it' wasn't patient x

That flight attendent who had sex with half of the original cases of HIV was not the cause of the epidemic.

the virus was already here.

The study came from the HepB epidemic information in gay men: Most folks don't know that the valuable vaccine was made from investigating the HepB epidemic. Before these easily found cases were used, Hep B was called "serum hepatitis" and was mainly found in those who got blood, or in medical personnel.

Alberta opposes eugenics

they kill Indigenous people, don't they?

Metis (and ex MP) Mrs Gay Caswell (and the Catholic bishops of Alberta) are pointing out the legal irregularities of the Suicide bill in Canada mandated by their courts and then rammed through the Parliament with little discussion by Baby Trudeau....

she points out that the public was told the court decision was final, but as an MP she knows there is a clause that lets parliament overturn decisions that go against (section 31 of the Canadian Charter).

Hmm... maybe the US should have a similar way to stop the court system from making law, which is after all supposed to be done by the people's elected representatives...

The Indigenous people of Alberta were victims of the Eugenics movement in the 1920's, so like the Black Americans who remember the Tuskegee project, they tend to be suspicious....
and if you think this is about personal freedom, well, follow the money.

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speaking of medical problems: CDC on poor coverage by influenza vaccine.

Ironically, it is not a strong vaccine, so giving it to adults, caretakers, and children would do more to stop the elderly from catching it than actually giving the vaccine to those whose immune system might be too weak to develop immunity.
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CDC reports 12 percent of working age Americans have at least one disability.

Polio like Enterovirus

The WAPO article about cases of polio like paralysis from an enterovirus.

Just a couple dozen cases a year, but a recent upspike in cases has people worried.

I am old enough to remember the polio epidemics in the 1950's, when we couldn't go to the local swimming pool in August because of the outbreak. Two of my friends caught polio, and in later years I met two doctors who had caught the disease caring for folks (one who ended up in a wheelchair).

Polio is an "enterovirus": The virus causes stomach flu/diarrhea. Only one strain of the polio virus causes paralysis.

But we also learned that other enteroviruses could cause paralysis, but that these cases were rare. But when we had outbreaks of some types, we also would see viral meningitis or encephalitis.

So this is not a puzzle, but I will report more when I see the actual CDC or medical articles on the virus.

Medical news: Hillary Polio and EColi

LINK Hillary has lost TedRall, a Bernie supporter:

Access should be, has to be in a democracy, determined solely by meritocratic criteria. Political leaders like Hillary Clinton need to be meeting with people who can offer them the best advice and who need the most help -- not those who bought their way in. Anyone who doesn't understand that access always equals corruption, even when access doesn't result in favors, doesn't deserve to hold political office.

about the Clinton foundation's appearance of ethical problems. Give money for a good cause, get a visit with the secretary of state. Results are not guaranteed so it's not bribery.

of course, in Mrs Clinton's case, there are also questions about getting huge sums for corportate speeches.

and the meme that 80 percent of the Clinton Foundation money goes to "overhead" is wrong, as Polifact explains:

While measuring charitable endeavors by the amount of grants awarded may be appropriate for many private foundations, it is not for an organization that acts as a direct service provider like the Clinton Foundation."

They name three such grass roots initiatives, which would require only small grants if they had outsourced it. They go on to say that actually if you include the many foundations that exist under the Clinton foundation umbrella, that over 85 percent of their funding goes to "program services".

And then Polifact insists:

While measuring charitable endeavors by the amount of grants awarded may be appropriate for many private foundations, it is not for an organization that acts as a direct service provider like the Clinton Foundation."

they then bring up that they got cheap generics for poor HIV patients in Africa.

Heh. I wrote about that last week: That they got them from a company who was fined for faking their quality control data. And since substandard, fake and counterfeit medicine is a major problem in the third world, getting a bargain generic is not always a good thing.

