Category Archives: Health/Environment

Danish study confirms Vaccine immune evasiveness of Omicron

AlternativeFreePress.com

A study conducted by University of Copenhagen, Statistics Denmark, & Statens Serum Institute found that omicron is infecting vaccinated individuals at a much faster pace.

“Comparing households infected with the Omicron to Delta VOC, we found an 1.17 times higher SAR for unvaccinated, 2.61 times higher for fully vaccinated and 3.66 times higher for booster-vaccinated individuals, demonstrating strong evidence of immune evasiveness of the Omicron VOC,”

source: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.27.21268278v1.full

Vaccinated are more likely to catch covid than unvaccinated

AlternativeFreePress.com

The most recent data out of Canada seems to confirm that people vaccinated against COVID-19 are now more likely to catch COVID-19 than unvaccinated people.

Ontario data lines crossed path just before Christmas as infections surged among the vaccinated population.

source: https://covid-19.ontario.ca/data/

In Quebec, CTV reports that officials have admitted that unvaccinated people are 0.7x as likely to become infected as vaccinated individuals.

Source : https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/mobile/quebec-reports-15-293-new-covid-19-infections-as-active-cases-surpass-100-000-1.5726237

We will continue to watch these numbers and we anxiously await BC who has delayed providing updated numbers until Jan 4, however future data may be tainted as vaccinated Canadians have been instructed to not get tested due to lack of testing capacity.

Graphene-based sieve turns seawater into drinking water

Paul Rincon
BBC: April 3, 2017

A UK-based team of researchers has created a graphene-based sieve capable of removing salt from seawater.

The sought-after development could aid the millions of people without ready access to clean drinking water.

The promising graphene oxide sieve could be highly efficient at filtering salts, and will now be tested against existing desalination membranes.

It has previously been difficult to manufacture graphene-based barriers on an industrial scale.

Reporting their results in the journal Nature Nanotechnology, scientists from the University of Manchester, led by Dr Rahul Nair, shows how they solved some of the challenges by using a chemical derivative called graphene oxide.

Isolated and characterised by a University of Manchester-led team in 2004, graphene comprises a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Its unusual properties, such as extraordinary tensile strength and electrical conductivity, have earmarked it as one of the most promising materials for future applications.

But it has been difficult to produce large quantities of single-layer graphene using existing methods, such as chemical vapour deposition (CVD). Current production routes are also quite costly.

On the other hand, said Dr Nair, “graphene oxide can be produced by simple oxidation in the lab”.

He told BBC News: “As an ink or solution, we can compose it on a substrate or porous material. Then we can use it as a membrane.

“In terms of scalability and the cost of the material, graphene oxide has a potential advantage over single-layered graphene.”

Of the single-layer graphene he added: “To make it permeable, you need to drill small holes in the membrane. But if the hole size is larger than one nanometre, the salts go through that hole. You have to make a membrane with a very uniform less-than-one-nanometre hole size to make it useful for desalination. It is a really challenging job.”

Graphene oxide membranes have already proven their worth in sieving out small nanoparticles, organic molecules and even large salts. But until now, they couldn’t be used to filter out common salts, which require even smaller sieves.

Previous work had shown that graphene oxide membranes became slightly swollen when immersed in water, allowing smaller salts to flow through the pores along with water molecules.

Now, Dr Nair and colleagues demonstrated that placing walls made of epoxy resin (a substance used in coatings and glues) on either side of the graphene oxide membrane was sufficient to stop the expansion.

Restricting the swelling in this way also allowed the scientists to tune the properties of the membrane, letting through less or more common salt for example.

