Society's ChildS


Life Preserver

US pharmaceutical drug shortages worst on record

Ernie Mundell
US News
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 11:24 UTC
Taking a Pill
© jorgeantonio / GettyAmericans born in 2019 can expect to spend nearly half their lives taking prescription drugs, according to a new study conducted by Jessica Ho, associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State.
Americans are facing more shortages of the drugs they need for medical care than ever before, a national pharmacy database shows.

The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHSP) and the University of Utah Drug Information Service started tracking drug shortages as far back as 2001.

Their latest data shows that things haven't been this bad in all the years they've kept records.

A record high of 323 different meds were in short supply during the first quarter of 2024, the groups found. That's worse than the last peak for drug shortages -- 320 in 2014, according to the data.

Comment: As noted these shortages are just getting worse, particularly it seems in Western nations, and those governments that are reporting shortages don't seem to have come up with a solution.

Considering how a number of these medications are essential for emergency and critical healthcare, it's highly likely that they're already having a quantifiable, detrimental, impact on public health. Furthermore, should there be serious shortages of medications used for mental health, it may result in a significant proportion of the population, who are dependent, into going without; and the fall out of patients who are forced to taper off to quickly, or going cold turkey, could have disastrous consequences for society:

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Fire

Fire breaks out at US ammunition factory


RT
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 07:20 UTC
The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, April 15, 2024.
© Facebook/NEPAFirePhotos/screenshotThe Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, April 15, 2024.
The Scranton Army Munitions Plant has produced artillery shells for Ukraine.

The US Army factory in Scranton, Pennsylvania that specializes in artillery ammunition caught fire on Monday afternoon, according to local media reports and eyewitnesses.

The Scranton Army Ammunition Plant started spewing black smoke shortly before 3pm local time. Local emergency services were summoned to deal with what was described as a "structure fire."

No further details were available.
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NPC

Facebook censors Climate: The Movie after 'fact check' by science feedback

Andy May
Watts Up With That?
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 07:00 UTC
facebook censorship
Facebook's censorship is totally out of hand, and its "independent and nonpartisan fact checks" are anything but. Now it is censoring Climate: The Movie. The supposed 'fact checks' provided by Science Feedback and Climate Feedback (they are two branches of the same organisation) have been shown many times to be both partisan and ideologically driven. The 'fact check' of Steve Koonin's bestselling book Unsettled done by Climate Feedback was blisteringly criticised by the Wall Street Journal in a lead editorial by the WSJ editorial staff.

The editorial includes the following:
Mr. Koonin, whose careful book draws extensively on existing scholarship, may respond on the merits in a different forum. Suffice it to say here that many of the 'fact check' claims relied on by Facebook don't contradict the underlying material, but instead argue with its perceived implications.
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Gavel

Abu Ghraib survivors to get their day in court


RT
Fri, 12 Apr 2024 18:20 UTC
down on floor
© API/Gamma-Rapho/Getty ImagesA photo purports to show prisoners being abused by US guards at Abu Ghraib prison, near Baghdad
Two decades after a US torture scandal made headlines, a lawsuit against the military contractor involved is going to trial...

Twenty years on from reports that the US military was torturing prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, three survivors will finally get a chance to bring their claims before an American jury.

A trial in the civil lawsuit filed by former Abu Ghraib inmates against the US military contractor that they blame for their suffering is scheduled to begin on Monday in a federal court near Washington. The private security contractor, CACI International, has strung the case along for 16 years by making over 20 unsuccessful attempts to have the lawsuit dismissed.

CACI, which supplied the interrogators who worked at Abu Ghraib, has insisted that its employees weren't accused of abusing detainees. The Virginia-based company also has argued that as a Pentagon contractor, it should be protected by the government's sovereign immunity against the torture allegations.
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Clipboard

Crib notes for the Trial of the Century

James Howard Kunstler
jameshowardkunstler.substack.com
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00 UTC
clouds
"Once someone determined Trump was so bad it was okay to lie about him, it set the precedent that the only thing that mattered was a subject's politics." — Matt Taibbi
What fascinates us about sex, I suppose, is that most everyone wants it and seeks it, driven by irresistible natural impulses, and yet the act itself is such an affront to civilized decorum that it inspires both comedy and horror, two states of consciousness that are themselves irresistibly compelling. Add lawyers to all that and you find yourself entering the realm of opera bouffe, which is to say, kitsch, human expression reduced to its most self-consciously ridiculous.

Enter Stormy Daniels, that notorious pair of cumulus clouds attached to a person, who made a career in the sex industry and later on, at the age when sex workers generally face retirement, had a fresh start as a political gadfly buzzing around the mystifying hair-do of President Donald Trump. Stormy first encountered Mr. Trump in 2006 when he was a mere TV star who played in a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. She was hanging out there with two porn-star girlfriends. Golf nuts all, must've been.
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Star of David

Vultures: Israeli firms working overtime to sell stolen Palestinian land to US Jews

Eleanor Goldfield
TruthOut
Sat, 13 Apr 2024 17:18 UTC
israel sell palestine land us jews
© Eleanor GoldfieldZionists encircle anti-Zionist protesters standing with keffiyehs and a sign reading "Waterfront properties built upon bulldozed bodies" outside of Shomrei Emunah in Baltimore, Maryland.
The real estate events peddling land in Israeli settlements in the West Bank appear to flout US and international law.

