26 August 20
A Notice on Fundraising: Please Read
August is going to be a challenging fundraising month. Every singe donation will matter and there is no margin for failure. We accept the challenge and we will rise to it.
For some of you the pace of our fundraising efforts may prove stressful. We hope you stick with RSN. For those who depart, live long and prosper. For those who stay, you maintain an interest in the only entirely publicly funded news agency, Reader Supported News.
This is the News Source the community built. We will fight to sustain it.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
If you would prefer to send a check:
Reader Supported News
PO Box 2043
Citrus Hts, CA 95611
26 August 20
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
Charles Pierce | The Theme of the RNC Is Already Clear: Any Election Where Trump Doesn't Win Is Illegitimate
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "The president* arrived Monday to lay the foundation of the week."
READ MORE
Police try to push back demonstrators near the Kenosha county courthouse during a third night of unrest. (photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
Two Dead in Kenosha on Third Night of Unrest After Jacob Blake Shooting
Peter Beaumont, Guardian UK
Beaumont writes: "Two people were shot dead and another injured when at least one gunman opened fire on protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, amid demonstrations against the police shooting of Jacob Blake three days ago."
READ MORE
'Congratulations, you're now citizens of the United States of America,' Trump declared. (photo: RNC)
ALSO SEE: Naturalization Ceremony at RNC Stands at Odds With
Trump's Stance on Immigration
Trump Turned a Citizenship Ceremony Into a Campaign Prop for the RNC
Greg Walters, VICE
Walters writes: "President Trump's reality TV presidency probed strange, new boundaries of experimental political theater on Tuesday night."
READ MORE 
Protester Angelica Clark during a July 25, 2020 protest in Portland (photo: Anderson Strategic)
Portland Protesters File Class Action Lawsuit Against DHS, Chad Wolf
KOIN 6
Excerpt: "A class action lawsuit was filed against Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf by 4 people who protested and were injured in some fashion by federal agents in downtown Portland."
READ MORE
The Hennessey fire in Napa County. (photo: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)
"A Human Tragedy": Wildfires Reveal California's Reliance on Incarcerated Firefighters
Democracy Now!
Excerpt: "More than 1,300 incarcerated firefighters - who are annually deployed to the frontlines in California for just $1 an hour - are fighting back the blazes."
Cuban doctors before departing to Italy during the COVID-19 outbreak. (photo: Alexandrew Meneghini/Reuters)
Why Cuban Doctors Deserve the Nobel Peace Prize
Vijay Prashad, teleSUR
Prashad writes: "Since the 1960s, over 400,000 Cuban doctors have worked in over 40 countries. These health workers believe in the twin missions of medical care and internationalism."
Since the 1960s, over 400,000 Cuban doctors have worked in over 40 countries. These health workers believe in the twin missions of medical care and internationalism.
ive years ago, I read the story of Dr. Felix Baez, a Cuban doctor who had worked in West Africa to stop the spread of Ebola. Dr. Baez was one of 165 Cuban doctors of the Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade who went to Sierra Leone to fight a terrible outbreak in 2014 of a disease first detected in 1976. During his time there, Dr. Baez contracted Ebola.
The World Health Organization and the Cuban government rushed Dr. Baez to Geneva, where he was treated at the Hôpitaux Universitaires de Geneve. He struggled with the disease, but thanks to the superb care he received, his Ebola receded. He was flown to Cuba. At the airport in Havana, he was received by his wife Vania Ferrer and his sons Alejandro and Felix Luis as well as Health Minister Roberto Morales.
At the website Cubasi, Alejandro—a medical student—had written, “Cuba is waiting for you.” In Liberia, the other Cuban doctors also fighting Ebola cheered for Dr. Baez. A Facebook page was started called Cuba Is With Felix Baez, while on other social media forums the hashtag #FelixContigo and #FuerzaFelix went viral.
Dr. Baez recovered slowly, and then, miraculously, decided to return to West Africa to continue to fight against Ebola.
No wonder that there is an international campaign to have the Cuban doctors be honored with the Nobel Peace Prize. This aspect of Cuba’s work is essential to its socialist project of international solidarity through care work.
