I’ve been absent, I know. But I’ve been busy wearing down my little fingers with the work that pays the bills and will hopefully buy me all the things that I want, so it does take precedence. I’ve had a few hectic rush jobs, and I was at the point where my eyes were burning from looking at the computer screen. To say nothing of the pain in my wrist–but I quickly gulped down the MSM (works miracles for early carpal tunnel) and kept going.

I’m still busy, but it’s calming down, so here I am again. All full of good news, as always.

Stay tuned…

Sorry I’ve been so errant but the workload has been astronomical. Not that’s it’s a bad thing, because the money is great. But it hasn’t left me much time for blogging or doing my “creative” work, ie, non-medical.

But here’s a moment for celebration. The FDA has approved Plan B for women 18 years and up. A partial victory, and a semi-sad one. First, the most vulnerable group still has to get a prescription for it, and considering the sex ed in our country, they probably don’t even know it exists–except if they have savvy friends, a cool doctor, cool parents who realize that they may not be abstinent until they get hitched, or a good filter-free Internet connection.

The second sad part is that it’s still political. It’s an election year, the FDA was threatened with a lawsuit, and the action commissioner is not going to become permanent commissioner until he solves this issue. I have a strong feeling that even the pucker faced neo con cons decided that they have to pick their battled, and this was a relatively benign one. And so, the FDA was given the green light. Well, partial green light.

How many women became pregnant in the interim, when their pregnancy could have been prevented? How many of those fetuses were eventually aborted? Why doesn’t the FDA publish those statistics, of how their inaction and caving in to politics disrupted thousands of lives and destroyed thousands of fetuses? A great big duh for them.

It’s going to take more than approving over the counter status to save the FDA. This move doesn’t redeem them in any way, shape or form. If it wasn’t an election year, they’d still be whining and dawdling.

From MSNBC.com< :

WASHINGTON - Women may buy the morning-after pill without a prescription — but only with proof they’re 18 or older, federal health officials ruled Thursday, capping a contentious 3-year effort to ease access to the emergency contraceptive.

Girls 17 and younger still will need a doctor’s note to buy the pills, called Plan B, the Food and Drug Administration told manufacturer Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.

The compromise decision is a partial victory for women’s advocacy and medical groups that say eliminating sales restrictions could cut in half the nation’s 3 million annual unplanned pregnancies.

It seems that even Bush’s own sweet Republicans and superstars think his AIDS policy is moronic, and really designed to kill people rather than save them. I mean, how else can you put it? Telling a 12 year old sex worker to “abstain until marriage” when she was sent out to help support her family? Or the faithful wife who knows her husband is cheating, but he won’t wear a condom and she can’t leave him?

Anyway, this was in the Houston Voice:

The Bush administration is accustomed to criticism of its AIDS policies by those attending the biennial International AIDS Conference. But this week, two U.S. leaders in the fight against HIV — including Bush’s gay former AIDS czar — took aim at what they called the president’s “ideologically driven, abstinence-until-marriage focus that places many at risk of needlessly contracting HIV.”

In an opinion piece published Aug. 14 in the Toronto Star, timed to coincide with the city hosting the XVI annual International AIDS Conference Aug. 13-18, Scott Evertz, Bush’s former director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, wrote that current domestic policy is “creating confusion and fear among [HIV-prevention organizations] regarding the appropriate role of condoms.”

Sandra Thurman, who served as director of national AIDS policy under President Bill Clinton, co-authored the opinion piece with Evertz, who is gay and a longtime Republican activist.

The pair wrote that comprehensive HIV prevention could be a lifesaver for people around the globe, from underage sex workers in developing countries to “the young gay teen in Washington D.C., told to abstain until marriage when marriage is impossible.”

Bush and his cronies remind me of the medieval Catholic Church, which tried to fill the masses with tales of fear, hellfire and brimstone. They were ignorant and arrogant, and tried to push an agenda on the public which many knew was ludicrous. Ditto for Bush. It really is embarrassing to have the leader of our nation preaching rhetoric which belongs in the middle ages, and our representatives (hand picked ignoramouses by Bush) who show up at health related and global conferences find themselves laughed out of the room.

Anyway, one more segment from this article. And this is really the saddest. With all of our money, resources, clout and medical facilities, the U.S. has the most dismal statistics when it comes to anything to do with reproductive organs. Highest rates of STDs, teenage pregnancy, unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and infant mortality. Now what does that say about Dubya’s policies? His morality tirade has worsened these stats, not made them better.

But with data showing the U.S. leading all industrialized countries with the highest rates of HIV — coupled with figures that indicate gay and bisexual men are the only domestic group whose HIV rate continued to rise in recent years — it’s clear that developing nations aren’t alone in their failure to reconcile the relationship between HIV and sexual orientation, said Jeff Graham, senior director of advocacy and communications at AIDS Survival Project in Atlanta.

I guess a Constitutional ban on gay marriage will really help curtail the problem, don’t you think?

Is the pursuit of a great view the new American dream? Is the desire for an unemcumbered view so strong, so powerful, so all-encompassing, that it overrides the intellect and causes a person to commit a felony?

