Mystery Illness Attacks Children

Thousands of Children Attacked by Mystery Disease


A crippling mystery illness has attacked thousand of once healthy young children in Uganda. Medical officials throughout the world are perplexed as thousands of children become completely disabled mentally and physically with neurological effects such as seizures and brain disfunction. Some children have even succumb to death.  The children are left unable to cope or maintain normal lives. The illness has placed great hardships upon families and communities. Medical officials are looking into food sources or infectious disease as sources of the problem.  But as epidemic grows, no answers or therapies are currently available.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/03/21/mysterious-zombie-disease-afflicts-thousands-of-ugandan-children/

UNREPORTED LAB ACCIDENTS MAKES FOR FALSE CLAIMS OF SAFETY IN LABS

Experts say US needs better tracking of lab accidents

 

Robert Roos News Editor

 

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/bt/bioprep/news/jan0512labsafe.html
 

Jan 5, 2012 (CIDRAP News) – In releasing safety guidelines today for workers in medical diagnostic laboratories, a panel of experts convened by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the nation needs a system for "nonpunitive" surveillance and reporting of laboratory-acquired infections (LAIs).

 

Except for requirements in the CDC's Select Agent Program, which covers certain dangerous biological agents and toxins, such as Bacillus anthracis, there is no national system for reporting medical laboratory exposures and resulting infections, says the lengthy report.

 

"Because of the lack of an official surveillance mechanism for reporting LAIs and because of the fear of punitive action by an oversight agency if injuries are reported, the data needed to determine the extent and cause of LAIs are unavailable," the report states. "In addition, there is a dearth of science-based insights on prevention of LAIs."

 

 The panel calls for a "voluntary, nonpunitive surveillance and reporting system with the potential for anonymity to be implemented in the United States."

 

The comments are part of Guidelines for Safe Work Practices in Human and Animal Diagnostic Laboratories, which was released by the CDC as a supplement to Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. It was prepared by a "Biosafety Blue Ribbon Panel" of experts from the CDC and a number of university and private labs.

 

 The report is intended to supplement the fifth edition of Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories, which was not specifically designed to address the routine operations of diagnostic labs in human and veterinary medicine.

 

The new guidelines are not designed to replace existing guidance, but have the general aims of improving safety in clinical labs, encouraging lab workers to think about safety issues they might not have considered, and encouraging them "to create and foster a culture of safety." The US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that workers in human and animal diagnostic labs number about 500,000, the report says.

 

 Given the shortage of solid data, the number of LAIs is unknown, but "Laboratory exposures occur more often than is generally suspected," the report says. It notes that hepatitis B has been the most frequent lab-acquired viral infection, with a rate of 3.5 to 4.6 cases per 1,000 workers, which is two to four times the rate in the general population.

 

 The five most common ways that lab workers acquire infections on the job, according to the guidelines, are:

• Parenteral inoculations with syringe needles or other contaminated sharps
• Pills and splashes onto skin and mucous membranes
• Ingestion or exposure through mouth pipetting or touching mouth or eyes with fingers or contaminated objects
• Animal bites and scratches (research laboratories or activities)
• Inhalation of infectious aerosols

But the first four of those routes account for less than 20% of infections, the experts found. Studies over the years have shown that in many cases no specific exposure events were identified, which suggests that unsuspected infectious aerosols may play a large role in LAIs.

 

The guidelines address all functions of human and animal diagnostic labs, including microbiology, chemistry, hematology, and pathology. They include a specific section addressing veterinary lab issues not shared by human labs.

 

Recommendations intended for all laboratories include "use of Class IIA2 biological safety cabinets that are inspected annually; frequent hand washing; use of appropriate disinfectants, including 1:10 dilutions of household bleach"; risk assessments for many activities; written safety protocols that address chemical-related risks; the need for negative airflow into labs; and lab areas in which use of gloves is optional or recommended.

 

Each section of recommendations was reviewed by CDC experts and relevant national organizations, such as the College of American Pathologists, American Society for Microbiology, American Clinical Laboratory Association, Association of Public Health Laboratories, and several others, the report says.

 

CDC. Guidelines for Safe Work Practices in Human and Animal Diagnostic Laboratories: recommendations of a CDC-convened, Biosafety Blue Ribbon Panel. MMWR 2012 Jan 6;61(01):1-101 (supplement)

 

 

Experimenting with Danger
http://www.csb.gov/videoroom/detail.aspx?VID=61

See the link above to a CSB video that highlights the lack of safety, regulations, and oversight in research laboratories in the United States.  With no obligatory uniform minimum standard of safety mandated for all research labs in the United States, serious injuries and deaths that could have been prevented continue to occur.  A serious lack of accountability and responsibility exist in the world of science.