From the right wing WashingtonExaminier:

Clinton denied on Sunday that she participated in any foundation activities while she served as secretary of state, employing a new defense of its operations by highlighting the negotiated healthcare deals.But under her leadership, at least a handful of the State Department's global health efforts relied on drug companies that were also major Clinton Foundation donors in arrangements that raise questions about the distance Clinton kept from her family's philanthropy

So where does the money go? InsidePhilanthropy notes that the organization is so complicated that few can actually follow the money.

I'll have to read it later.

but the UKMail has an article on Jerome Corsi's book, and he was on C2C recently about the problem. VideoLink. He's a nut case, of course, and I would put an article from the MSM to refute this, but all their articles seem to be (correctly) pointing out that this guy is a cospiracy theorist, but not actually discussing his accusations. Sigh. Ad hominem attacks before facts. And the question is if the generic medicines didn't work, and if as Corsi claims that many of those getting the medicines died.

Glenn Greenwald interview here includes some stuff about the Clinton Foundation

I have a personal interest in this: the hospital I worked at in Africa and some of the nuns I worked with run HIV medicine programs... and one African sister just lost her 19 year old niece from HIV related causes even though she was on anti virals. Did the medicines stop working or were they substandard, I wonder...

Having cheap generic medicines is literally lifesaving for people in the third world, not just for HIV but for malaria and ordinary infections. People die because they can't afford the medicine, or they take a smaller dose or stop it too soon because of the cost.

But unless you realize the problem of substandard, fake and counterfeit drugs, you are fooling yourself.

PEPFAR works with the FDA to insure HIV medicines are okay.

I couldn't find any articles to back Corsi yet, but this PLOS article on Thailand HIV drugs says only a small percentage are inferior. (3%).

Annals of Internal Medicine worried about the problem: Economic savings vs Health Loses. and this article on generic anti virals

but the WHO defended the use of generics.

Translation: Problems that people are trying to stop

and as a cynical doc, remember: Lots of money could be made by stealing/diverting the real pills and selling them on the side. not just by patients but also by Pharmacists, import businesses and bypeople who transport
And how many people remember to take their pills?

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Speaking of Hillary: That National Enquirer story on her health is just rehashing the here-say. No hard facts...And a lot of it is absurd. (she might have congenital Muscular dystrophy? give me a break.)

What is behind this hysteria?
She needs help going up stairs? Looks like quadriceps are weak....Lower back problems or knee problems from arthritis, diabetic neuropathy, or it could be muscle weakness from hypothyroidism or post stroke weakness on one side.

The real question is: what are her cognitive abilities? Were these affected by her strokes?

They are either printing this nonsense to make money or to suck up to Trump.

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Bad superbug has reached Massachusetts.

Colisten resistant E Coli.

The mcr-1 gene was first reported in 2015 in food, animal, and patient isolates from China (1) and is notable for being the first plasmid-mediated colistin resistance mechanism to be identified. Plasmids can be transferred between bacteria, potentially spreading the resistance gene to other bacterial species. Since its discovery, the mcr-1 gene has been reported from Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, and North America (2,3), including the United States...

apparently, it was from antibiotics being given to farm animals in China.

But the real danger is overusing antibiotics in chicken and pigs farms.

scientificAmerican story.

and the bad news: The gene can be spread to cousin bacteria.

the good news: no links, but my "chicken business" email newsletter has a lot of articles about using probiotics or other ways to keep the chickens safe without filling them with antibiotics.

the "free range" and people thinking a backyard chicken is the answer need to realize that these birds are more likely to catch bird flu from passing migrating birds than those brought up en masse in chicken houses.

And of course, without "chicken farms", the poor in the mega cities would have little or no cheap sources of protein in their diet.

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 a spoonful of sugar no more.

The problem of the rare mutation of the weakened polio virus becoming strong again and causing mini epidemics has led to using the old fashioned shot that uses the dead virus.

it is being phased out. Technical report:
CDC report here.

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a shorter version of this is on my regular blog

The Plague! the Plague!

BBC reports that the London Plague epidemic of 1665 was indeed caused by the YPestis bacteria, aka Bubonic plague

supposedly, in between plagues the bacteria merely infected rodents: which is why we get occasional cases in the Navajo area each year.