Apparently, there are people in Seattle who think they have a God given right to a view, and it doesn’t matter what they have to destroy to have. Public or private property, no problema. We’ll just slash and burn.

Right in front of 1845 8th avenue W, in upper Queen Anne, an asshole of the highest order decided that two beautiful Cypress trees were blocking his or her sacred view, and girded them. The intent is to kill the trees, so that their sacred view can be cleared of something as obnoxious as a tree.

This is not the first attack. Further up on that street, another asshole, or perhaps the same one, drove a stake through a huge gorgeous tree on someone’s private property. Now, it really isn’t hard to figure out who is doing this. There are only about three houses whose view is partially (not the word partially) eclipsed due to these trees. Unless there is just some looney up and around with a tree-hating fetish (and in Seattle, you just never know) I would think that it had to be a person living in one of those homes.

Now, the poor dear has his glorious view all winter when the leaves are gone, and part of the fall and spring. Thus about six months of the year, when the trees are bare or almost bare, the jerk can view the water and mountains unobstructed. But that’s not good enough, apparently. His or her royal highness can’t bear to have a tree in the way, and so, vandalism seems like a reasonable option.

You really have to wonder about the mental stability of a person (or people) who get their jollies from attacking trees. The trees are worth $16,000 and so this is a felony. So add that into the equation. This psycho would risk going to prison for the sake of a view.

Upper Queen Anne is supposed to be so chi-chi and elegant, and ritzy to the hilt. But these are the first reports of vandalism on the sacred hill. During the 2004 election, someone actually torched a Bush/Cheney sign that was posted in a person’s yard. Now, I surely felt like burning that sign down, as I can’t imagine how anyone other than a timber or oil baron could even consider voting for Bush, but I do respect the right to free speech. And this person had every right to post a political sign in his yard, even if it wasn’t the favored candidate. So again, Seattle people think vandalism is just fine and dandy. Setting fire to that sign could have spread and set the whole house on fire. Maybe even spread down the street. Are the people in this city so dense and self-righteous?

Anyway, I urge anyone who knows anything about these poor trees to please report it to the police. And if this guy is your neighbor, please don’t protect him. If he girded a tree, then you’re next.

Actually, that would be a fine punishment. Take the guy out in front of his beloved view, strip him down, hang him up, and gird him round the middle. And then watch as his sap flows out and see how he likes it.

Not really, but that’s a catchy title. I have to say, my spam has gotten a lot less thanks to my meticulously picking out words to put on the DO NOT PERMIT under any circumstances list. And it is amazing, how much subject matter spammers find to spam about. While porn is still the number one sweetheart, my site also gets littered with gambling, pharmacy, and hopefuls trying to sell used cars.

But this one was priceless. As I marked it for savage deletion and annhiliation, I thought that maybe I should save the title for all posterity. So here it is:

bdsm center gay slave training

So is the BDSM Center a real place that trains gay slaves? And if so, where does one go to purchase one? I was under the impression that slavery was illegal in the U.S. but perhaps these slaves are being trained in a remote corner of the Himalayas, and then are transported underground to your household. All in all, very intriguing.

The other spam that sort of brought brief memories of nursing was this one:

Adults in diapers, adults breastfeeding.

I can ask my girlfriend Maria all about adults in diapers, as she is a supervisor at a nursing home, and the place is swarming with them. I can ask her if they are particularly sexy, or over-sexed, and if the diapers awaken the animal in them.

Not sure about adults breastfeeding. Not sure at all that I even want to speculate.

Hot off the nursing press. A study found that when nurses regularly make rounds, patients ding their call bells less frequently.

I realize that part of the reason of doing these studies is to prove to management that nurses really do perform a vital function, and that poor staffing really does make a dent in patient satisfaction. You know, an unhappy customer does not make for good PR.

But really, this is common sense. If a nurse is able to make rounds on a frequent regular basis, then naturally, he/she will catch the patient before a complaint arises and will better meet the needs of the patient. However, this all rolls around to the theory of common sense. If a nurse has 9 med/surg patients, 6 with IVs, and no aide—and it today’s hospital, let’s add no full time unit clerk or housekeeping after 5pm–what nurse is going to make pre-emptive rounds? Or even have time to answer call bells. To get help, most patients these days have to dial 911.

Anyway, this is a press release from the AJN, about their study. Which again proves a point, but is anyone who’s anyone going to listen?

NATIONWIDE STUDY REVEALS REGULAR PROACTIVE NURSE ROUNDS REDUCE CALL LIGHT USE, INCREASE PATIENT SATISFACTION AND SAFETY

Study Suggests Use of One- or Two-Hour Rounding Helps Nursing Staff Anticipate Patient Needs and Reduces Interruptions in Caregiving That Can Lead to Errors

New York, NY (August 16, 2006) — A nationwide study, published in the September issue of the American Journal of Nursing (AJN), revealed that regular nursing rounds every one to two hours were associated with a significant reduction in call light use, fewer patient falls, and greater patient satisfaction.