U.S. Campaign Against the Doctors
When Dr. Baez returned to West Africa, his colleague Dr. Ronald Hernández Torres, based in Liberia, wrote on Facebook, “We are here by our decision and we will only withdraw when Ebola is not a health problem for Africa and the world.” This is an important statement, a reaction to the offensive campaign led by the United States government against Cuban internationalism.
The U.S. Congressional Research Service reported that “In June 2019, the [U.S.] State Department downgraded Cuba to Tier 3 in its 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report,” for, among other reasons, not taking “action to address forced labor in the foreign medical mission program.” This policy came alongside pressure by the U.S. government on its allies to expel the Cuban missions from their countries.
Strikingly, the UN Human Rights Council—under pressure from Washington—said it would investigate Cuban doctors. The UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery Urmila Bhoola and the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons Maria Grazia Giammarinaro wrote a letter to the Cuban government in November 2019.
The letter made grand statements—such as alleging that the Cuban doctors suffered from forced labor, but there was no evidence in the letter. Even their statement of concern seemed plainly ideological rather than forensic.
In early 2020, the U.S. government intensified its attempt to delegitimize the Cuban medical mission program. On January 12, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted, “We urge host countries to end contractual agreements with the Castro regime that facilitates the human rights abuses occurring in these programs.”
U.S. allies in Latin America, such as Brazil, Bolivia, and Ecuador, expelled the Cuban medical missions. This would become a catastrophic decision for these countries as the COVID-19 pandemic developed across Latin America.
Human Rights Watch Channels the U.S. State Department
In July 2020, the New York-based Human Rights Watch published a document accusing the Cuban government of formulating “repressive rules for doctors working abroad.” It focuses on Resolution 168, adopted in 2010, that provides a code of conduct for Cuban doctors, including ensuring that the medical workers honor the laws of their hosts and do not exceed the remit of their mission, which is to take care of the medical needs of the population.
Human Rights Watch merely offers this resolution—and other regulations—as evidence; it accepts that it cannot prove that these regulations have ever been implemented: “Human Rights Watch has not been able to determine the extent to which Cuban health workers have broken the rules and law, or whether the Cuban government has enforced criminal or disciplinary sanctions against them.”
It is stunning that a human rights organization would spend so much time with so little evidence assaulting a program that is widely recognized for bringing an improvement of living standards for people.
The organizing committee for the group Nobel Peace Prize for Cuban Doctors responded to Human Rights Watch with a stinging rebuttal. It pointed out that the HRW report said nothing about the attacks on the Cuban medical program, including the official U.S. government attempt to bribe Cuban doctors to defect to the United States and the expenditure by USAID of millions of dollars to create disinformation against the program.
Even more egregious, the HRW document misreads the evidence it does offer, including the transcript of a dialogue between the Cuban ministry of health and medical workers. The HRW report uses as factual a text by Prisoners Defenders, a Spain-based NGO led by an anti-Cuban activist; HRW does not declare the political opinions of this highly controversial source.
The HRW report reads less like a credible account by a human rights organization and more like a press release from the three Republican senators—Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Rick Scott—who recently introduced a bill to scuttle Cuba’s medical mission program.
But Nevertheless, They Persist
In a study published in April 2020, the Instituto de Comunicacao e Informacao Cientifica e Tecnologica em Saude found that the More Doctors program of the Cuban doctors in Brazil improved health indicators of the population; this program brought medical care to remote areas, often for the first time.
Alexandre Padilha of the Workers Party (PT) was a minister of health under President Dilma Rousseff and a member of the team that created the More Doctors program. He said that after the Cuban doctors had been ejected, there was an increase in infant mortality and increased pneumonia among the Indigenous communities where they worked; all this was catastrophic during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In June 2020, President Jair Bolsonaro, who had expelled the Cuban doctors in December 2019, asked for them to start work again in Brazil; they were needed to compensate for Brazil’s catastrophic reaction to the COVID-19 virus. Even USAID money to compensate for the loss of the Cuban doctors was not sufficient; Bolsonaro wanted the Cuban doctors to stay.