(read the full article at BBC)

Rand is the man

AlternativeFreePress.com

It seems one of the only sane people in Washington DC is Senator Rand Paul. In the past few days, Rand has…

1. Blocked a treaty allowing Montenegro to join NATO.

Here is how he defends his position:

“Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan). In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO. It is unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion debt.” … “there has to be the thought whether or not it’s in our national interest to pledge to get involved with a war if Montenegro has an altercation with anyone.”…”There’s also another argument, is that when you ask the people of Montenegro, only about 40 percent or slightly less are actually in favor of this. They are close to Russia, they’re close to being sort of, like Ukraine, in the transition from Europe to Asia. Perhaps it would be good to be like Switzerland and be more neutral and trade with both.”

2. Introduced ‘Stop Arming Terrorists Act’ To The Senate.

“One of the unintended consequences of nation-building and open-ended intervention is American funds and weapons benefiting those who hate us. This legislation will strengthen our foreign policy, enhance our national security, and safeguard our resources.”

3. Come out swinging against Trumpcare.

The current Ryan Plan — “Obamacare Lite” — is not about patients. It isn’t about better health care. It isn’t about lowering costs.

It is, plain and simple, about getting more money to the insurance companies and running more of your life from Washington.

I am a career physician. I spent years training and learning to be a doctor. I did it for patients. I don’t give a flip about guaranteeing the profits of insurance companies. And as a Senator, I shouldn’t, either.

But in Washington, somehow, the whole debate seems to be about getting people insurance instead of getting people health care.

Insurance doesn’t equate to health care. Just ask all the Obamacare recipients with $6,000 deductibles.

I’m sick of the insurance companies putting me on hold and telling me to talk to their representative in a foreign country. Screw that.

I’m sick of the government telling me I have to buy their crappy product, and I’m sick of watching us go into more and more debt to do it.

We need a new way, and Obamacare Lite isn’t it.

I want the consumer (aka patient) to be king. I want to empower the patient to get the health care they want at the price they want.

I want to let every American be able to join a co-op to buy their health care. When that happens, the buying power returns to the patients.

Instead of patients having to kiss the boots of insurance company executives, my plan would have insurance executives come on bended knee to the patient.

Sources:
Rand Paul Responds to John McCain: Senator From Arizona Is “Unhinged” and “Past His Prime”

Rand Paul Introduces ‘Stop Arming Terrorists Act’ To The Senate

Let’s ‘Smash’ Paul Ryan’s Obamacare Lite ‘to Smithereens’

Man to have hands and feet amputated after strep throat infection

gofundme.com/teambreen

Strep throat leads to quadruple amputation for Kent Co. man

Healther Walker
WOOD: March 14, 2017

An extremely rare case of strep throat that almost killed an Alto man has instead taken his hands and feet.

Kevin Breen, 44, was healthy and active when he started feeling sick on Christmas Day.

“It didn’t seem that unusual,” he said.

Days later, the unbearable stomach pain sent him to the emergency room.

“I never thought (I’d be) going in for a stomachache and coming out a totally different person and (it’s) life-changing,” said Breen.

“He was one of the sickest patients I have ever taken care of,” said Dr. Elizabeth Steensma, an acute care surgeon at Spectrum Health Butterworth Hospital.

Although Breen’s son had had strep and fought it off, Steensma didn’t think this was the same type of infection. Breen’s stomach was growing and hardening. A CT scan showed his stomach was filled with pus.

Doctors thought maybe an organ was punctured, but they couldn’t find anything.

“It was almost a mystery,” said Steensma.

While doctors tried to pinpoint the source of the problem, Breen’s organs began failing. In an effort to save those organs, his body redirected blood flow to them — leaving the flesh of his hands and feet to die.

At one point, his wife was told to gather family and prepare for the worst.

“That moment was terrifying,” she said. “I just kind of lost it and stopped and prayed.”

Then there was a clue: a rash on his upper torso.

Knowing that Breen’s son had strep throat, doctors ran a test and found a common sign of strep in his belly.

The strep had traveled from his throat to his stomach, and his body couldn’t fight it. Breen had a strong strain of strep that he was very susceptible to. It was the perfect storm.