“Because there is little empirical evidence of patient call light use pertaining to patient care management, safety, and satisfaction, this study sought to determine the frequency of, and reasons for, patients’ use of call lights and the effect of one-and two-hour nursing rounds to better assist hospitals and nurses in improving daily operations and patient safety,” said Christine Meade, PhD, executive director of the Alliance for Health Care Research and lead author of the study.

Studies have shown that most call light use occurs at meal and medication time, when staff is busiest. Studies have also found that hospitalized patients often require assistance with basic self-care tasks, such as using the toilet, ambulating and eating and that patients usually communicate their needs by using the call light. Therefore, a patient’s level of satisfaction with nursing care frequently depends upon the patient’s perception of how well the nursing staff was able to meet these needs.

This led to the use of a protocol for all nursing staff to intervene proactively to reduce patient call light use and improve patient satisfaction including:

* Assessing patient pain levels using a pain assessment scale;
* Putting medication as needed on the RN’s scheduled list of things to do for patients and offer the dose when due;
* Offering toileting assistance;
* Assessing the patient’s position and comfort;
* Making sure the call light, telephone, TV remote control, bed light, bedside table and Kleenex are within the patient’s reach;
* Asking the patient if they have any additional needs before leaving the room;
* Telling the patient that a member of the nursing staff will be back in the room in one to two hours.

The six-week nationwide cross-sectional study, conducted in 27 nursing units in 14 hospitals, included two weeks of baseline data collection on call light use, then continuous monitoring of call light use with the implementation of one- or two-hour rounding for four weeks. One year later follow up was conducted among the 14 hospitals and the analyzed data found:

* Of the units that participated in the rounding, 12 (85.7%) continued the practice;
* Of the hospitals that participated in the study, 13 (92.8%) decided to expand the rounding to other units or all units in the hospital;
* Patient satisfaction scores increased an average of 8.9 points on a 100-point scale, (from 79.9 to 88.8%);
* Comparing the four weeks prior to rounding with four weeks one year after the study, falls have been reduced by an overall 60%;
o Hospitals have made enhancements to help nursing staff continually practice the rounding protocol.

“We know that a patient can deteriorate when no one is available to respond to call lights or to assess changes in the patient’s condition proactively,” said Diana Mason, RN, PhD, editor-in-chief of AJN. “The results of this study suggest strategies for operational changes in hospitals that emphasize taking a more proactive approach to ensuring effective patient care management, better patient satisfaction, and safer care.”

Conjoined twins were recently separated in Utah, in a rather experimental surgery that had never been done before. The girls had only one kidney between them, which meant that one gets the kidney and the other dialysis until a donation. It was because of the kidney that separation wasn’t attempted until the girls were four years old, and from all accounts, they are recovering nicely. Of course, they will need extensive rehab and physical therapy (each girl only has one leg), and subsequent surgeries as they grow, and of course, due to their convoluted organ system, they may have a rocky road ahead.

But at any rate, I thought that it was suitable to mention the most famous duo of all, Chang and Eng Bunker. The original Siamese twins. Not the first in history, of course, but the best known and from whom the term “Siamese twin” was derived. On this date in 1829, the twins journeyed to Boston from their native Siam (now known as Thailand) to be displayed in your usual freak show.

But they didn’t do so badly for themselves. They traveled with their agents Robert Hunter and Abel Coffin, who made them world famous. They eventually married sisters, had 21 children between them, and lived to be 63 years old. I always find it amusing to read accounts of their death which say that they”died within hours of each other in 1874.” No kidding. You’re connected, and if one dies, it’s not likely the other is going to survive for two long. Then again, it is difficult to say how intricately entwined the two were. They were only minimally joined at the chest, and some experts say that they could have been separated, even with the technology of the time. But separation probably would have been psychologically traumatic, to say nothing of ending their lucrative career.

And we have no idea what was inside their body, although, judging from the outer appearance, they seemed to be joined at the sternum by a thin piece of cartilage. The brothers eventually settled on a plantation in North Carolina, bought slaves, adopted the name “Bunker, ” and lived out their lives as Southern gentlemen.

But do you trust them? Do you think that they personally stand by what they tell you in a multi-second sound-btye on TV?

Take for example, Dr. Dean Edell, who has been gracing the mini-celluloid screen for longer than I can remember. Is he legit? Squeaky clean? Does he personally go out and vouch for everything he tells you?

Uh, maybe not.

From Grade the News

Dean Edell, the syndicated multimedia medical reporter who calls himself “America’s Doctor,” has built a thriving business dispensing news and advice about everything from cancer treatments to erectile dysfunction.

What followers of his “Medical Journal” on KGO Channel 7 may not realize is that the reporting he takes credit for on the air often is not his own.

Many of his TV stories, along with transcripts under his byline on the KGO Web site, were taken nearly verbatim from a low-profile news service in Florida that mails out prepackaged video reports to more than 100 TV stations across the country.

The company, Ivanhoe Broadcast News, allows local reporters to put their names on stories they didn’t report, film or write — without mentioning Ivanhoe. Stations also are permitted to omit geographical information, giving viewers the false impression that the stories were locally produced and the patients and doctors quoted in the stories could be their neighbors.

