War in Syria: Madness on the Potomac
Doug Bandow The United States faces no serious military threats today, yet is constantly at war. Syria is the latest target. Traditionally Washington did not look for wars to fight. The government’s duty was to protect the American people from conflict. Measured on this scale there is no cause for intervening in the Syrian imbroglio. The regime has little capacity to harm the U.S. or resist the overwhelming retaliation that would occur in response to any attack. Syria’s chemical weapons have little more utility than high explosives and nothing close to the killing capacity of America’s many nuclear weapons. The poss...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 29, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs

Should Ill-Fated Activists Expect Rescue from Washington?
Doug Bandow Kenneth Bae is a 44-year-old Christian missionary who was arrested last November while leading a tour of North Korea’s Rason special economic zone. He wanted to spread the Gospel, but the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea views religion as a particularly serious threat. Bae was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. His letters home, said his sister, Terri Chung, “contained the same message—Kenneth’s health is failing, and he asked us to seek help from our government to bring him home.”  He urged Washington to send an envoy for him. Bae’s mother was even more insistent:  “I don’t ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - August 28, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Doug Bandow Source Type: blogs

Edna Adan Ismail: Changing the Future of Women’s Health in Somaliland
She grew up in a country where only 9 percent of women give birth with a skilled birth attendant; where 16 out of every 1000 women die in childbirth; and where 97 percent of girls have their clitoris, labia minora, and labia majora excised in a traditional ritual known to the world as female genital mutilation (FGM). Instead of living with the status quo, Edna Adan Ismail – who was born and raised in Hargeisa, the capital city of what was then the British protectorate of Somaliland – left home to train as a nurse-midwife at London South Bank University. She then set out to advance the status of women’s health in th...
Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 6, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Access Champions Childbirth Global Health Publc Health Women's Health Source Type: blogs

Poliovirus silently (and not so silently) spreads
Poliovirus has been found in sewage in Israel. The virus detected is not vaccine-derived poliovirus; it is wild-type 1 poliovirus, the strain that occurs naturally in the wild and which the World Health Organization is trying very hard to eradicate from the planet. As part of the global effort to eradicate poliovirus, environmental samples from many countries are routinely examined for the presence of the virus. Wild type poliovirus was detected in 30 sewage sample from 10 different sites, collected from 3 February to 30 June 2013 in Israel. No cases of paralytic disease have been detected in that country. This is not a su...
Source: virology blog - July 23, 2013 Category: Virology Authors: Vincent Racaniello Tags: Basic virology Information Egypt Israel pakistan paralysis polio poliomyelitis poliovirus Sabin vaccine viral wild type Source Type: blogs

A Mission to One of the Most Devastated Places in the World
By Josh Skaggs, MD   I went on a medical mission to East Africa’s South Sudan this past January and February. The country is one of the most undeveloped, isolated, and devastated places in the world, and it was an amazing experience even though being there was incredibly tough.   South Sudan and Sudan used to be under the control of Egypt, and were overseen by Great Britain. Great Britain withdrew from Sudan, its former colony, in 1956. Sudan had two regions at that time, the Arab north and the tribal south. War broke out after the northern Sudanese government began killing all non-Arabs in the south who would not “c...
Source: Going Global - July 15, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs

A Mission to One of the Most Devastated Places in the World
By Josh Skaggs, MD   I went on a medical mission to East Africa’s South Sudan this past January and February. The country is one of the most undeveloped, isolated, and devastated places in the world, and it was an amazing experience even though being there was incredibly tough.   South Sudan and Sudan used to be under the control of Egypt, and were overseen by Great Britain. Great Britain withdrew from Sudan, its former colony, in 1956. Sudan had two regions at that time, the Arab north and the tribal south. War broke out after the northern Sudanese government began killing all non-Arabs in the south who would not ...
Source: Going Global - July 15, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs

President’s Drone Speech: Good on Rhetoric, Bad on Policy
Benjamin H. Friedman President Obama’s Tuesday speech was intended to convey that he is taking a more measured approach to counterterrorism, reducing drone strikes and moving toward closure of Guantanamo Bay. In many ways, the speech is excellent. The president’s effort to put the terrorism threat in context and his argument that the war cannot be unlimited and unending are praiseworthy, as is his mention of ultimately repealing the Authorization for Use of Military Force. That said, he still claims almost unlimited war powers based on secret legal reasoning. He still has not told us what countries and groups he c...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - May 23, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Benjamin H. Friedman Source Type: blogs

Khat: A Psychologist's Field Trip
Looking for a chew in London.  I ran across a great story by Vaughan Bell at Mind Hacks, about his stroll around London, looking for khat, the East African stimulant plant that is chewed much like coca leaves.  Research psychologist Vaughan Bell is not your average armchair academician. Currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, Bell is well known online for his contributions to the Mind Hacks blog, which covers unusual and intriguing findings in neuroscience and psychology. He recently taught clinical psychiatry at Hospital Universitario San Vicente de Paúl and...
Source: Addiction Inbox - February 20, 2013 Category: Addiction Authors: Dirk Hanson Source Type: blogs

Thoughts on the Gang of Eight Immigration Reform Deal
Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) at yesterday’s immigration reform deal announcement As if the above photo of Lindsey Graham-nesty and Chuckles Schumer are not foreboding enough. But, seriously, much has been written the past 24 hours since the Gang of Eight Senators announced a framework for immigration reform. The framework is published here. Go ahead and read it. What are my thoughts? I don’t think much of the framework, if enacted into law will be a disaster for the country, and the GOP. With the President weighing into the fray with a speech today in Las Vegas, there will...
Source: FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog - January 29, 2013 Category: Dentists Authors: Flap Tags: Illegal Immigration Source Type: blogs

Phil Mickelson Says He May Leave The U.S. And Golf Because Of His Tax Rate
So long, Phil. Don't let the border gate hit you in the ass on your way out. The man built a $150-200 million fortune smacking a tiny ball with a stick and he's whining about his taxes when so many people are struggling for survival. I'm sure Putin would grant him a Passeport Depardieu if he asked nicely. Or he could try Mexico, Turkey or, better yet, Somalia. (Source: Dr. X's Free Associations)
Source: Dr. X's Free Associations - January 21, 2013 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: DrX Tags: Front Page Source Type: blogs