Congentital Lyme Disease Induces Autism

A report by FOX news reports on congenital Lyme Disease having the potential to cause autism in children:

http://www.fox40.com/news/headlines/ktxl-treating-lyme-induced-autism-20110926-001,0,65417.premiumvideo

Public Health and Safety_Biotech Worker Made Ill from Unsafe Biotech Laboratories at Univ of Chicago

University of Chicago Microbiologist Infected From Possible Lab Accident

by Jocelyn Kaiser on 12 September 2011, 5:17 PM

http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2011/09/university-of-chicago-microbiologist.html?ref=hp
 

Another laboratory-acquired infection may have occurred in a University of Chicago building where 2 years ago a researcher contracted plague and later died. Late last month, a researcher who worked in the same general lab area was hospitalized with a skin infection caused by a common bacterium being studied in her lab.

The researcher became infected with Bacillus cereus, which can cause food-borne infections, while working on a project headed by microbiologist Olaf Schneewind, according to the university. She was hospitalized on 27 August; after receiving surgery and antibiotics, she was released. In her lab, where B. cereus was studied in biosafety-level 2 conditions (on the lower end of four biosafety levels), the university suspended research to decontaminate the area as a precautionary measure (it was expected to open later this week).

The researcher was likely exposed through an open wound. The university is still investigating whether she acquired the infection in the lab, said University of Chicago Medical Center spokesperson Lorna Wong. B. cereus is not contagious as long as standard procedures such as good hand-washing hygiene are followed, but family members and co-workers were screened for infection risk and some were offered precautionary antibiotics.

Two years ago, a researcher who worked in the same area in the Cummings Life Science Center, geneticist Malcolm Casadaban, a co-principal investigator with Schneewind, died after becoming infected with a weakened strain of the Yersinia pestis bacterium that was not thought to infect healthy adults. According to a report in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report, Casadaban may have become sick because he had hemochromatosis, or an overload of iron in the body. The Y. pestis strain had been weakened by making it less able to acquire iron, and the excess iron in Casadaban's body might have allowed it to be become more virulent, the MMWR report says.

That report said Casadaban, who was known to use gloves inconsistently, may have become infected through dermal exposure—possibly the same exposure route as the researcher infected with B. cereus. The university said that Chicago's public health department has visited the campus and reviewed the lab's safety procedures.

Neither case involved a select agent—a pathogen on CDC's list of potential agents in a biological attack. (Although Y. pestis is on the list, the strain Casadaban studied was excluded.) But Schneewind also directs the Great Lakes Regional Center of Excellence for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases Research, a consortium funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to study select agents and natural threats. The center does some of its work at a major biosafety level-3 lab on the campus of Argonne National Laboratory, one of a dozen such regional biocontainment labs built partly with NIAID funding after the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Schneewind did not respond to an e-mail this morning seeking comment.
_________________________________________________________________

Not all infections are bacteria. Fungi and viruses can also infect wounds.

Concerns for Public Health and Safety and Social Implications of Synthetic Biology

See link below for video testimonies:

http://www.tvworldwide.com/events/bioethics/100708/globe_show/default_go_archive.cfm?gsid=1380&type=flv&test=0&live=0

Genetically Engineered Food Toxin Found in Human Blood Samples

Discovery of Bt insecticide in human blood proves GMO toxin a threat to human health, study finds


by Jonathan Benson, staff writer http://www.naturalnews.com/032407_Bt_insecticide_GMOs.html

(NaturalNews) The biotechnology industry's house of cards appears to be crumbling, as a new study out of the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, recently found Bt toxin, a component of certain genetically-modified (GM) crops, in human blood samples for the first time. Set to be published in the peer-reviewed journal Reproductive Toxicology the new study shreds the false notion that Bt is broken down by the digestive system, and instead shows that the toxin definitively persists in the bloodstream.

Industry mouthpieces have long alleged that Bt toxin, which is derived from a soil bacterium known as Bacillus thuringiensis, is harmless to humans. The built-in pesticide has been integrated into certain GM crops to ward off pests. Bt corn, for instance, has actually been designed to produce the toxin directly inside its kernels, which are later eaten by both livestock and humans (http://www.naturalnews.com/026426_G...).

In the recent study, researchers Aziz Aris and Samuel Leblanc evaluated 30 pregnant women and 39 non-pregnant women who had come to the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Sherbrooke (CHUS) in Quebec, Can., for a tubectomy. Upon taking blood samples, researchers detected the Bt Cry1Ab toxin in a shocking 93 percent of maternal and 80 percent of fetal blood samples. And 69 percent of non-pregnant women tested positive for the toxin in their blood.

All women involved in the study had been consuming a typical Canadian diet which, like in the US, is riddled with GM materials and toxins. Conventional soy, corn, canola, and potato products, for example, are in many of the foods eaten in both the US and Canada, which explains why Bt toxin was highly prevalent in the women's blood samples.