Dr. Edell’s byline also has appeared at the top of press releases posted on the KGO Web site and another health news site with which Dr. Edell has been affiliated. While KGO’s management said the misleading credit on its site was a mistake that would be corrected, the station maintains there is nothing wrong with obscuring the true sources of his on-air reports.

There was no shortage of criticism of that approach.

“That’s plagiarism,” said Paul Little, president of the National Association of Medical Communicators. “I think the airing of any piece of video, when the viewer is not aware of the true source of the video, is unethical.”

So Dean is basically, at least some of the time, merely reading a script. A trained parrot can do that, and so can a computer. We don’t need someone with MD after his name to mouth out predigested work and what’s more, lead the gullible folks in front of the TV set to believe that it’s coming from his brain and knowledge.

In his defense, Dean does bring up some issues which sound feasible. One was that he “didn’t know” that “the finished stories contained no on-screen titles crediting Ivanhoe. He said he hadn’t noticed because he doesn’t watch his own finished pieces when they air on Channel 7.”

Two, he said that he was relying more on canned stories because KGO has slashed his support staff (even TV docs aren’t safe from slash and burn it seems) and that its the only way to sustain the level of productivity of about one story per day, that his producer requires of him. Fair enough, it sounds reasonable. Plus he trusts Ivanhoe, says there reputation is excellent, and he does personalize the stories somewhat.

But…..here it comes. How much is Dean not telling, just to save face?

Dr. Edell’s use of canned reporting came to light in the course of examining Grade the News’ yearlong sample of Bay Area news media. In 2005, Dr. Edell narrated a story about a new treatment for clearing clogged arteries in the heart. It appeared on KGO’s Web site under his nameplate: “Dr. Dean Edell Reports.”

A virtually identical transcript appeared on the Web site of WCHS Channel 8 in Charleston, W.V., under the photo of that station’s medical reporter, Deborah Linz.

The video also ran on News14 in North Carolina, narrated by Ivanhoe’s Ms. Matthews.

The press releases under Dr. Edell’s name that KGO has promised to stop running on its Web site were written by self-interested medical centers, not independent journalists. One such release from the Cleveland Clinic, posted to the KGO Web site Feb. 26, compared the value to athletes of different types of sugar supplements. Dr. Edell said in an interview that he encouraged the station to post press releases, but never authorized it to remove or change the attribution.

Other Web sites appear to have no problem clearly separating public relations from journalism. A writer at WebMD.com used the same press release to write her own story — and cited as sources both the press release and the original study at the bottom of the page.

Anyway, there are more incidents cited, and Dean Edell is quick to defend himself. How much truth, lies, and gray area in-between is difficult to differentiate. But this just affirms one conviction that I’ve held for a long time now–TV news is not news. It’s entertainment!

Bill Clinton, if he had run against GW Bush in 2000, would have won by a landslide. And today, despite the fact that he is no longer president, he is a far more impressive figure than the current seated president. Far more highly thought of, and his word carries more weight.

And look at the difference between them. Clinton looks better now than he did as president. He looks youthful, healthy and fit. Bush, on the other hand, looks more and more shriveled and old with each passing day. That leads me to believe that Dubya may have a conscience, which is eating away at him and destroying him, and manifesting itself visibly in his appearance.

If there is going to be success in the AIDS epidemic, then we need people like the Bills. Gates and Clinton. The Dubyas of the world are trying to control an epidemic with their perverse ideology. A group of wealthy men (and some women) who sit far removed from the woes and real world of many of the people who have AIDS or who are at high risk. Dubya couldn’t even find Africa on a world map, let along even fathom what it’s like for a poor girl who is about to be given to an older infected man as a bride. Just say no, Dubya says. Cool.

Another one of their diabtribes is the needle exchange. The neo-con cons think that giving clean needles to addicts encourages drug addiction. Apparently, they have never seen an addict in need of a fix. Does the addict care if the needle is dirty? Is the addict going to miraculously cure his addiction because he can’t get a sterile needle?

Needles exchanges have been one of the most effective policies in preventing the transmission of not only AIDS, but hepatitis B and C. And if neo con cons think that addicts live in a vacuum, think again. Maybe they don’t care if the addicts drop dead, but they’re not going to die before they spread the virus to wives, husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, unborn children….and to the people they spread it to, it just goes through the pipeline and fans out to the multitudes.

Bill Clinton didn’t mince words when he spoke at the AIDS conference. I wish I was there to hear him speak. He was probably fantastic. A man with vision, and a man who is aware of how AIDS spreads and that a multifaceted program is needed to curtail it. And yes, Bill knows where Africa is.

From the Globe and Mail:

TORONTO — Former U.S. president Bill Clinton waded into political controversy yesterday, telling a Toronto audience that politicians and policy makers know how to combat HIV-AIDS, they just need to overcome their squeamishness and self-righteousness and act.

