Daily Archives: September 28, 2020

2020-09-28: News Headlines

Staff (2020-09-28). Planned Parenthood CEO: Trump's SCOTUS Pick Could Overturn Roe v. Wade & Kill Obamacare. democracynow.org President Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court could threaten reproductive rights across the U.S., according to Planned Parenthood president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson. Barrett, who once called abortion "always immoral," would give conservatives a decisive 6-3 advantage on the top court if she is confirmed by the Senate, and President Trump has openly promoted her nomination by suggesting she would help overturn the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in the U.S. Barrett "would be a huge threat to reproductive rights" on the Supreme Court, says McGill Johnson. "R…

Kathy Durkin (2020-09-28). Illinois: Black and Latinx women health workers lead strike to victory. workers.org They won! The historic 10-day strike by workers at medical facilities in three Illinois cities resulted in an all-out victory, with every demand met. Black and Latinx women workers played a decisive role in organizing the strike and steering it to its successful conclusion. Chicago health workers in the 'Strike . . . |

Margaret Flowers (2020-09-28). Let's Talk About Racism And Health. dissidentvoice.org The current uprising across the nation is a take-off moment for systemic racism in the United States. A take-off moment occurs when awareness about a crisis reaches a level of public consciousness where an event (in this case, the recent high-profile police murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd) sparks protests across the country. Racist …

Linn Washington Jr. (2020-09-28). Big Lies About Blacks From Bigot Boy. counterpunch.org During President Trump's appearance on a nationally televised Town Hall forum held recently at the U.S. Constitution Center in Philadelphia, he engaged in the 'Big Lie' — that propaganda technique linked with Hitler's Nazi regime. Trump spun Big Lies of varying size on topics ranging from health care to racial hatred throughout that Q-&-A session broadcast from

RT (2020-09-28). Texas gov. issues disaster declaration after BRAIN-EATING amoeba found in tap water supply kills 6-yo boy. rt.com Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued a proclamation mobilizing a rapid government response after the discovery of a deadly amoeba in a local water supply that killed a child. | Read more | | In his disaster declaration, Abbott states that naegleria fowleri was identified in three of 11 tests of the water in Lake Jackson, Texas. The amoeba, which can cause an infection of the brain, poses "an imminent threat to public health and safety, including lo…

Matt Sedlar (2020-09-28). How Academic Medical Centers Made Out on Coronavirus Bailouts. cepr.net The American Prospect See article on original site Some of the most financially successful nonprofit health systems are academic medical centers and the systems they anchor. Despite being considered "nonprofit" hospitals, that doesn't mean they don't make a profit. Nonprofit is a tax status that means a hospital is exempt from paying federal, state, and …

Kendra Klein (2020-09-28). Organic Food Is a 'Human Right', Says Leading Food Scientist. globalresearch.ca To stamp out pesticides from our fragile food systems is to protect those most prone to ill health, Friends of the Earth's senior staff scientist, Kendra Klein explains to Yasmin Dahnoun. | *** | From seed to harvest, the food that arrives …

Thomas Magstadt (2020-09-28). From superpower to failed state: Inequality and the public health crisis in America. nationofchange.org The pandemic has shined a spotlight on the failings of leaders and elites.

Dana Brown (2020-09-28). Four Steps to Transform the Pharmaceutical Industry and Survive the Pandemic. zcomm.org Dealing with the Covid crisis will require taking the profit motive out of our health systems. Here's how.

Mehr News Agency (2020-09-28). Indian animator awarded in 16th Resistance Int. Film Fest. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Sep. 28 (MNA) — "The Saviour" by Arjun Mukherjee from India managed to snatch the Iran's 16th Resistance International Film Festival's "Health Defenders" Section's trophy and diploma of honour.

Staff (2020-09-28). CDC Director Overheard Saying Everything Trump's COVID Adviser Says "Is False" truthout.org During a phone conversation on a commercial airplane late last week "Everything he says is false,"

yenisafak (2020-09-28). Iran reports 190 more virus deaths, over 3,500 new cases. yenisafak.com At least 190 more coronavirus-related fatalities have raised the death toll in Iran to 25,779, the country's Health Ministry said on Monday. | Some 3,512 more people tested positive for COVID-19 over the past 24 hours, pushing the overall count up to 449,960, ministry spokeswoman Sima Sadat Lari said. | She added that 376,531 patients have recovered so far, while 4,068 are hospitalized in critical condition. | Some 30 of Iran's 31 provinces are in the red zone with high risk of coronavirus, Lari warned. | Iran is struggling to contain the pandemic since February when the first cases were confirmed in the city of…

yenisafak (2020-09-28). Virus death toll nears 35,500 in Africa. yenisafak.com A total of 35,440 people have died of the novel coronavirus across Africa, said the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention on Monday.It said nearly 1.46 people have so far been confirmed infected, of whom more than 1,2 million have recovered.Southern Africa continues to be the worst-hit region both in terms of number of cases and death toll, with 732,600 infections and 17,600 fatalities. But the region also has by far the largest number of recoveries that now stands at 649,400.North Africa has recorded 326,900 cases and 10,800 deaths; West Africa 175,400 cases and 2,600 deaths; East Africa 167,200 case…

Julia Conley, staff writer (2020-09-28). Trump's Failure on Covid-19 Testing and Tracking Data Has Led to Deaths of 1,700 Healthcare Workers, Nurses Union Report Shows. commondreams.org The largest nurses' union in the U.S. revealed Monday that the federal government's failure to track and report data on Covid-19 deaths has led to the deaths of at least 1,700 healthcare workers while leaving medical facilities with little incentive "to avoid becoming zones of infection." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files…

Andrea Germanos, staff writer (2020-09-27). 'A Truly Horrifying Pick': Fury Over Trump Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to SCOTUS. commondreams.org "The American people see this rushed process for what it is. An attempt to cement a right-wing supermajority on the highest court in order to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic and overturn Roe v. Wade." | www.commondreams.org/sites/default/files…

yenisafak (2020-09-27). Egypt reopens Gaza terminal for stranded Palestinians. yenisafak.com Egyptian authorities on Sunday reopened the Rafah crossing with the Gaza Strip in both directions, the Palestinian Interior Ministry said.The Hamas-run ministry said the border terminal will remain open for three days to allow Palestinian travelers to leave Gaza and let Palestinians stranded in Egypt to return back to the territory.This is the second time for the Egyptian authorities to reopen the Rafah crossing since the coronavirus outbreak in March.According to the Palestinian health authorities, travelers arriving in Gaza will enter an obligatory quarantine for a period of 21 days.The Gaza Strip has recorded…

Gerry Scoppettuolo (2020-09-27). Boston's looming eviction crisis. liberationnews.org In Boston and elsewhere in the United States, there is a tendency in the press to characterize the current economic and eviction crisis as something unexpected or mysterious. But as the winter approaches in Massachusetts, the overcrowded homeless shelters in Boston anticipate a flood of newcomers as the Center For Disease Control's eviction moratorium is …

Peoples Dispatch (2020-09-27). Greek workers stage massive protests against government policies. peoplesdispatch.org On Thursday, September 24, massive and militant demonstrations were organized across Greece by the workers from different sectors on a variety of demands. | In the education sector, teachers and students' unions, along with parents' organizations, held demonstrations. The Public Hospital Doctors' Federation (OENGE) observed a national strike and held demonstrations in all major cities of Greece. Their main demands were immediate measures to support doctors and healthcare workers in public hospitals against the pandemic. Maritime workers went on strike in Greece's biggest port, Piraeus, protesting the attempt of t…

Fight Back (2020-09-27). UW-Milwaukee SDS rallies to get cops off campus. fightbacknews.org Milwaukee, WI – On the evening of September 25, organizers with the recently re-formed University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) led a rally in Spaights Plaza on campus. More than 20 students and supporters gathered to demand that the university disarm, defund and ultimately disband the campus police. | "This event was held to formally announce our demands of UW Milwaukee, which includes defunding the UWM campus police entirely and redistributing those funds to programs such as ethnic studies and mental health services," said Veronica Roll, a leader with UWM SDS. "I am overjoyed wi…

Prabir Purkayastha (2020-09-27). Even with vaccines, it is a long and rocky road to immunity. peoplesdispatch.org Even if the major economies can solve their own problems of procuring the vaccines by jumping the queue with money or captive production capacities, what about the rest of the world?

Antonio Carty (2020-09-27). "Cheap, frequent COVID tests could be 'akin to vaccine," professor says. zcomm.org I'm surprised there is not more interest in a logical solution that definitely works and is ready to produce now, far easier than an unproven vaccine that may or may not work. Great if it did, but even if it eventually does it will take years to have an effect, that is waves and waves

Mehr News Agency (2020-09-27). 1,377 new COVID-19 cases hospitalized in 24h. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Sep. 27 (MNA) — According to the Iranian Health Ministry, 1,377 of the 3,362 new confirmed COVID-19 infections in the past 24 hours have been hospitalized.

Mehr News Agency (2020-09-27). Resistance FilmFest. announces "Health Defenders" winners. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Sep. 28 (MNA) — The 16th Resistance International Film Festival has announced the winners of "Health Defenders" and "Festival of Festivals" sections.

Staff (2020-09-26). Trump nominates Judge Amy Coney Barrett so Supreme Court will hand him the election. therealnews.com Barrett, a hardline conservative, could be instrumental in deciding who wins the 2020 election, and could vote to end Roe v. Wade, the Affordable Care Act, protections for the LGBTQ community, unions, and legislation required to fight climate change.

Staff (2020-09-26). Reports: Trump to name Judge Amy Coney Barrett for Supreme Court. therealnews.com Barrett, a hardline conservative, could be instrumental in deciding who wins the 2020 election, and could vote to end Roe v. Wade, the Affordable Care Act, protections for the LGBTQ community, unions, and legislation required to fight climate change.

Staff (2020-09-26). Trump to nominate Judge Amy Coney Barrett so Supreme Court will hand him the election. therealnews.com Barrett, a hardline conservative, could be instrumental in deciding who wins the 2020 election, and could vote to end Roe v. Wade, the Affordable Care Act, protections for the LGBTQ community, unions, and legislation required to fight climate change.

Ashley Curtin (2020-09-26). Plastic debris plagues Honduras beaches. nationofchange.org The "massive trash tsunami" was filled with plastic debris believed to have come from a neighboring river in Guatemala.

_____ (2020-09-26). Venezuela: From 'Magical Realism' To Parliamentary Elections. popularresistance.org Elliott Abrams, White House Special Envoy for Venezuela, recently referred to [far right politician] Maria Corina Machado's foreign intervention appeals as "unwise" and "magical realism." In so doing he made the US military intervention scenario less likely, at least for now, and he unwillingly left the electoral route as the only politically viable option. Meanwhile, Abrams himself has been pushing to escalate the blockade which has now generated a critical fuel shortage situation, with all its implications in terms of food supply and healthcare.

Dr. Russell Blaylock (2020-09-26). Face Masks Pose Serious Risks to the Healthy. globalresearch.ca First published by GR on May 26, 2020 | "By wearing a mask, the exhaled viruses will not be able to escape and will concentrate in the nasal passages, enter the olfactory nerves and travel into the brain." — Russell Blaylock, …

WSWS (2020-09-26). Lessons of the University of Michigan graduate student strike. wsws.org Throughout the course of the strike, many students admirably asserted that their fight was not only about the health and safety of themselves, but of the community as a whole.

news.un (2020-09-26). 'Instead of nationalism, we need global cooperation'; Caribbean leaders call for united front against COVID-19 pandemic. news.un.org Leaders from the Caribbean, in pre-recorded addresses to the UN General Assembly, stressed that their small economies are largely dependent on one or just a few industries, and called for strengthened global cooperation and financing mechanisms to overcome the health crisis sparked by the coronavirus pandemic and recover from its massive socio-economic fallout.

WSWS (2020-09-26). Thousands at UK universities infected with coronavirus as new term opens. wsws.org The former regional director for public health in northwest England, Professor John Ashton, said it was "almost inevitable" that the return of students would lead to a spike in COVID-19 cases.

_____ (2020-09-26). Throw Sand In The Gears Of The Machine. popularresistance.org Humanity will continue along its self-destructive trajectory until the masses use the power of their numbers to force real change. Humanity will not use the power of its numbers to force real change as long as it's being successfully propagandized not to do so. The oligarchic propaganda machine is therefore the primary barrier to our transition from our self-destructive patterns into a healthy collaborative relationship with each other and with our ecosystem. | So throw sand in the gears of the machine. If enough of us throw enough sand, we can cause the whole thing to break down.

teleSUR (2020-09-26). Chilean Police Brutally Repress Health Workers' Peaceful Protest. telesurenglish.net Chilean Police (Carabineros) Friday repressed a demonstration called by health workers in the Chilean capital, Santiago, to demand that the government recognize their careers in the Health Code. | RELATED: | Health System's technical nursing staff (TENS) demonstrated in Plaza Baquedano, known as Plaza de la Dignidad, after several weeks demanding their professional recognition. | The demonstration was peaceful until t…

Dean Baker (2020-09-26). It's Not Vaccine Nationalism, It's Vaccine Idiocy. zcomm.org The pandemic gave us an extraordinary opportunity to experiment with an alternative mechanism for financing research that could have enormously benefitted public health…

Geoff Watts (2020-09-26). [Obituary] Noel Richard Rose. thelancet.com Leading pioneer of autoimmune disease research. He was born in Stamford, CT, USA, on Dec 3, 1927, and died of a stroke in Brookline MA, USA, on July 30, 2020, aged 92 years.

Ikram Ahmed Tunio, Syed Mohammad Qaisar Sajjad, Pakistan Medical Association (2020-09-26). [Correspondence] End curfews in Kashmir. thelancet.com The Pakistan Medical Association (PMA) is a national organisation representing medical fraternity of Pakistan. PMA works for the betterment of patients and physicians, and it acts to achieve the highest possible standards of medical care, ethics, education, and health-related human rights for all people.

Amitava Banerjee, Laura Pasea, Spiros Denaxas, Bryan Williams, Harry Hemingway (2020-09-26). [Correspondence] Models for mortality require tailoring in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic — Authors' reply. thelancet.com We thank Arielle Lasry and Roberta Horth for their comments on our study1 and agree that long-term mortality models, applicable to people with different underlying conditions, have an important ongoing role in the COVID-19 response, and that they require further development to include wider determinants of health.

Susan Jaffe (2020-09-26). [World Report] Media reports reveal political interference at the US CDC. thelancet.com News accounts say that Trump administration officials wanted to edit and approve COVID-19 studies and publish guidance without the usual scientific review. Susan Jaffe reports.

Richard Horton (2020-09-26). [Comment] Offline: COVID-19 is not a pandemic. thelancet.com As the world approaches 1 million deaths from COVID-19, we must confront the fact that we are taking a far too narrow approach to managing this outbreak of a new coronavirus. We have viewed the cause of this crisis as an infectious disease. All of our interventions have focused on cutting lines of viral transmission, thereby controlling the spread of the pathogen. The "science" that has guided governments has been driven mostly by epidemic modellers and infectious disease specialists, who understandably frame the present health emergency in centuries-old terms of plague.

