Toronto, Canada. The city has been placed back on the World Health Organisation list of Sars infected areas following the news, which came just 12 days after it was taken off. Dr Donald Low, chief of microbiology at Mount Sinai Hospital, said doctors were monitoring health care workers at a hospital north of Toronto as the virus burrowed deeper into the city's hospitals. "We're up to about 20 health care workers and haven't finished counting," said. The possible new infections are in addition to 26...

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Doctors in Hong Kong have detected permanent damage, or scarring, in the lungs of some recovered SARS patients as scientists around the world race against time to uncover more about the deadly disease. The territory, among the worst hit in the world from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, faced more chilling news when authorities disclosed 12 discharged patients had experienced relapses. Six of them were still in hospital. Scarring, or pulmonary fibrosis, occurs when lung tissues die and are unable to transport oxygen. The level of disability depends on the extent of the damage. Radiologists at a...

SARS Death Rate Increases to 16% - 25% and the Mutating Virus Attacks Many Vital Organs There is more evidence that SARS may be much worse than World Health Officials are admitting. In fact, my research convinces me that health officials are very worried about this deadly new virus. I am deeply concerned about the correct computation of the death rate percentage. Thus far, authorities are simply dividing the number of deaths by the total number of SARS cases. That causes the death rate to be understated in my view. Some medical experts in public health agree with my position....

SARS BUG DEADLIER THAN AIDS SAYS DOC Apr 24 2003 A LEADING doctor has warned the SARS virus could be more devastating than AIDS. Dr Patrick Dickson called on world governments to act to stamp out the threat from the deadly respiratory illness. Dr Dixon, one of Europe's experts on predicting global trends, said it could be more dangerous than AIDS because of its ability to spread quickly. He said: "It is worth remembering that AIDS has infected 80 million people so far over 15 to 20 years. "AIDS spreads slowly so we can track it and plan for it....

Beijing Posts Surge in SARS Cases as Infection Fears Mount By ERIK ECKHOLM The New York Times BEIJING, April 23 Reported cases of a new respiratory disease in Beijing surged by 105 new cases today, bringing the total to 693, as the threat of deadly infection suddenly became the main topic of conversation in this metropolis of 14 million. Migrant workers and college students lined up warily at railroad stations for tickets to their native provinces while thousands of residents, on rumors of possibly draconian quarantines, thronged to grocery stores to stock up on rice and noodles. Health experts warned...

<p>BEIJING — The mayor of Beijing was fired following the disclosure of a steep increase in SARS cases in China's capital and charges he mishandled the outbreak of the deadly illness, state-run media said Monday.</p> <p>The dismissal of Mayor Meng Xuenong came shortly after he and China's health minister were removed from key Communist Party posts, and the Health Ministry announced that the number of cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Beijing had jumped from 37 to 339. The number rose to 448 later Monday.</p>

CTV.ca News Staff There is more bad news this morning for Canada in the battle against SARS. U.S. officials have confirmed that Toronto has exported a case of the pneumonia-like illness to North Carolina. The 47-year-old man developed a fever and pneumonia after visiting the city. While he did visit a patient in a health care facility, exactly how he contracted SARS is a mystery. The man visited the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care in north Toronto on May 16 and 17. Two people who shared the room with the person he visited came down with SARS, but five to...

The virus of atypical pneumonia has been created artificially, possibly as a bacteriological weapon, believes Sergei Kolesnikov, Academician of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. He expressed this opinion at a news conference in Irkutsk (Siberia) on Thursday. According to him, the virus of atypical pneumonia is a synthesis of two viruses (of measles and infectious parotiditis or mumps), the natural compound of which is impossible. This can be done only in a laboratory, the academician is convinced. He also said that in creating bacteriological weapons a protective anti-viral vaccine is, as a rule, worked out at the same time....

Virus detectives seek source of SARS in China's wild animals Researchers investigating the source of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) have turned their attention to the wild-animal markets of southern China. The move follows reports that workers and animals at the markets show high rates of infection with coronaviruses, the family to which the virus believed to cause SARS belongs. The possible link to wild animals emerged on 23 May 2003, when a team from the University of Hong Kong revealed that a coronavirus resembling the SARS virus had been isolated from 6 masked palm civets (_Paguma larvata_) and a...