Breen’s case is being studied by doctors at Spectrum Health. Dr. Steensma found 32 cases of patients with strep traveling to the abdomen, most involving women and their urinary tracts. Breen is one of two men in the world who had strep travel from his throat to stomach, according to Steensma.

“It’s crazy,” Breen said.

He returned home, but the infection had taken its toll. His hands and feet turned black and lost almost all movement — so doctors said they both hands and feet would have to be removed.

Breen was the breadwinner for his family. He now relies on his wife and her teaching salary for pretty much everything.

Throughout this whole ordeal, Breen has continued to smile. He’s not bitter, but happy to be alive and thankful for the doctors who saved him.

(read the full article at WOOD)

Donations for Kevin Breen can be made here

Monsanto Colluded With EPA, Was Unable To Prove Roundup Does Not Cause Cancer, Unsealed Court Docs Reveal

Zero Hedge : March 14, 2017

If we had a dime for every kooky, left-wing theory we’ve heard alleging some vast corporate conspiracy to exploit the treasures of the earth, destroy the environment and poison people with unknown carcinogens all while buying off politicians to cover their tracks, we would be rich. The problem, of course, is that sometimes the kooky conspiracy theories prove to be completely accurate.

Lets take the case of the $60 billion ag-chemicals powerhouse, Monsanto, and their controversial herbicide, Roundup as an example. For those who aren’t familiar, Roundup Ready is Monsanto’s blockbuster weedkiller, credited with transforming U.S. agriculture, with a majority of farm production now using genetically modified seeds resistant to the chemical.

For years the company has assured farmers that their weed killing product was absolutely safe to use. As proof, Monsanto touted the approval of the chemical by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

That said, newly unsealed court documents released earlier today seemingly reveal a startling effort on the part of both Monsanto and the EPA to work in concert to kill and/or discredit independent, albeit inconvenient, cancer research conducted by the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)….more on this later.

But, before we get into the competing studies, here is a brief look at the ‘extensive’ work that Monsanto and the EPA did prior to originally declaring Roundup safe for use (hint: not much). As the excerpt below reveals, the EPA effectively declared Roundup safe for use without even conducting tests on the actual formulation, but instead relying on industry research on just one of the product’s active ingredients.

“EPA’s minimal standards do not require human health data submissions related to the formulated product – here, Roundup. Instead, EPA regulations require only studies and data that relate to the active ingredient, which in the case of Roundup is glyphosate. As a result, the body of scientific literature EPA has reviewed is not only primarily provided by the industry, but it also only considers one part of the chemical ingredients that make up Roundup.”

Meanwhile, if that’s not enough for you, Donna Farmer, Monsanto’s lead toxicologist, even admitted in her deposition that she “cannot say that Roundup does not cause cancer” because “[w]e [Monsanto] have not done the carcinogenicity studies with Roundup.”

And just in case you’re the super skeptical type, here is Farmer’s actual email, from back in 2009, which seems pretty clear:

“you cannot say that Roundup does not cause cancer..we have not done carcinogenicity studies with “Roundup”.

And while the revelations above are quite damning by themselves, this is where things get really interesting.

In early 2015, once it became clear that the World Health Organization’s IARC was working on their own independent study of Roundup, Monsanto immediately launched their own efforts to preemptively discredit any results that might be deemed ‘inconvenient’.

That said, Monsanto, the $60 billion behemoth, couldn’t possibly afford the $250,000 bill that would come with conducting a legitimate scientific study led by accredited scientists.  Instead, they decided to “ghost-write” key sections of their report themselves and plotted to then have the independent scientists just “sign their names so to speak.”

“A less expensive/more palatable approach might be to involve experts only for the areas of contention, epidemiology and possibly MOA (depending on what comes out of the IARC meeting), and we ghost-write the Exposure Tox & Genetox sections…but we would be keeping the cost down by us doing the writing and they would just edit & sign their names so to speak.”

Finally, when all else fails, you call in those “special favors” in Washington D.C. that you’ve paid handsomely for over the years.