But is the plague still alive in European rodents?

"We don't know why the Great Plague of London was the last major outbreak of plague in the UK and whether there were genetic differences in the past, those strains that were circulating in Europe to those circulating today; these are all things we're trying to address by assembling more genetic information from ancient organisms."

The rumor is that the massacres and famine deaths from Genghis Khan's army conquering the Middle East were the source of the Plague, but this hasn't been proven.

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related factoid: When I googled for the disease, I used the older term, Pasteurella Pestis, but apparently they change the name.

Yup, it used to be named after good old Louis, who not only invented Rabies vaccine and pasteurization but proved that "spontaneous generation" was nonsense.

but apparantly, YPestis was not discovered by Pasteur, but by a scientist working from his Institute.

Y. pestis was discovered in 1894 by Alexandre Yersin, a Swiss/French physician and bacteriologist from the Pasteur Institute, during an epidemic of the plague in Hong Kong.

 However, Pasteur did discover another animal disease so has that family of germs named after him 

The genus is named after the French chemist and microbiologist, Louis Pasteur, who first identified the bacteria now known as Pasteurella multocida as the agent of chicken cholera.

the disease still pops up on and off in the Southwest (most docs working for the IHS in the Navajo area know to keep an eye out for the symptoms) but also pops up now and then in VietNam and/or in the deserts of China... and Gerbils on the Steppes were probably the source of the epidemics of the middle ages.

The Black rat fleas were supposed to be the reason it spread, but now these rats have pretty well been replaced by the Brown rat in Europe. is this why we don't see more epidemics originating there? The reoccuring outbreaks of plague in Europe suggest a vector that allowed the disease to pop up again and again, then it stopped...So where was the source animal?

Camus' book The Plague was based on an epidemic in French colony of North Africa (in Oran in 1944). He used the reaction of the locals as an analogy on how the French people reacted to the Nazi takeover.

And it still is hiding there somewhere: LINK to the 2003 outbreak

Epidemiologic and biomolecular findings strongly suggested the existence of a local animal reservoir during this period, but its origin (resurgence or re-importation) could not be determined.

so why worry?

This sudden and unexpected reemergence of plague, close to an important commercial seaport, is a textbook illustration of a public health event of international importance. It also demonstrates that the danger of plague reoccurrence is not limited to the currently indexed natural foci.

ah, and could terrorists get hold of the plague and spread it?

This 2009 outbreak in an terrorist camp in Algeria worried a lot of people. But apparently they were just dirty (body lice and lack of hygiene) not trying to develop it as a WMD...

But of course, some smart bozo could theoretically find some and spread it again. Luckily bathing and pest control and antibiotics would stop the epidemic.

nor was this the only recent epidemic:

The last reported serious outbreak was in 2006 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Central Africa, when at least 50 people died.

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and the "ideology before reality" items on Zika:

Related item: Florida green types want to stop spraying for mosquitoes that carry Zika virus.

Hmm... wonder if they know about the Yellow fever epidemic in Angola, which could be spread by the same bug?

and the Zika funding bill was blocked  by Democrats in Congress because it did not include Planned parenthood funding. 

uh, a separate bill could have restored the PP funding, but never mind.

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Related item: The fall of the Roman empire has many causes, but there is a good argument that Justinian could have revived much of the empire in Europe except for the Justinian plague...
which was found to be caused by YPestis.

and of course, the plague weakened the eastern Roman Empire and opened the area for conquest by Mohammed's armies.

  NIH link.

The epidemic plague significantly contributed to the weakening of the Eastern Roman Empire, and the rapid decline of the Persian Empire, while during the early expansion phases of Islam, it indirectly favoured the nomadic Arab tribes which, moving on desert or semi-desert territories, succeeded in escaping the contagion more easily.

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Ottoman History podcast on how that empire handled the plague

Mad Cows or mad deer?

make sure you don't contaminate your venison with spinal cord or thymus, or maybe you could get a variation of mad cow disease.

cross posted from my main blog

A lot of hysteria a couple years back about mad cow disease on the talk show circuits.

But that sort of disappeared when they started to butcher cows more meticulously.

Ah but are you aware of mad deer, mad moose, and mad elk disease?

PhysOrg: white tail Deer population decline from CWD...

"Chronic wasting disease has likely been present in southeast Wyoming deer and elk populations for approximately 50 years," Edmunds says. "It has been steadily increasing to the point that some hunt areas are seeing populations with as many as 30 percent to almost 50 percent of harvested deer testing positive for this disease."

ah but can it spread to humans? CDC report say no, or maybe in rare cases.... but since most cases take years to develop, the number of cases might be underestimated.

So they advise you to be careful while butchering the meat and wear gloves.

 Hunters should avoid eating meat from deer and elk that look sick or test positive for CWD. They should wear gloves when field-dressing carcasses, bone-out the meat from the animal, and minimize handling of brain and spinal cord tissues. As a precaution, hunters should avoid eating deer and elk tissues known to harbor the CWD agent (e.g., brain, spinal cord, eyes, spleen, tonsils, lymph nodes) from areas where CWD has been identified.

CDC map identifying areas with infected deer etc.

HIV, counterfeit medicines and the Clinton Foundation

did the Clinton's highly praised program to fund HIV treatment by using counterfeit medicine which was cheaper?

The counterfeit/inferior drug problem, mainly from China and India, probably kills more people than heroin.

I just listened to a C2C program (I listen to it via internet radio in the afternoon but it is here on youtube)


 where the Clinton Foundation was accused of using inferior and cheaper generic medicines for HIV patients in Africa that didn't work. The source of the medicine was from India.

Right wing site WND has the story. read the whole story for the links if you don't believe their reporting

Ira Magaziner, the chief executive officer and vice chairman of the Clinton Health Aids Initiative, known as CHAI, approached the Indian company, Ranbaxy, in 2002 to negotiate a deal. It allowed CHAI to assume a controlling position to administer the airline-ticket levy program through UNITAID, a program of the U.N.’s World Health Organization in Geneva. CHAI proposed to Ranbaxy that “they could put the developing countries together to form a sort of ‘buying club’ that could “ramp up economies of scale and lower cost,” according to Professors Ethan B. Kapstein of Arizona State University and Joshua W. Busby of the University of Texas at Austin in their Cambridge University Press 2013 book “AIDS Drugs for All.” ....

 A Kaiser Health News “Morning Briefing” dated Nov. 21, 2003, reported former President Bill Clinton “visited Indian generic drug Ranbaxy Laboratories’ pharmaceutical plant in Gurgaon, India, to show support for Indian companies that have agreed to manufacture low-cost generic antiretroviral drugs for nationwide HIV/AIDS treatment plans in four African and more than 12 Caribbean countries.” 

So getting cheaper generics so you can buy more medicine and treat more people. What could go wrong?

BMJ article on the problem of substandard medicines lists a lot of things that can go wrong.

Uh, just ask anyone who lives outside the elite bubble in third world countries: A lot of the cheap stuff (not just medicine) is shoddy, poorly made, or doesn't work very well.

Ironically, a couple years ago, the "Green" type anti big pharm types were blasting major drug companies for overpricing these drugs, insisting that the HIV programs should buy cheaper generics, either made locally or generics, as was done here.

The Clinton founation website brags:

When the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) was founded in 2002, only 200,000 people were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS in low and middle income countries, with medicines that cost over $10,000 per person per year. Over a decade later, more than eight million people are receiving treatment and CHAI has helped reduce the cost of medicines to around $100 to $200 per person per year in many countries. Countries have repeatedly proven that it is possible to rapidly scale up treatment services. For the first time, there is real promise that we can turn the tide against HIV/AIDS.

The Atlantic pushes this meme saying they "made a deal" with the companies and the high price was the middle men making lots of profit.

2006 The NYTimes article said Clinton was playing catch up on the issue of HIV in Africa and again is full of praise

But: Uh Oh: US Justice dept report: the Indian company Ranbaxy got a 350 million dollar fine for their fraud. 2013

They were faking a lot of their data in quality control.