Taiwan records biggest daily leap in infections TAIPEI - Taiwan yesterday announced its biggest one-day jump in new Sars cases, amid a disturbing rise in cases of transmission within hospitals. The Mackay Memorial Hospital in Taipei yesterday became the third major hospital to report an outbreak in two days, adding pressure to the island's already strained health system. A spokesman said the hospital was investigating how seven doctors and nurses - all using full protection - developed Sars symptoms. Ninety other workers were quarantined. Dr Lee Ming-liang, head of the Cabinet's Sars committee, said: 'Infections at hospitals in the past...

What is SARS? SARS stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. The organism concerned primarily attacks the lungs. Victims develop a high fever, headache and dry cough followed by shortness of breath. Approximately 20-25 per cent of patients go on to develop pneumonia and some of those die. You are much more likely to die if you have another medical condition or are over the age of 40. Remarkable progress has being made in the last few weeks by research laboratories worldwide. How can scientists have made so much progress so quickly? Very recent advances in genetics have made it possible...

Every week brings new questions about SARS--and sometimes, glimmers of answers. Last week, many of the questions centered on the genome of the new coronavirus believed to be the culprit. Since a Canadian research group first posted its entire sequence online on 13 April, genome information for nine other virus isolates has become available on the Web. Researchers around the world have devoured the genetic code like a pack of wolves, searching for clues to the virus's origins, behavior, and future. After press time this week, Science was set to publish online a paper analyzing the genome from the BCCA...

Super-spreaders fan SARS fears By M.A.J. McKENNA The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Health authorities are watching uneasily for an event that could reverse their apparent success in containing the U.S. outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome: the arrival of a so-called super-spreader. There are 41 probable cases of SARS in the country, and only two sufferers were infected by other Americans. In Asia and Canada, by contrast, clusters of 20, 50 and more than 100 cases have been caused by single highly infectious individuals. A 26-year-old Singaporean infected more than 100 people -- including her parents, grandmother, uncle, brother and pastor. A...

LAST week, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said that Sars could become a global epidemic if it 'maintains its present pathogenicity and transmissibility'. It hedged that predictions were problematic 'until we understand what is going on in China', but those statements nevertheless sent more jolts of fear into an already nervous world. Pathogenicity, or the power of an organism to produce disease, is thought of as follows: If newly-infected Sars patients infect, on average, fewer than one person each, fewer and fewer people will be infected with each round of infection. If this 'basic reproductive number' is less than one,...

<p>The fatality rate for severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, has been widely reported as 4 percent. But many experts take issue with the way the CDC is calculating the death rate -- and say that the infection may be much more, or less, deadly.</p>

WASHINGTON--Some of the starkest early reports about the deadly SARS pneumonia came not from health authorities, but from Internet discussions in which emergency-room physicians swapped details about the start of the epidemic. An intensive-care specialist at a hospital in Hong Kong, a community virtually shuttered by the virus, riveted his colleagues with dispatches from the SARS, or Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, front lines. "There are now 145 confirmed cases in the Prince of Wales Hospital," Tom Buckley wrote in an e-mail message last month. "New cases (first contact) tend to bring their families (second contact). Close family contacts seem to...

SEVERE ACUTE RESPIRATORY SYNDROME - WORLDWIDE (09) ************************************************** A ProMED-mail post ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases This report contains information on virology studies on patients with SARS from: [1] Hong Kong, SAR [2] Germany [3] Singapore and [4] WHO's update on virology ****** [1] Date: Wed, 19 Mar 2003 19:16:42 +0800 From: "John Tam" Severe acute respiratory syndrome - worldwide --------------------------------------------- We are able to confirm that the patient whose NPA [nasophayngeal aspirate] was found to contain paramyxovirus is a health care worker with SARS who was exposed to the index patient in the...

Disturbing the Peace Creepy “FReepers” Target Activists By Michael I. Niman ArtVoice 3/13/03 The Cayuga Coalition for Peace meeting had just gotten under way at an Auburn, New York church earlier this month when a tall stocky smile-less middle-aged man quietly entered the building. Refusing to join the meeting at a large table in the center of the room, he instead settled into a chair off to the side, took out a pad, and began scribbling notes. Coalition members would later learn he was labeling them as “commy#1” [sic.], “commy#2” [sic.] and so on, recording everything they said and did....