Cuban Doctors to the Rescue
Cuban medical workers are risking their health to break the chain of the COVID-19 infection. Cuban scientists developed drugs—such as interferon-alpha-2b—to help fight the disease. Now Cuban scientists have announced that their vaccine is in trials; this vaccine will not be treated as private property but will be shared with the peoples of the world. This is the fidelity of Cuban medical internationalism.
On August 21, Raul Castro—the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba—spoke at an event for the 60th anniversary of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC). At the meeting, Castro mentioned that 61 percent of the medical workers in the Henry Reeve Brigade were women.
Since the start of Cuban medical internationalism in 1960, over 400,000 medical workers have worked in more than 40 countries. These medical workers believe in the twin missions of medical care and internationalism; it is a lesson that they learned from the teachings of Che Gueva. Since the start of Cuban medical internationalism in 1960, over 400,000 medical workers have worked in more than 40 countries. These medical workers believe in the twin missions of medical care and internationalism;ra, a doctor and an internationalist.
It is a lesson that should be learned in Oslo, Norway, as they adjudicate the Nobel Peace Prize.
Research has revealed PFAS compounds - even some that have been previously phased out of production - in manatees, loggerhead turtles, alligators, seabirds, polar bears, dolphins and whales. (photo: Fadhilahmedh1357/Wikimedia Commons)
How Forever Chemicals Harm Ocean Life
Max G. Levy, The Revelator
Levy writes: "Through consumption and disposal, PFAS chemicals seep into ecosystems and bodies, where they have been linked to cancers, pregnancy complications, and reproductive and immune dysfunction."
n seabird after seabird, Anna Robuck found something concerning: per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, lurking around vital organs.
"Brain, liver, kidney, lung, blood, heart," Robuck says, rattling off a few hiding spots before pausing to recall the rest. Robuck, a Ph.D. candidate in chemical oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, quickly settles on a simpler response: She found the chemicals everywhere she looked.
PFAS — a group of synthetic chemicals — are often called "forever chemicals" due to their quasi-unbreakable molecular bonds and knack for accumulating in living organisms. That foreverness is less of a design flaw than a design feature: The stubborn, versatile molecules help weatherproof clothing; smother flames in firefighting foam; and withstand heat and grime on nonstick pans.
Through consumption and disposal, the chemicals seep into ecosystems and bodies, where they have been linked to cancers, pregnancy complications, and reproductive and immune dysfunction. Recent attention has focused on the prevalence of PFAS in drinking water.
"Over the past 10-15 years we've really developed this super negative picture of what PFAS do to humans," Robuck says. "But we've barely scratched the surface of that in wildlife."
One particular area of concern is the marine ecosystem. Long seen as a bottomless sink for pollutants, the ocean is a final stop for PFAS trickling into the ecosystem. Once in the ocean, PFAS can persist for decades or longer — and travel long distances. As a result, a growing body of scientific research suggests that marine wildlife are accumulating dangerous amounts of "forever chemicals."
"If we continue to emit PFAS, then the capacity of the ocean to dilute them is going to be exceeded," says Jamie DeWitt, an environmental toxicologist at Eastern Carolina University. "For all we know, oceans could be reservoirs that re-pollute the land."
Journeying Across the Globe
Coastal environments seem especially vulnerable to PFAS seeping from the chemical plants and military bases responsible for heavy contamination. Charlotte Wagner, a researcher at Harvard University studying the global transport of pollutants, says it's still unclear what fraction of PFAS pollutants remain contained at their source, and what fraction has already leached into other environments.
But the fact that they do spread — and far — is clear. They generally wind up in oceans, according to Wagner. And not just the ones nearby. Studies in the early 2000s showed that PFAS survived decades-long journeys from manufacturers to remote ocean basins without breaking down.
"The ocean is not this static pool or bathtub," she says. Large-scale ocean circulation moves pollutants huge distances across the globe. Some varieties of PFAS may degrade slightly over the course of years, until they convert into one of the more stable "terminal PFAS" subgroups, including PFAAs.
"To the best of our knowledge PFAAs don't degrade at all under natural environmental conditions," says Robuck. Rather than diluting PFAS to infinitely low concentrations, oceans carry them to remote areas, like the Arctic and Antarctic.