And that’s where Jess Rowland, the EPA’s Deputy Division Director for the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention and chair of the Agency’s Cancer Assessment Review Committee, comes in to assure you that he’s fully exploiting his role as the “chair of the CARC” to kill any potentially damaging research…”if I can kill this I should get a medal.”

(read the full article at Zero Hedge)

RELATED:
Whistleblower Says USDA Protecting Pesticide Makers

Scientist defends WHO report linking herbicide to cancer

Monsanto GMO Soy Is Scarier Than You Think

Japan still has no clue when or how they will clean up Fukushima

Chairman of Japan’s nuclear regulation authority admits “we are still feeling around in the dark”.

Dying robots and failing hope: Fukushima clean-up falters six years after tsunami

Justin McCurry
The Guardian : March 9, 2016

Exploration work inside the nuclear plant’s failed reactors has barely begun, with the scale of the task described as ‘almost beyond comprehension’

Barely a fifth of the way into their mission, the engineers monitoring the Scorpion’s progress conceded defeat. With a remote-controlled snip of its cable, the latest robot sent into the bowels of one of Fukushima Daiichi’s damaged reactors was cut loose, its progress stalled by lumps of fuel that overheated when the nuclear plant suffered a triple meltdown six years ago this week.

As the 60cm-long Toshiba robot, equipped with a pair of cameras and sensors to gauge radiation levels was left to its fate last month, the plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), attempted to play down the failure of yet another reconnaissance mission to determine the exact location and condition of the melted fuel.

Even though its mission had been aborted, the utility said, “valuable information was obtained which will help us determine the methods to eventually remove fuel debris”.

The Scorpion mishap, two hours into an exploration that was supposed to last 10 hours, underlined the scale and difficulty of decommissioning Fukushima Daiichi – an unprecedented undertaking one expert has described as “almost beyond comprehension”.

Cleaning up the plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl after it was struck by a magnitude-9 earthquake and tsunami on the afternoon of 11 March 2011, is expected to take 30 to 40 years, at a cost Japan’s trade and industry ministry recently estimated at 21.5tr yen ($189bn).

The figure, which includes compensating tens of thousands of evacuees, is nearly double an estimate released three years ago.

The tsunami killed almost 19,000 people, most of them in areas north of Fukushima, and forced 160,000 people living near the plant to flee their homes. Six years on, only a small number have returned to areas deemed safe by the authorities.

Developing robots capable of penetrating the most dangerous parts of Fukushima Daiichi’s reactors – and spending enough time there to obtain crucial data – is proving a near-impossible challenge for Tepco. The Scorpion – so called because of its camera-mounted folding tail – “died” after stalling along a rail beneath the reactor pressure vessel, its path blocked by lumps of fuel and other debris.

The device, along with other robots, may also have been damaged by an unseen enemy: radiation. Before it was abandoned, its dosimeter indicated that radiation levels inside the No 2 containment vessel were at 250 sieverts an hour. In an earlier probe using a remote-controlled camera, radiation at about the same spot was as high as 650 sieverts an hour – enough to kill a human within a minute.

Shunji Uchida, the Fukushima Daiichi plant manager, concedes that Tepco acquired “limited” knowledge about the state of the melted fuel. “So far we’ve only managed to take a peek, as the last experiment with the robot didn’t go well,” he tells the Guardian and other media on a recent visit to the plant. “But we’re not thinking of another approach at this moment.”

Robotic mishaps aside, exploration work in the two other reactors, where radiation levels are even higher than in reactor No 2, has barely begun. There are plans to send a tiny waterproof robot into reactor No 1 in the next few weeks, but no date has been set for the more seriously damaged reactor No 3.

Naohiro Masuda, the president of Fukushima Daiichi’s decommissioning arm, says he wants another probe sent in before deciding on how to remove the melted fuel.

Despite the setbacks, Tepco insists it will begin extracting the melted fuel in 2021 – a decade after the disaster – after consulting government officials this summer.