The conservative think tank AEI report on the problem here. A lot of it is about Ranbaxy being licensed to sell the cholesterol lowering medicine Lipetor, in the US. But the report includes this snippet:

It was surprising that the FDA was prepared to overlook Ranbaxy’s drug quality problems. In 2005, whistleblowers from Ranbaxy alerted the FDA that members of Ranbaxy’s staff were deliberately cutting corners in producing HIV medication to be bought with US taxpayer funds. The FDA and US Department of Justice identified two questionable Ranbaxy plants and 30 suspect medications, yet only restricted their US-bound sales in 2010. 

Fortune magazine on the Great Valentine's day raid on the company and an expose on the company. 2013

in Gurgaon, as Thakur’s project managers gathered data and interviewed company scientists and executives, he says, they stumbled onto Ranbaxy’s open secret: The company manipulated almost every aspect of its manufacturing process to quickly produce impressive-looking data that would bolster its bottom line.

“This was not something that was concealed,” Thakur says. It was “common knowledge among senior managers of the company, heads of research and development, people responsible for formulation to the clinical people.”

India Times story on how their companies make drugs cheap (patent infringement is admitted in the article)

NIH report 2015 on the danger of counterfeit medicine

Poor quality medicines are a real and urgent threat that could undermine decades of successful efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, according to the editors of a collection of journal articles published today. Scientists report up to 41 percent of specimens failed to meet quality standards in global studies of about 17,000 drug samples. Among the collection is an article describing the discovery of falsified and substandard malaria drugs that caused an estimated 122,350 deaths in African children in 2013. Other studies identified poor quality antibiotics, which may harm health and increase antimicrobial resistance. 

full report HERE.

the problem is worse, because substandard drugs (i.e. where the medicine is in the pill, but either is in too low a dose or in a form that the body can't absorb) increases the mutation of antibiotic/ anti malaria resistance.

The Zimbabwe Herald notes that drug resistance to HIV is becoming more common, and attributes that to poor compliance in taking medicine.

more about their program HERE. which is run by USAID PEPFAR and the UN. No mention of the Clintons.

Ironically, it notes that often the blood levels of the drugs are higher in Africans (probably due to lack of body fat or because the liver metabolism is slower) Presumably that fact comes from a single study in Malawi. but it would mean that mildly substandard medicine might work.

AHO report: various studies mention: one, in 2005, the HIV medicine problem was tiny 2%  in comparison to 10 to 37 percent in Malaria medicine.

But you know, there are very few articles about African patients and their response to treatment.

Australian reporter MichaelSmith has a long article about the HIV medicine problem.
including the Clinton Foundation using HIV meds from Ranbaxy for people in Papua New Guinea.

This article lists Australian taxpayer money going to the foundation, and notes a small problem: Bill Clinton signed a lot of papers when he was not officially head of the Clinton Foundation and did not have the legal standing to do this.... and notes other irregularities having to do with money.

Australia gave 70 million dollars.




His sidebar also has lots of links about fraud on his sidebar, including Clinton fraud for a hospital that never was in Papua New Guinea.

and the most WTF article on the money trail:

Trump and family donated 100 thousand to the Clintons (2015).


finally, no discussion of HIV in Africa could be complete without noting a lot of quackery is out there

when HIV epidemic started, a lot of people went to native healers because one: western medicine didn't help and two: the symptoms of HIV (getting thinner and thinner) was a known symptom of witchcraft associated illness (no quite superstition: Think Slow poison by an enemy).

But with Presidentw  Bush's program, hope arrived. Not much in the US press about this because of their political bias of course.

but this might be behind the Clinton's wish to be seen as do gooders: Envy.

Whatever. I don't care if they do it for the wrong reasons, my question is if the money is actually going to the ones it is supposed to help.

And no, I don't give to many charities: But I do send school fees to a friend in Zimabwe for her nephews and nieces who were made fatherless by HIV before anyone was aware of the problem.

......................

not well organized but I started posting this to my other blog and it sort of grew..