Other pollutants that reach the ocean, like DDT and PCBs, will stick to algae and sediment that eventually fall to the ocean floor. "That is a really important removal process," Wagner says. "For PFAS, that process is minor." Plants, algae and sediment only remove a small fraction of PFAS from the water column. That leaves more to accumulate in animals, reaching concentrations thousands of times higher than surrounding waters.
And those chemicals could travel right back to humans. Eating a lot of seafood, especially fish high on the food chain like tuna, would be concerning, she says.
But it's not just fish — and humans eating them — that are at risk. A study last year reported PFAS in seawater and plankton dozens of miles off the Mid-Atlantic coast. Other research has revealed PFAS compounds — even some that have been previously phased out of production — in manatees, loggerhead turtles, alligators, seabirds, polar bears, dolphins and whales.
Measuring Harm to Ocean Life
In North Carolina's Cape Fear River, striped bass carrying high levels of PFAS showed distinct signs of impaired immune and liver function. But in the vastness of ocean water, can PFAS levels be high enough to cause harm?
"In recent years there have been increases in immune-based diseases in turtles and dolphins," says DeWitt. One of the most well-studied health effects of PFAS is immune dysfunction. Most experiments are limited to humans, rodents and chickens, but researchers are piecing together the role of PFAS in marine immune issues.
One study concluded that PFOS, a phased-out PFAS that still circulates today, triggers "chronic immune activation" in bottlenose dolphins. A similar link between PFOS and susceptibility to disease appeared in sea otters. Other research links multiple PFAS to hormonal changes in polar bear brains. But these aquatic wildlife health studies are few and far between.
"PFAS in wildlife is kind of the wild west," says Robuck. "Wildlife are inherently difficult to study in a lot of ways."
Zeroing on the health effects for individual species is tricky because scientists lack baseline data about stress responses and pollutant levels. They have no choice but to presume consequences in wildlife based on hormonal, immune and reproductive effects in lab animals. For Robuck, that means judging how a pelican will respond to its measured PFAS levels according to health data collected from a chicken. "That's a really crappy comparison," she says.
In one sense, the method is conservative: Lab animals are well cared for, so their health effects may be a best-case scenario compared to the stressful baseline of wild animals' experience. But it also means we don't have an accurate sense of what dangerous thresholds are for most aquatic life — despite a parade of red flags.
Endless Stream of Pollutants
Part of the problem is the sheer number of different compounds. Of the thousands of known PFAS, studies have only deduced health thresholds for a handful. Scientists screening their effects simply can't keep up with the pace.
The chemical compounds that fall under the PFAS umbrella are also not all the same. Some are long, bulky molecules; others are smaller and more agile. Some forms tend to naturally convert into others; others don't degrade whatsoever. Each molecule has the potential to be more toxic or bioaccumulative than the next. But for a lot of PFAS, Wagner says, scientists don't even have standardized methods of detecting them.
To make matters worse, even as some of the most dangerous chemicals are being phased out, companies are making alternatives. But they may not be any safer than what they're replacing. And scientists have found these alternatives are also accumulating in the bodies of fish and polar bears.
"It seems that we haven't learned anything from the past," says Belén González-Gaya, an analytical chemist at the University of Basque Country in Spain. "We keep on substituting compounds [for] others without any knowledge of biological effects."
Sydney Evans, a research scientist for the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, suggests that researchers shouldn't have to prove the health risks for thousands of similar compounds in order to warrant regulatory action. "The burden needs to be on these companies and manufacturers to prove their compounds are safe," she says.
And while there is much we don't know about the majority of PFAS, experts argue that we do know enough to assume they all share fundamental features: persistence, bioaccumulation and health risks. For this reason a group of scientists recently published a call for governments and companies to treat all PFAS, old and new, as a single hazardous group.
"It's really the only way that we can be ahead of the curve," says Wagner, who cowrote the article. "Rather than always realizing that a compound is toxic once it's already everywhere and we measure it on a remote ice-site somewhere in Greenland."
To shut off the flow of PFAS into the ocean, scientists say that manufacturers should phase out the chemicals and focus on proving safer alternatives.
With so many open questions, Robuck hopes to see research that more closely predicts threats to marine life — and by extension people, too.
"As humans, we rely on every natural resource under the sun," she says. "When we undercut a healthy environment, we undercut our own health."
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.