Gulf Coast Shrimper "Disrupts the Peace" at BP

Diane Wilson, injured worker activist and environmental activist protests at BP annual meeting.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/apr/14/protesters-bp-agm



BP executives faced angry protesters as shareholders prepared to vote at its annual meeting in London, which is taking place a few days before the first anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.


Fishermen and women from the Gulf coast affected by the spill, some of whom had bought BP shares to allow them to attend the annual meeting, joined climate change activists and artists protesting against the oil company.

Institutional investors, angry at what they claim are excessive executive pay deals, urged shareholders to vote against the remuneration package.


http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/4/14/gulf_coast_fisherwoman_disrups_the_peace_at_bp_shareholder_meeting

Obama Is Disconnected

Is Obama disconnected?


I could not believe my ears what I heard recently on TV from a major news channel last Thursday, April 14th.

Barack Obama was caught making an offline statement that the White House is 30 years behind in its computer technology and that he was disappointed. Obama complained of having consistent computer problems and was troubled about it. He could not understand this since he was President.

We all know that the White House is not behind times. Rather, could it be more than likely that Obama is purposely being disconnected from technology and from information?

One of Obama’s major failings when he took office was that he did not clean house. Consequently, there remains many bad players still working in all his federal agencies and even perhaps in his white house staff.

If Obama wants to be reconnected….perhaps he should do a little house cleaning!

CONNECTICUT: DEADLY SAFETY PROBLEMS AT YALE

Safety Problems Haunt Connecticut

Yale University Senior, Michele Dufault, 22-year old died Wednesday April 6, 2011 in a lab accident after her hair got caught into a lathe while working alone. 

Safety protections for workers in Connecticut are weak.



Worker's Memorial Day, April 28th. 
State Capitol at noon
Injured Workers Unite

For more:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703983104576263463180296504.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_second

Biological Research Laboratories Can Cause Dangerous and Lethal Human Infections

Researchers must be wary of infections

By Blythe Bernhard / St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The death of a scientist who caught the plague in a laboratory in 2009 shook the disease research community. It was the first such death of a researcher, and 50 years since the last known lab-acquired case of plague.


For the more than 500,000 people who work in laboratories in the United States, occupational health hazards can include infectious diseases spread by live viruses and bacteria.

There’s no state or national tracking system for lab-acquired infections, but one estimate says three of every 1,000 lab workers become infected each year. The most common infections include hepatitis, typhoid fever and tuberculosis, according to the National Institutes of Health.

“We’ve always told people they need to follow safety (precautions) even if what they think they’re working with is benign,” said Susan Cook, a safety officer at Washington University, where scientists work with cultures, including flu, pneumonia, salmonella and E. coli. “You don’t necessarily know what the person next to you is working with all the time.”
......

Basic lab protection includes gloves, coats and eye goggles. Biological safety cabinets keep fumes away from researchers if they need to mix agents.

Still, infections occur when workers breathe in or touch spores.

A student worker at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign somehow contracted cowpox last year in a campus lab that stores the virus. The skin virus presented as an infected cut, according to university officials, and the student recovered.

While all lab workers are offered precautionary vaccines, the student had declined, a university spokeswoman said.

In 2008, a lab worker at a Virginia university contracted vaccinia, the live virus contained in smallpox vaccine. The man in his 20s worked in a cancer research lab with mice that were infected with vaccinia virus. He recovered fully from an infection in his eye and ear.

For complete story:  http://www.bendbulletin.com/article/20110324/NEWS0107/103240320/

Lethal Dangers in Biological Research Laboratories

Researcher Dies from Work-Related Exposure to a Weaken Form of the Plague Bacterium

http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/305/14/1403.full

"Under certain environmental and host conditions, infection with attenuated bacteria might result in severe disease. Researchers always should adhere to recommended use of personal protective equipment. Unexpected acute illness in a laboratory worker should be reported to the institution and health-care providers so that the differential diagnosis can be expanded to include diseases occurring as a result of occupational exposures."