In an hour-long address, Mr. Clinton called on public-health officials to act on evidence that male circumcision can dramatically reduce the risk of transmission of HIV-AIDS, blasted the U.S. administration for its support of abstinence-only education programs that are doomed to failure, backed needle-exchange programs, called for routine testing in hard-hit regions, lashed out at pharmaceutical companies over the high cost of AIDS drugs for children and demanded that politicians who pilfer AIDS dollars for personal gain be jailed.

The world has the tools, money and power it needs to combat HIV-AIDS, he said in a hard-hitting speech to the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

It was to be expected, that Dubya’s holy war of abstinence until marriage and ban the condom and who cares if women are infected by cheating husbands was bound to be attacked with fury at the AIDS conference. And it seems, no one can get enough of it. And rightly so. The U.S. has allocated billions, and a huge chunk of it is being flushed down a toilet bowl of a magnitude never seen before on planet earth. Money that can be used for real changes and benefit in dealing with AIDS is being wasted away in programs that have no scientific record of efficacy, but sound nice on paper. It’s like telling everyone to sit down together, join hands and sing Kumbaya.

Anyway, here’s another news release of what real people with real expertise have to say about Dubya’s dismal dreck.

UN Special Envoy Stephen Lewis and U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee Decry Gaps in U.S. Global AIDS Policy; Propose a Way Forward

Toronto—In a press conference at the XVI International AIDS Conference, Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee called for changes in U.S. global AIDS prevention policies that are undermining HIV prevention among women and girls. The two leaders joined human rights and public health advocates to call for effective, evidence-based HIV prevention strategies in the global response to HIV prevention.

Stephen Lewis opened by stating that PEPFAR has placed “an inordinate emphasis on abstinence at the expense of condoms as part of the prevention dimension of PEPFAR.” “Money that is intelligently and appropriately used is desperately needed,” stated Lewis. But “no government in the Western world has the right to dictate policy to African governments in how they structure their response [to AIDS]. That’s called conditionality. It is illegitimate to dictate terms to governments that have their own policies and priorities and own ways to deal with the response. That kind of insipient neocolonialism is unacceptable when responding to the pandemic of AIDS.”

Congresswoman Barbara Lee outlined new legislation she has introduced titled the Protection Against Transmission of HIV for Women and Youth Act of 2006 (PATHWAY Act). The bill, if passed, would require all HIV prevention programs funded by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to address violence against women and other factors fueling the rapid spread of HIV infections among women and girls.

“When women face the constant threat of gender-based violence and rape, and can’t demand that their partner be faithful or even use a condom, abstinence-until-marriage is meaningless as an HIV prevention policy,” stated Congresswoman Lee. The April 2006 Government Accountability Office report confirmed that restrictions on prevention funding under PEPFAR are undermining efforts to prevent the greatest number of infections possible at the country level.

Jodi Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Health and Gender Equity stated that “The PATHWAY Act provides an urgently needed correction to PEPFAR prevention programs by ensuring that U.S. policy promotes effective, evidence-based strategies for HIV prevention rather than ideological approaches that gain favor with a particular political base,” stated Jacobson….

This is an urgent message that I received from Best Friends, a wonderful group that I donate to, and who is devoted to rescuing animals. And before I hear the obvious groans and snide remarks (who can think of animals while people are being bombed?), just remember that animals are innocent bystanders. They provide their owners with love and affection, and to my knowledge, have never started a war. They also don’t hate based on race, religion, ethnic group, or gender orientation.

The furry and feathered creatures in the Middle East have nothing to do with the human hatred and violence that abounds. So why should they suffer? Why can’t we help both?

Anyway, here’s the message:

Dear Members and Friends,

Please excuse a second e-mail in two days. This one is about the ANIMALS IN LEBANON.

It’s been tough for the animals on both sides of the Lebanon/Israel border, but for the animals in Lebanon, as you can imagine, it’s a major disaster. Thousands of them abandoned by evacuees who are being told by their governments to leave their pets behind. And thousands more just caught up in the general chaos. (Imagine Hurricane Katrina — but with bombs and rubble instead of floodwaters.)

There’s one main rescue group in Lebanon – Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or BETA (no relation to the U.S. group PETA) – and they’re hanging on by a thread. Their shelter was hit, but they’ve managed to evacuate the dogs from there to a place in the hills, donated by a German supporter.

We’ve set up a new section on the Best Friends Network: http://network.bestfriends.org/middleeast. It’s updated regularly. Emergency funds are much needed by the BETA folks to buy food and medicine that can be brought in from Jordan and Syria. You can donate from the news page at http://network.bestfriends.org/middleeast, or you can send directly to BETA. We’ve asked them to keep us posted on their needs.

Thanks for caring,

Michael Mountain
Best Friends

P.S. Traffic on the Best Friends Network site is experiencing some bottlenecks. You may find it slowing down, especially in the afternoons. The site is still in beta test mode, so please excuse any delays. The tech team says it’s a “memory leak” and they’re working on it.
.

I really don’t like to get into politicos, unless it is related to health, but I received the article in my email from Project Censored. It is written by Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan so it was authored by a “real” person with “real” expertise in the region.