But Shaun Burnie, a senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany who is based in Japan, describes the challenge confronting the utility as “unprecedented and almost beyond comprehension”, adding that the decommissioning schedule was “never realistic or credible”.

The latest aborted exploration of reactor No 2 “only reinforces that reality”, Burnie says. “Without a technical solution for dealing with unit one or three, unit two was seen as less challenging. So much of what is communicated to the public and media is speculation and wishful thinking on the part of industry and government.

“The current schedule for the removal of hundreds of tons of molten nuclear fuel, the location and condition of which they still have no real understanding, was based on the timetable of prime minister [Shinzo] Abe in Tokyo and the nuclear industry – not the reality on the ground and based on sound engineering and science.”

Even Shunichi Tanaka, the chairman of Japan’s nuclear regulation authority, does not appear to share Tepco’s optimism that it will stick to its decommissioning roadmap. “It is still early to talk in such an optimistic way,” he says. “At the moment, we are still feeling around in the dark.”

(read the full article at The Guardian)

2017 Toronto Mumps Outbreak : Nearly half of infected population was fully vaccinated

AlternativeFreePress.com

Toronto is experiencing a Mumps outbreak. All of the currently confirmed cases have been in adults between 18 and 35. CBC reports that “About 60 per cent” of them had not received the two recommended doses of the MMR vaccine. Lab results have confirmed that 14 people have become infected with the virus, so “about 60 per cent” is most likely 57% or 8 out of 14 people. That means that 6 of the 14 people or 43% were completely vaccinated.

The MMR vaccine is ineffective. This recent outbreak in Toronto is far from the first time that vaccinated people have fallen ill . In 2014 we wrote about outbreaks in Massachusetts, Ohio and New York which were infecting vaccinated populations.

15 out of 15 students infected with whooping cough last month at Falmouth High School in Massachusetts had been vaccinated.

At Fordham University in New York City all students are required to be vaccinated including the vaccination for mumps, measles, and rubella (MMR), but as of February 21st, 13 cases of the mumps had been reported with 100% of those infected having already been vaccinated.

In Ohio, as of March 24th there were 63 reported cases & 97% of those infected had been vaccinated.

Dr Tetyana Obukhanych is an Immunologist who earned her PhD in Immunology at the Rockefeller University in New York and did postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. and Stanford University in California. In an interview with Catherine Frompovich, Dr Obukhanych explains why these outbreaks are occurring among the vaccinated population:

I think this is happening because vaccination does not engage the genuine mechanism of immunity. Vaccination typically engages the immune response—that is, everything that immunologists would theoretically “want” to see being engaged in the immune system. But apparently this is not enough to confer robust protection that matches natural immunity. Our knowledge of the immune system is far from being complete.

Dr Obukhanych describes natural immunity as: “in a way, a tautological expression because immunity can only be acquired naturally at this point, only through the exposure to an infected individual, although occasionally such exposure would go asymptomatic while still establishing immunity. Nevertheless, because there is a common misconception that vaccines also confer immunity, it is sometimes necessary to use a qualifier “natural,” when referring to immunity, to distinguish it from vaccine-based protection.

In the following video Dr Obukhanych explains how protective serum titers drop very quickly after the second MMR dose, meaning some vaccinated people do not receive any lasting protection from the MMR vaccine.

Here is a screenshot of the chart in the video highlighting the data which shows the MMR booster is not very effective & provides at best, leaky immunity.

Dr. Russell Blaylock, a board-certified neurosurgeon, author and lecturer who attended the LSU School of Medicine and completed his internship and neurosurgical residency at the Medical University of South Carolina explains how herd immunity is only truly obtainable through natural immunity:

In the original description of herd immunity, the protection to the population at large occurred only if people contracted the infections naturally. The reason for this is that naturally-acquired immunity lasts for a lifetime. The vaccine proponents quickly latched onto this concept and applied it to vaccine-induced immunity. But, there was one major problem – vaccine-induced immunity lasted for only a relatively short period, from 2 to 10 years at most, and then this applies only to humoral immunity. This is why they began, silently, to suggest boosters for most vaccines, even the common childhood infections such as chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella.