And the fact that Bt toxin was detected even in unborn babies shows that the chemical is easily passed from mother to child, and that it persists far longer than the biotechnology industry claims it does. Clearly, the toxin is harmful both to pests and to humans. Earlier studies have already shown that Bt toxin and other pesticides end up contaminating and persisting in the environment, which makes it a major public health concern.

Sources for this story include:

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/s...

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

Unsafe Biotech Laboratories in U.S._Biotech Worker Infected with Cow Pox.

 A laboratory worker was found infected with Cow Pox from an exposure while working in an unsafe biotech laboratory in the United States.  The worker was not working direclty with the virus but became infected because of a lack of biocontainment and decontamination issues.  The laboratory worker became infected in July 2010.  "The investigation revealed cowpox virus stocks in the laboratory's freezer but no known or intentional use of cowpox in the patient's laboratory in the previous 5 years,"  However, environmental swabbing indicated that virus was found on several surfaces in the laboratory and freezer room. Cowpox infections are transmissible.

http://promedmail.oracle.com/pls/otn/pm?an=20110209.0444

OBAMA LAND AND REGULATORY STRATEGY

In this Executive Order, the President requires Federal agencies to design cost-effective, evidence-based regulations that are compatible with economic growth, job creation, and competitiveness. It outlines following guiding principles:



* Cost-effective and Cost-Justified: Consistent with law, Agencies must consider costs and benefits and choose the least burdensome path.

* Transparent: The regulatory process must be transparent and include public participation, with an opportunity for the public to comment.

* Coordinated and Simplified: Agencies must attempt to coordinate, simplify, and harmonize regulations to reduce costs and promote certainty for businesses and the public.

* Flexible: Agencies must consider approaches that maintain freedom of choice and flexibility, including disclosure of relevant information to the public.

* Science-driven: Regulations must be guided by objective scientific evidence.

* Necessary and Up-to-Date: Existing regulations must be reviewed to determine that they are still necessary and crafted effectively to solve current problems. If they are outdated, they must be changed or repealed.

Fact Sheet: The President’s Regulatory Strategy

http://www.ttkn.com/world/fact-sheet-the-presidents-regulatory-strategy-7818.html
 

GE Foods Cause Harm in Animal Studies_United States Covers Up Harm

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/01/12/wikileaks-reveals-us-sought-to-retaliate-against-europe-over-monsanto-gm-crops.aspx

Oversight for Human Clinical Studies Are Shoddy

“Escalating Human Experimention”: FDA Only Inspects 1% of Overseas Drug Trial Sites

“ … The findings drew a considerable level of comment from groups that monitor public health in the US, notably Public Citizen who said the report ‘confirms some of the worst fears about the serious dangerous of escalating human experimentation.’ … “

By Gareth Macdonald

Outsourcing Pharma

June 24, 2010

The US FDA only reviews a fraction of trials conducted outside the country according to research by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

According to the new HHS Office of Inspector General report 80 per cent of marketing applications for pharmaceuticals and biologics approved in the US contain data from trials conducted outside the country.

However, despite this high reliance of overseas clinical research data, the Food and Drug Administration only inspected 0.7 per cent of clinical trial sites outside the country in 2008, compared with 1.9 per cent in the US.

The study also suggested that the agency may even be unaware of some early-phase studies conducted in the developing world as a result of submission failure or of logistical difficulties.

The findings drew a considerable level of comment from groups that monitor public health in the US, notably Public Citizen who said the report “confirms some of the worst fears about the serious dangerous of escalating human experimentation.”

Group spokesman Sidney Wolfe put it more directly, telling the Associated Press that: “The quality of data used by the FDA as a basis for approving the drugs being studies may well be flawed, resulting in dangerous, incorrect decisions to approve drugs.”

for more....

http://www.antifascistencyclopedia.com/allposts/fda-only-inspects-1-of-overseas-drug-trial-sites

More news...well old news ...on acquired infections

July 12th, 2010
Woman contracts vaccinia virus through sexual contact with military boyfriend


August 1, 2010
Report: man gets a laboratory-acquired vaccinia infection in Virginia: CDC changes guidelines


Sept 3, 2010
Goodby smallpox, hello...monkeypox?

Surviving Anthrax at Fort Detrick

Surviving Anthrax.  Here is a facinating video showing footage of the Biological Weapons Programs at Fort Detrick around the 1950's.  Fifty years ago Bernard "Left" Kreh was accidentally infected with Anthrax while working at Ft. Detrick. He survived.  Mr. Kreh discusses in the video how he survived the anthrax exposure and the requirement to keep it a secret.

Here is the link to the video:  Fort Detrick Anthrax Survivor Shares Story

anthrax infection

anthrax infection

anthrax bacteria

 
 
http://deskofbrian.com/2011/01/one-mans-story-about-surviving-a-laboratory-accident-with-anthrax/
 
http://www.wusa9.com/video/default.aspx?bctid=739620890001#/Fort+Detrick+Anthrax+Survivor+Shares+Story/739620890001

Honeywell Uses Bad Community Tactics to Cover up Pollution.

Read background story here:http://usw7-669.com/story/honeywell-further-pollute-our-community-and-they-dont-think-you-can-stop-them-video?quicktabs_story_media_571=Video#quicktabs-story_media_571

Genetically Engineered R9 Nanoparticles Internalize into Cell Nucleus_Public Health and Safety Implications

 Esther Vázquez, Rafael Cubarsi, Ugutz Unzueta, Mónica Roldán, Joan Domingo-Espín, Neus Ferrer-Miralles, Antonio Villaverde. Internalization and kinetics of nuclear migration of protein-only, arginine-rich nanoparticles. Biomaterials, 2010; 31 (35): 9333 DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2010.08.065

Understanding the intracellular trafficking of nanoparticles internalized by mammalian cells is a critical issue in nanomedicine, intimately linked to therapeutic applications but also to toxicity concerns. While the uptake mechanisms of carbon nanotubes and polymeric particles have been investigated fairly extensively, there are few studies on the migration and fate of protein-only nanoparticles other than natural viruses. Interestingly, protein nanoparticles are emerging as tools in personalized medicines because of their biocompatibility and functional tuneability, and are particularly promising for gene therapy and also conventional drug delivery. Here, we have investigated the uptake and kinetics of intracellular migration of protein nanoparticles built up by a chimerical multifunctional protein, and functionalized by a pleiotropic, membrane-active (R9) terminal peptide. Interestingly, protein nanoparticles are first localized in endosomes, but an early endosomal escape allows them to reach and accumulate in the nucleus (but not in the cytoplasm), with a migration speed of 0.0044 ± 0.0003 μm/s, ten-fold higher than that expected for passive diffusion. Interestingly, the plasmatic, instead of the nuclear membrane is the main cellular barrier in the nuclear way of R9-assisted protein-only nanoparticles.

 Esther Vázquez, Rafael Cubarsi, Ugutz Unzueta, Mónica Roldán, Joan Domingo-Espín, Neus Ferrer-Miralles, Antonio Villaverde. Internalization and kinetics of nuclear migration of protein-only, arginine-rich nanoparticles. Biomaterials, 2010; 31 (35): 9333 DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2010.08.065

also see this link: click here

Garage Biology...What's Cookin in Your Neighborhood?

The Do It Yourself Biolab.
Wow.  I am impressed.  This looks like a sophisticated garage bio lab. 

What's cookin in your neighborhood?

Well it can't be as bad as what is cookin in your local academic or biotech company which have little to no regulations...making GE human infection agents, nanotechnology and synthetic biology technologies.  Public Health and Safety last, profits first!



Its the wild wild West, folks.  
http://www.synthesis.cc/2010/03/garage-biology-in-silicon-valley.html

The Wanna Be Molecular Biologist

DIY Bio  Do It Yourself Biology.  Are you an amateur wanna be molecular biologist?  Here is a link to the origins of BioCurious, a Silicon Valley non-profit community lab "which puts gene-splicing, DNA sequencing and everything else into hands of , well, just about anyone." 

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-07/15/eri-gentry-garage-biotech-revolution

2011 Brings Birds Falling From the Sky and Massive Fish Deaths

Eerie Wild Life Die Offs Hail in the New Year.

Approximately 5000 red-winged blackbirds and European starlings were found mysteriously dead spewed on the ground on New Years Day 2010 in Beebe, Arkansas. Beebe, Arkansas the city of Arkansas State University and is about 40 miles from Little Rock. Reports came in on December 31, 2010 as early as 10:00pm that birds were falling from the sky. The next day five thousand birds within a one mile radius were found scattered dead on the ground showing signs of physical trauma.

No clear answer to this mystery has been provided by experts. Some speculate that fireworks could have caused the nesting birds to startle into a panic flight which caused many to run into objects causing the physical trauma and massive deaths. Some others are skeptical of this explanation.

But what makes it more mysterious is the coincidence of other dead birds, dropping from the sky reported in Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, Kentucky, Sweden and Italy where thousands of turtle doves were found hanging tragically from trees “like Christmas balls” in the town of Faenza.

In addition to massive birds dying, hundreds of thousands of dead drum fish washed ashore 100 miles away from Beebe, Arkansas near Osark. Massive Fish death were also reported in Brazil and New Zealand.

Whatever the cause to these massive animal deaths, 2011 brings in a glaring reminder of the frailty of ecosystems around the world.

Diseases of the Nails_Slide Show

Diseases of the Nails_Slide Show
http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/nail-diseases?src=nl_slide