Anyway, his opinion is very interesting and I thought worth reading. I don’t know if he’s right or not, but I sure hope he is.

The UK Terror plot: what’s really going on?
Craig Murray
August 14, 2006

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try
and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the
so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts
doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very
highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of
professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane
ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the
UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for quite some
time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it
could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that
individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash
stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a
year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like
me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot
to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned
up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani
dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed
in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way.
Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want,
and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn’t
give is the truth.

The gentleman being “interrogated” had fled the UK after being wanted for
questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt
to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors
other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much
is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy.
Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this
activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do
with terrorism.

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the
possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain.
Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for “Another
9/11″. The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11
they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the
rubbish they have been shovelled.

We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, Home
Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil threatening
us and complaining that “Some people don’t get” the need to abandon all our
traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own propaganda
machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There could
be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool. Like
all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle of the
night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week old baby.

For those who don’t know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened Stalinist
with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling Univeristy he
was the Communist Party’s “Enforcer”, (in days when the Communist Party ran
Stirling University Students’ Union, which it should not be forgotten was a
business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to beat up
those who deviated from the Party line.

We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to make a
bomb or buy a plane ticket. Most of them do not fit the “Loner” profile you
would expect - a tiny percentage of suicide bombers have happy marriages and
young children. As they were all under surveillance, and certainly would
have been on airport watch lists, there could have been little danger in
letting them proceed closer to maturity - that is certainly what we would
have done with the IRA.

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is
deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over one
thousand British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only
twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply harrassment
of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most
of the very few - just over two per cent of arrests - who are convicted, are
not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence the
Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had
shattered.

Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.

Craig Murray is the former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan

http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the_uk_terror_p.html

Whew, Bill hasn’t caved in as much as I feared. According to this article in the Hamilton Spector Bill and Melinda were quite explicit about Bush’s obsession with abstinence. They gave the keynote address at the opening day of the International AIDS conference, and didn’t have too many kind words for el Presidente’s omission of women in his drive to obliviate sex off the map.

The Microsoft founder said he will call on the world to accelerate research into microbicides — drugs that can block the virus from entering and infecting a person — and oral drugs that would prevent acquisition of HIV. “We hope and expect that this could be the next breakthrough.”

Such measures are particularly important because they would benefit women who now have to rely on men to agree to abstinence or condom use “and that simply isn’t getting the job done. A woman should never need her partner’s permission to save her own life,” Gates said.

“So there’s progress on these, but the pace has been too slow.”

His wife, Melinda, stressed the need to use and make more widely available the tools known to stop the spread of the virus.

In a clear swipe at governments — including her own — that preach abstinence over condom use, she said: “If you oppose the distribution of condoms, something is more important to you than saving lives.”

She said some people believe condoms promote sexual activity. “But withholding condoms does not mean fewer people have sex; it means fewer people have safe sex — and more people die,” the philanthropist said to loud applause.

That’s what it amounts to. Being chintzy with the condoms merely means that people will have unprotected sex and not no sex. But I don’t think that brainstorm has yet penetrated the Dubya brain cells.

There’s lots of stuff this week on sex, AIDS, more sex, more AIDS…that’s because the International AIDS conference is ongoing as I type. Anyone who’s anyone in the HIV world has gathered in Toronto to discuss AIDS and all that goes with it.

And of course, all news is not good. Like this press release which indicates that Bill Gates, who has done marvelous work with his foundation and is poised to become the next Andrew Carnegie, may be caving in to the warped ideas of some of the pseudo-Christian neo-con ideals.

Like this press release about sex workers. Trafficking women and children is deplorable, and rescuing them from the clutches of brothels is admirable. However, as this article points out, arresting these women certainly doesn’t benefit them or give them a new chance at life. Simply deporting them back to their home countries, where they had undoubtedly lived in dire straights, isn’t helping them either. That’s how they ended up in the sex trade to begin with, because they needed to support families, had no job skills, maybe no education, and no means to support themselves. Or maybe their families sold them. Sending them home, without giving them training, some resources to fall back home, or a safe place to return to generally means that they will end up right back in the brothel, under the ownership of a new master.

It is quite sad that Gates is forking over money to organizations which do nothing to help these women, and possibly cause them more harm than good. A waste of money–wouldn’t that $5 million (see below) be better used for job training for these women, or to establish a safe house for these women? Or to teach them to read and write?

Health and Human Rights Advocates Denounce Gates Foundation’s Support of Raids on Sex Workers
Advocates Gather in Toronto to Promote Rights and Safety of Groups Vulnerable to HIV/AIDS

(Toronto, August 14, 2006) – The international Network of Sex Work Projects (NSWP) and other human rights NGOs applaud this week’s commitment by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to commit $500 million to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment efforts. At the same time, however, the Gates Foundation has bowed to conservative pressure in the United States by funding groups that conduct and assist police raids on sex workers in countries like Cambodia and Thailand. These raids are infamous for further endangering vulnerable women.

The NSWP and other human rights groups call on the Gates Foundation to fund and promote rights-based approaches to assisting trafficked persons and addressing the needs and concerns of sex workers.