Then they discovered an even greater problem, the boosters were lasting for only 2 years or less. This is why we are now seeing mandates that youth entering colleges have multiple vaccines, even those which they insisted gave lifelong immunity, such as the MMR. The same is being suggested for full-grown adults. Ironically, no one in the media or medical field is asking what is going on. They just accept that it must be done.

“Unimaginable” radiation levels at Fukushima cause second robot to be abandoned

Second robot abandoned due to ‘extreme radiation’ in Fukushima nuclear plant

James Gorman
9news: February 20, 2017

Another robot sent to investigate the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant has been abandoned after succumbing to extreme radiation levels.

The “Scorpion” robot, designed by the Tokyo Electric Power company (TEPCO), experienced catastrophic failure as it approached the core of reactor number two due to “unimaginable” radiation levels.

It is the second robot TEPCO has been forced to abandon inside the crippled plant, which suffered a catastrophic meltdown during an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 2011, phys.org reports.

The advanced robot had been carrying two small cameras and other sensor equipment in an attempt to locate melted fuel cells inside the plant.

As it suffered the failure, it was moved to a position so as not to hinder future expeditions. It was then shut down and abandoned.

Earlier this month, TEPCO revealed the radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor two had reached more than of 530 sieverts per hour.

The “unimaginable” radiation levels were assessed by the National Institute of Radiological Sciences (NIRS).

According to the NIRS, just 4 sieverts of radiation exposure would be enough to kill a handful of people.

Earlier this month, TEPCO sent in its first exploratory robot to clear debris out of the way for future missions. The robot’s cameras shut down when it exceeded its maximum tolerance of 1000 sieverts.

TEPCO has insisted it will continue to push forwards with missions to examine the crippled reactors one at a time, as pressure mounts from the public and government officials to officially decommission the plant – an endeavour the company is still unsure how to accomplish.

(Read the full article at 9news)

The Cancer Of War: U.S. Admits To Using Radioactive Munitions In Syria

Daniel Mcadams
February 17, 2017 : The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity

Despite vowing not to use depleted uranium (DU) weapons in its military action in Syria, the US government has now admitted that it has fired thousands of the deadly rounds into Syrian territory. As Foreign Policy Magazine reports:

US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesman Maj. Josh Jacques told Airwars and Foreign Policy that 5,265 armor-piercing 30 mm rounds containing depleted uranium (DU) were shot from Air Force A-10 fixed-wing aircraft on Nov. 16 and Nov. 22, 2015, destroying about 350 vehicles in the country’s eastern desert.

Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman John Moore said in 2015 that:

US and coalition aircraft have not been and will not be using depleted uranium munitions in Iraq or Syria during Operation Inherent Resolve.

Now we know that is not true. 

Numerous studies have found that depleted uranium is particularly harmful when the dust is inhaled by the victim. A University of Southern Maine study discovered that:

…DU damages DNA in human lung cells. The team, led by John Pierce Wise, exposed cultures of the cells to uranium compounds at different concentrations.

 

The compounds caused breaks in the chromosomes within cells and stopped them from growing and dividing healthily. ‘These data suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant [DNA damage] risk and could possibly result in lung cancer,’ the team wrote in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.

We should remember that the United States is engaged in military activities in Syria in violation of international and US law. There is no Congressional authorization for US military action against ISIS in Syria and the United Nations has not authorized military force in violation of Syria’s sovereignty either.

The innocent citizens of Syria will be forced to endure increased risks of cancer, birth defects, and other disease related to exposure to radioactive materials. Depleted uranium is the byproduct of the enrichment of uranium to fuel nuclear power plants and has a half-life in the hundreds of millions of years. Damage to Syrian territory will thus continue long after anyone involved in current hostilities is dead.

Source: Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity