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Swine flu: One killer virus, three key questions : Nature News –This is a deadly dull report until you get near the end and read about this experimentation. If these labs were not constantly breached, I’d be happier.
A deadly line-up of viruses is locked up in the computer-controlled safes at the Jean Mérieux/INSERM biosecurity level four (BSL-4) facility in Lyon, France, including Ebola, Nipah, Lassa, Hendra and Marburg. And in the next few weeks, scientists working there are planning to manufacture a new resident. They hope to test whether the highly transmissible pandemic H1N1 virus could reassort with its deadlier cousin, the H5N1 avian flu, to make a virus with the worst properties of both.
Over the summer, Lina’s team has been using the BSL-4 facility to investigate the likelihood that pandemic H1N1 will acquire resistance to the front-line antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu) through reassortment, and how easily these reassortments might spread. Resistance can emerge by spontaneous mutation, but given that seasonal H1N1 is already resistant to the drug and spreads easily, reassortment is perhaps the most likely way that pandemic H1N1 will acquire resistance — especially as seasonal H1NI and pandemic H1N1 are the same subtype. Since the start of the pandemic, Tamiflu-resistant strains have sporadically appeared in several countries but none has yet gained a foothold. That they haven’t arisen more often or spread more easily may be because there is little seasonal H1N1 circulating, as pandemic H1N1 is outcompeting it — a large number of co-infections are needed for transmissible reassortments to arise.
Airport rules changed after Ron Paul aide detained – Washington Times — The TSA has defended this action, now seeing it will lose in court relents. The audio is below. It’s unfortunate that people like this have no regard for the real laws of the USA. This situation was essentially false imprisonment and the TSA officials should be indicted.
An angry aide to Rep. Ron Paul, an iPhone and $4,700 in cash have forced the Transportation Security Administration to quietly issue two new rules telling its airport screeners they can only conduct searches related to airplane safety.
In response, the American Civil Liberties Union is dropping its lawsuit on behalf of Steve Bierfeldt, the man who was detained in March and who recorded the confrontation on his iPhone as TSA and local police officers spent half an hour demanding answers as to why he was carrying the money through Lambert-St. Louis International Airport.The new rules, issuedin September and October, tell officers “screening may not be conducted to detect evidence of crimes unrelated to transportation security” and that large amounts of cash don’t qualify as suspicious for purposes of safety.
“We had been hearing of so many reports of TSA screeners engaging in wide-ranging fishing expeditions for illegal activities,” said Ben Wizner, a staff lawyer for the ACLU, pointing to reports of officers scanning pill-bottle labels to see whether the passenger was the person who obtained the prescription as one example.
He said screeners get a narrow exception to the Fourth Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches, strictly to keep weapons and explosives off planes, not to help police enforce other laws.
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MARIETTA, Pa. (AP) – Malaria. Tuberculosis. Alzheimer’s disease. AIDS. Pandemic flu. Genital herpes. Urinary tract infections. Grass allergies. Traveler’s diarrhea. You name it, the pharmaceutical industry is working on a vaccine to prevent it. Many could be on the market in five years or less.
Contrast that with five years ago, when so many companies had abandoned the vaccine business that half the U.S. supply of flu shots was lost because of contamination at one of the two manufacturers left. Vaccines are no longer a sleepy, low-profit niche in a booming drug industry. Today, they’re starting to give ailing pharmaceutical makers a shot in the arm.
The lure of big profits, advances in technology and growing government support has been drawing in new companies, from nascent biotechs to Johnson & Johnson. That means recent remarkable strides in overcoming dreaded diseases and annoying afflictions likely will continue.
“Even if a small portion of everything that’s going on now is successful in the next 10 years, you put that together with the last 10 years (and) it’s going to be characterized as a golden era,” says Emilio Emini, Pfizer Inc.’s head of vaccine research.
Vaccines now are viewed as a crucial path to growth, as drugmakers look for ways to bolster slowing prescription medicine sales amid intensifying generic competition and government pressure to cut down prices under the federal health overhaul. Investment in partnerships and other deals to develop and manufacture vaccines has been on a tear—and accelerating since the swine flu pandemic began. Billions in government grants are bringing better, faster ways to develop and manufacture vaccines.
This is inevitable. Why even try live a healthy lifestyle, just take your shots and go freaky deaky! I’m sure they will have one for obesity….soon.
This was a captured tease run by WNBC in NYC. In it they use the book cover Going Rouge — An American Nightmare. Apparently the staff switched the graphic at the end of the tease. Nobody in NY seemed to notice.
Caught by Ben Gottesman for Dvorak Uncensored.
An example of what happens when politicians meddle in things they have no business in.
Texans: Are you really married? Maybe not.
Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.
The amendment, approved by the Texas Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by Texas voters, declares that “marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.” But the trouble-making phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares: “This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.”
Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively “eliminates marriage in Texas,” including common-law marriages.
[…A]nother constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.
This could be a new method (if not already in place) for insurers of all policies to save (ie, make) money. No coverage for a severed limb unless you provide the limb and whatever (and/or whoever) cut it off. No payout for a damaged car from a hit and run unless that driver & unrepaired car can be produced.
A mother whose daughter was murdered is suing American Life Assurance of Columbus (AFLAC) because it has refused to pay the death benefit on life insurance the daughter applied for shortly before her death.
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In November 2004, AFLAC denied the claim due to “insufficient proof of loss” stating that it required the name of the person charged with the homicide. In 2009, AFLAC closed the file, while the investigation into the death of Michelle Williams remains open.
Twenty-six percent (26%) of employed adults say they have seriously thought that someone in their workplace was capable of mass violence, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
Most working adults (64%), however, say they have not seriously thought a co-worker would be capable of such violence. Another 11% are undecided.
One-in-three men (33%) say they have held that thought before, compared to only 17% of women.
Forty-three percent (43%) of government workers say they have felt a fellow employee was capable of mass violence, more than double the number among those who work for private companies.
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Just 22% of all Americans believe stricter gun control laws would reduce the number of workplace shooting sprees. Most (58%) adults say stricter laws on gun ownership would not help this problem, while another 19% are undecided.
Washington Post- Nov. 17, 2009:
The nation’s economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people — including almost one child in four — struggled last year to get enough to eat.
At a time when rising poverty, widespread unemployment and other effects of the recession have been well documented, the report released Monday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture provides the government’s first detailed portrait of the toll that the faltering economy has taken on Americans’ access to food.
The magnitude of the increase in food shortages — and, in some cases, outright hunger — identified in the report startled even the nation’s leading anti-poverty advocates, who have grown accustomed to longer lines lately at food banks and soup kitchens.
 Gaddafi’s Bodyguards
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Gaddafi hires 200 young Italian women – to convert them to Islam — The guy’s barking but you gotta admit he has style.
When the hostess agency put out the call for attractive, well-dressed women, under the age of 35 and over 1.7 metres (5ft 7in) tall, it was inundated with responses from hundreds of Roman women.
Most seemed to think they would be bringing a little glamour to a gala dinner with the Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Instead, they found themselves being lectured by him for two hours on the role of women and invited to convert to Islam. “We were at least expecting a snack”, grumbled Silvia Figliozzi afterwards.
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The women at Sunday’s event were promised €50 (£45) and told not to arrive in miniskirts or low-cut tops. They assembled outside a hotel in the centre, where several were rejected because they were either too short or revealingly dressed. The rest – most teetering on stilettos and some wrapped in furs – boarded buses and were driven to the Libyan ambassador’s residence.According to the Italian news agency Ansa, about 200 filed through the heavily protected gates, where a security guard insisted to reporters that they were assembling for a “medical conference”.
After a delay of an hour, Gaddafi appeared, in a black uniform with a black beret. As he launched into his address, female members of his entourage distributed embossed copies of the Qu’ran and the colonel’s own great work, The Green Book.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday urged a reluctant China to let its yuan currency rise in value at a summit where strains over trade between the two giants crept into proclamations of goodwill.
With the U.S. unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, one of Obama’s top priorities during his three-day trip to China is pressing Beijing over the huge trade imbalance between the two countries, a move he believes would pave the way for greater U.S. export opportunities.
Morning Bell: The Fake Jobs of Obama’s Failed Stimulus » The Foundry — Fake jobs, fake districts. The work of fake experts.
Forget everything bad you’ve ever heard about President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus. Combing through the data on the $18 million Recovery.gov website, you’ll find tons of Obama stimulus success stories from across the country. In Minnesota’s 57th Congressional District, 35 jobs have been saved or created using $404,340 in stimulus funds. In New Mexico’s 22nd Congressional District, 25 jobs have been saved or created using $61,000 in stimulus cash. And in Arizona’s fighting 15th Congressional District, 30 jobs have been saved or created with just $761,420 in federal stimulus spending.
The it-would-be-funny-if-it-weren’t-our-tax-dollars-at-stake punch line here is that none of the above Congressional Districts actually exist. Yet those jobs “created or saved” claims still sit on the Obama administration’s official “transparency and accountability” website Recovery.gov. As the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso points out, it would have been nearly costless for the Recovery.gov site designers to limit the input fields so that non-existent Congressional Districts never made it into the public domain, but for whatever reason the Obama administration chose otherwise. Defending the fake data on his website, Recovery.gov Communications Director Ed Pound told ABC News: “We report what the recipients submit to us.
For Kindle and with free ePub version. Only $9.49 Great reading.
Here is what Gary Shapiro CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) said: Dvorak's writing sings with insight and clarity. Whether or not you agree with John's views, he will get you thinking and is never boring. These essays are worth the read!
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