Okay, so I only wrote the greatest article on AIDS that ever was published. Okay, one of the greatest.

I got a short mention in the Daily HIV/AIDS Report from the Kaiser Family Foundation (everyone who’s a medical nerd reads this! Even non-nerds do). And my article is the first mentioned:

Recent Releases | Lancet Infectious Diseases Publishes Articles on Antiretroviral Treatment Rollout, History of AIDS Treatment
[Aug 04, 2006]

The journal Lancet Infectious Diseases in its August issue published a number of studies and articles on HIV/AIDS. Summaries appear below.

* “AIDS Treatment Enters Its 25th Year,” Lancet Infectious Diseases: Research into AIDS treatment was “stymied by both scientific misinformation and the sociopolitical climate” after it was first identified in medical literature in 1981, Roxanne Nelson writes in the article. Although “breakthroughs,” such as the development of an HIV test in 1984, the approval of protease inhibitors in 1995 and the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy, have “helped transform AIDS into a manageable and chronic disease” for many HIV-positive people, a large number of them continue to lack access to treatment, Nelson writes. In addition, a vaccine and a cure “remain beyond reach,” according to the article (Nelson, Lancet Infectious Diseases, August 2006).

This announcement is two days late, but here is a monumental footnote in medical history. On August 7, 1944, the U.S. Public Health Service announced that gonorrhea, the most common venereal disease at the time, could be cured within eight hours with penicillin. Now that was progress. Especially since a war was raging around the world, and soldiers seem to have a propensity for attracting social diseases.

In spite of the effect of antibiotics, sexually transmitted diseases remain among the most common infectious diseases in the United States. The Institute of Medicine reports that sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, Hepatitis B and AIDS, are diagnosed 12 million times a year in the United States. Yes, the U.S. has the dubious honor of having the highest rates of STDs of any industrialized country. Now how did we get so honored?

And of course, as time move on, those little gonorrhea critters became immune to penicillin. In the 1980s, penicillin resistant gonorrhea was raging through Asia and Americans and Europeans were bringing it back home with them. What a nice remembrance of your summer vacation. These days, we do have other antibiotics which are effective against the old clap, but it is evolving and mutating, same as all bacteria.

I just came back from the store, and while waiting on line to pay for my organic chocolate bar, I glanced at the never ending rows of magazines with near identical covers and teasers. But what struck me was that on the cover of a woman’s rag, Harper’s Bazaar I think, was a nude photo of Britney Spears. Pregnant.

Now how many magazines have sported cover photos of nude pregnant women over the past few years. What is the obsession with the naked body of a pregnant woman? Why are they posted on magazine covers?

I know that people are obsessive over celebrities, and would sell their soul, first born, and SUV for the opportunity to touch the mud gracing the soles of their favorite celebs boots. So many that goes hand in hand with the pregnant/nude fetish.

Personally, a magazine with Britny Spears on the cover acts as a natural repellent for me. A naked Britny Spears even more so, especially one with a bulging belly.

You really have to wonder.

I was thinking about attending the upcoming AIDS conference in Toronto, but I am just sooo tired of traveling for now, and the thought of packing up and going…plus my passport is in the process of being renewed…

But anyway, sounds like there may be some stormy sessions, as the US tries to defend its draconian position on AIDS prevention. Like how huge swathes of the most vulnerable are routinely ignored. Too bad little girl that your daddy sold you to that big bad HIV infected man, to be his 15th wife. Just say no to sex.

Or this scenario. Well, ma’am, that is just too damned bad that your husband is cheating on you, even though you are being the model faithful wife, and were abstinent until your wedding night. But boys will be boys, and well, what can I say? So he’s bringing you home a virus? Live and learn and sorry, but none of our programs care about people like you.

Anyway, I would like to be at this session.

ARE U.S. RESTRICTIONS UNDERMINING HIV PREVENTION?
International experts provide evidence-based critiques of U.S. global HIV prevention policies.

The United States has become a world leader in total funding for HIV prevention, treatment and care. But mounting evidence indicates that restrictions in U.S. global AIDS funding and policy guidance are undermining effective prevention efforts in many countries.

In a satellite session kicking off the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto, an international panel of experts will offer evidence-based critiques of restrictions in U.S. policies and the implications for prevention of sexual transmission of HIV in generalized epidemics, and for the health and rights of intravenous drug users, commercial sex workers, and men who have sex with men. The panel will include critiques of the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs funded by the US government, large-scale shifts in funding to faith-based organizations, the U.S. policy restricting needle exchange, and restrictions—recently found unconstitutional in the United States—on foreign NGOs working to protect the human rights and health of commercial sex workers.

The satellite session will be followed on Monday morning, August 14th by a press conference on U.S. restrictions featuring Stephen Lewis, U.N. Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS, and Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-California), author of the Prevention of Transmission of HIV for Women and Youth Act (PATHWAY Act) of 2006, which seeks to strike the abstinence-until-marriage earmark.

How is it that a government agency can just keep embarrassing itself over and over and over….is there no end to the corruption and stupidity of the FDA?