Rebeccah Slater, Fiona Moultrie, Ralph Bax, John van den Anker, Aomesh Bhatt (2020-09-26). [Comment] Preterm health: time to bridge the evidence gap. thelancet.com Despite the development of revolutionary life-sustaining advances in neonatal medicine, medications are frequently administered in an ad-hoc and suboptimal way. Most drugs prescribed in neonatal care have not been submitted to the stringent regulatory processes of drug licensing that are standard in adult medicine.1 Although clinical research and licensing regulations differ between countries, the scarcity of licensed medications and inevitable use of off-label drugs in neonates are universal problems1 (countries reporting these issues include the USA, Japan, China, the Netherlands, Australia, India, and Brazil).

Ricardo Ayala, Bernardo Alarcon (2020-09-26). [Correspondence] The social contract and health care in Chile. thelancet.com Francisca Crispi and colleagues' plea for public health in Chile to be rebuilt,1 although thought-provoking, sets the private against the public. As much as we agree that inequalities in Chile have increased since the neoliberal turn, the social contract2 is far from dismantling. In fact, the concept is based on a liberal doctrine that seeks to protect individual freedom and private property.3 Crispi and colleagues' plea is therefore contradictory. Banning discrimination is the one basic condition for the tacit contract between citizens and the state.

Mehr News Agency (2020-09-26). Iran COVID-19 update: 3,204 new cases, 172 deaths in 24h. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, Sep. 26 (MNA) — Iran's Health Ministry confirmed 3,204 new COVID-19 infections and 172 deaths due to the disease in the past 24 hours.

sputniknews (2020-09-26). Well-Preserved? Joe Biden Suggests He Was Elected to Senate '180 Years Ago' – Video. sputniknews.com US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is prone to slip-ups and stumbles, for which he is mocked by his Republican rival, incumbent President Donald Trump, who regularly links Biden's verbal blunders to possible issues with the Dem candidate's mental health.

sputniknews (2020-09-26). CDC: Young Adults Account for More COVID-19 Cases Than Any Other US Age Group. sputniknews.com Young adults aged 20 to 29 accounted for around 20% of all confirmed COVID-19 novel coronavirus cases recorded in the US between June and August, according to a new study from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Staff (2020-09-26). Farmers Are Plagued by Debt and Climate Crisis. Trump Has Made Things Worse. truthout.org This story is part of At a

Staff (2020-09-26). It's Highly Unlikely That We Will Have a Safe Vaccine by Election Time. truthout.org Despite President Donald Trump's In sh…

yenisafak (2020-09-26). COVID-19 recoveries top 75% in Bangladesh. yenisafak.com With 1,753 more patients cleared over the past 24 hours, the number of recoveries in the country now stands at 268,777, or 75.1%, according to the Health Ministry.Some 36 more deaths were also reported in Bangladesh over the past day, along with 1,106 more infections, the lowest single-day figure since Aug. 2.The overall COVID-19 case count is now at 357,873, including 5,129 — 1.43% — fatalities.A total of 3,974 men (77.48%) and 1,155 women (22.52%) have died of COVID-19 in Bangladesh, the ministry said.At least 10,680 more coronavirus tests were conducted over the past 24 hours, taking the total to o…

yenisafak (2020-09-26). Iran prepares to impose new coronavirus lockdowns as cases rise. yenisafak.com "We are forced to intensify regulations and supervisions," starting in the capital Tehran, Rouhani said in televised remarks.He said government-run coronavirus task-force offices around the country would make recommendations on restrictions and whether to impose one-week lockdowns.Iran's death toll from the coronavirus has surpassed 25,000 and identified cases on Friday totalled 439,882, according to the health ministry.Iran's health officials have expressed alarm over a surge in infections, urging the country to respect health protocols to control the spread of the disease.

commondreams (2020-09-26). MoveOn Slams Trump's Reported Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett for SCOTUS, Warns of GOP-Led Attacks on Healthcare, Democracy. commondreams.org ______________________________…