Plan B has been a thorn up their butt for two years now. If they had behaved like a responsible scientific agency, the over the counter status would have been approved without fanfare, and they would have saved some morsel of their reputation. But because they decided to become a political patsy, Plan B is coming back to haunt them again and again.

Do I feel sorry for them? Do cancer patients grieve the end of their chemotherapy treatment?

(NewsTarget) Two FDA officials say the administration’s decision to deny over-the-counter access to Plan B — commonly known as the morning after pill — was made well before FDA scientists completed their final review of the contraceptive.

Dr. John Jenkins, director of the FDA’s Office of New Drugs, said in recently released court documents that early in 2004, then-Commissioner Mark McClellan decided to reject Plan B long before the scientific review of the drug was finished. The FDA rejected Plan B in May 2004, just after McClellan left the agency.

“I think many of us were very concerned that there were policy or political issues that came to play in the decision,” Jenkins said.

McClellan said in a sworn statement in June, “If I was being given any direction on how I should act on this application, I would have remembered that because that never happened.”

Another FDA employee, Dr. Florence Houn, said Deputy Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock told her in January that Plan B must be rejected “to appease the administration’s constituents.” Supporters of making Plan B available over the counter allege that the FDA caved in to pressure from the Bush administration, which disapproves of the pill.

This was posted to a blog, the Real Cost of Prisons, so I am reblogging the blog post (is that correct English?).

This editorial is about a year old, and just a few weeks ago, the New York Times did an article on a similar subject–shackling women prisoners while they are giving birth. I realize that pregnancy and childbirth doesn’t turn a psychotic killer into a saint, but I hardly think that a woman in labor poses much of a risk. And once you’ve removed the machine gun or the axe from the hands of the killer, I don’t think she can be all that dangerous.

As this article points out, if an armed guard can’t handle an inmate in the throes of labor, then he/she needs to find another line of work. If the woman is mentally ill, agitated, and does try to escape, then sedate her. She doesn’t need to be chained. Put an extra guard at the door and one at the bedside.

CA: Women Still Give Birth In Shackles

Tue, Aug. 02, 2005
EDITORIAL, ContraCosta Times, CA
Remove the shackles

A WOMAN IN LABOR writhes in pain on a hospital bed, and as she does, a shackle secures one of her ankles to the bed rail. It sounds like something out of a medieval chamber of horrors. But believe it or not, that’s what happens when a female prisoner in California — and in 20 other states — gives birth.

Women inmates are routinely cuffed during transport from prison to the hospital, during most of their labor and immediately after childbirth. The ankle restraints aren’t removed until the doctor decides that the woman has gone into “active” labor — whatever that is supposed to mean. What it usually winds up being is the final, pushing stage.
\

What possible reason could there be for this barbaric practice when at least one guard is in the delivery room watching an inmate at all times?

“Basically, we don’t want them to escape — that’s the bottom line,” says state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Terry Thornton. “It’s part of our mission of public safety.”

Well, we don’t want them to escape either, but surely a trained prison guard can handle a single inmate in labor.
Under department guidelines, all prisoners, without exceptions, who leave state prisons for outside medical treatment are to be shackled and guarded by at least one officer.
We find it hard to believe that a prisoner going through labor is going to leap off the delivery table and flee, between contractions. True, these women are in prison because they have committed crimes — some of them serious. But a guard who is incapable of keeping a pregnant woman in the throes of labor from fleeing needs to find another line of work.
This absurd logic must have come from the same rocket scientists who were paying vast sums of overtime for corrections officers to guard comatose inmates around the clock at taxpayer expense.
Fortunately, saner minds realize that this kind of treatment has no place in a civilized society. Besides increasing a pregnant woman’s already significant discomfort, shackling can have harmful effects on the baby, who, incidentally did not commit a crime, and is already coming into the world with a major strike against him or her.
Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-San Jose, has introduced a bill that would ban the shackling of pregnant inmates, during transport from prison to the hospital and during delivery. The long overdue bill, now awaits action by the Senate. We support the bill and urge lawmakers to act quickly to put an end to this horrible practice.
Even the California Correctional Peace Officers’ Association — usually vehemently opposed to any loosening of inmate restrictions — supports a change in policy, with exceptions only for high-risk inmates.
They too understand that it’s not a matter of coddling criminals; it’s a matter of basic human decency and common sense.

As an addendum to this article, the state of California has subsequently passed a law prohibiting shackling of female inmates during childbirth. The only other state that has such a law is Illinois, although other states are considering them.

Also, lest anyone feel that we are coddling criminals by not chaining their legs together while in childbirth, the majority of these pregnant inmates are in for non-violent crimes. They do not pose a threat to society and are not likely to flee. Many of them haven’t even been to trial yet. I hardly think that a woman who was arrested for smoking pot, or writing a few bad checks, or who worked as a prostitute is a risk to society while she is in the process of giving birth. And there is the baby to think of. Impeding the process of labor can have a detrimental effect on outcome, and the baby has nothing to do with his/her mother’s criminal record.