"Your chance to own a piece of the Holy Land!" exclaims the cheerful advertising copy on a real estate website aimed at attracting buyers in the U.S. and Canada to purchase land located in Israel and in a number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The site describes five land sale events that occurred this spring in the U.S. and Canada.

Another land sale event held in Baltimore invited attendees to "Buy Your Home in Israel Now!" But, as with the other events, attendees couldn't just be anyone interested in some freshly stolen land. You have to be Jewish, but not just any kind of Jewish.
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Colosseum

26 coal barges break loose on flooded Ohio River, destroy Pittsburgh marina

Hillary Andrews
Fox
Sun, 14 Apr 2024 15:53 UTC
coal barge
© U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh DistrictThe force of the water slammed one of the barges against the cement pier so hard that it bent.
Heavy rain triggered flooding across the Ohio River again. Pittsburgh is on track to see record rainfall for the month of April, according to the National Weather Service.

Flooding rains allowed 26 barges on the Ohio River to break loose and flow downstream threatening Pittsburgh bridges. Authorities closed the bridges, which have since reopened.

Officials closed several bridges across Pittsburgh late Friday and Saturday morning as more than two dozen cargo barges broke loose and careened down the flooded Ohio River.

"The McKees Rocks Bridge was closed in both directions, and rail traffic was shut down on the rail bridge to Brunot Island," public safety officials in Pittsburgh said in a statement. "Both will be reopened when it is determined that it is safe to do so."

Comment: Whilst this is related to an extreme weather event, one might suppose this is also connected to the over failing of US infrastructure and general management; and this is in addition to the more suspect incidents occurring across the nation: Container ship 'loses power' in NYC harbor near bridge; passenger planes clip wings at UK airport

Meanwhile in China:



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Evil Rays

Bishop and 3 worshipers attacked with knife on livestream in Sydney Orthodox church, comes just 48 hours after mall attack

Max Aitchison
Daily Mail
Mon, 15 Apr 2024 14:52 UTC
sydney stab knife church bishop
Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was preaching at The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley in Sydney's west on Monday evening when a man dressed in black walked up to the altar and stabbed him multiple times (pictured)
A bishop and three worshippers have been attacked in another stabbing rampage to rock Sydney, as riot police were called in to quell mounting tensions in the city's west.

Assyrian religious leader Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was preaching at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley in Sydney's west on Monday just after 7pm when a man dressed in a dark hoodie walked up to the altar and allegedly stabbed him multiple times.

Horrifying footage of the incident, which was being broadcast live on the church's YouTube page, shows Bishop Emmanuel look up in astonishment as the attacker suddenly rains down blows on his face and head.

Comment: Interestingly, early reports of the mall attack claimed it might be terror-related, however, relatively quickly, police assured people that there was no reason to believe that it was. What was acknowledged is that the criminal was known to the authorities.

Overall, it seems possible that this attack may be more along the lines of some kind of copycat attack. One is reminded of the two shootings in Serbia in May 2023.

It is, however, notable that the victim was known to have been outspoken against the establishment agenda, and one wonders whether this criminal, like the mall attacker, was also 'known to the authorities': Sydney mall knife attack: 6 dead, several wounded, incl. baby, perpetrator was known to authorities

UPDATE: Footage of the bishop's other talks are emerging online:



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Passport

WHO official admits vaccine passports may have been a scam

Paul D. Thacker
The DisInformation Chronicle
Fri, 12 Apr 2024 07:06 UTC
vaccine passport cartoon
The World Health Organization's Dr. Hanna Nohynek testified in court that she advised her government that vaccine passports were not needed but was ignored, despite explaining that the COVID vaccines did not stop virus transmission and the passports gave a false sense of security. The stunning revelations came to light in a Helsinki courtroom where Finnish citizen Mika Vauhkala is suing after he was denied entry to a café for not having a vaccine passport.

Dr. Nohynek is chief physician at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare and serves as the WHO's chair of Strategic Group of Experts on immunization. Testifying yesterday, she stated that the Finnish Institute for Health knew by the summer of 2021 that the COVID-19 vaccines did not stop virus transmission

During that same 2021 time period, the WHO said it was working to "create an international trusted framework" for safe travel while EU members states began rolling out COVID passports. The EU Digital COVID Certificate Regulation passed in July 2021 and more than 2.3 billion certificates were later issued. Visitors to France were banned if they did not have a valid vaccine passport which citizens had to carry to buy food at stores or to use public transport.
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Big Bomb

Israel's defence against Iran attack overnight 'likely cost over $1bn'


Middle East Eye
Sun, 14 Apr 2024 13:01 UTC
The cost for one night of defence seen as significantly higher than the price Iran paid to mount its attack.
Remains of an Iranian rocket booster
© ReutersA police officer and residents inspect the remains of an Iranian rocket booster that landed in Israel, near Arad, 14 April 2024.
It cost Israel more than $1bn to activate its defence systems that intercepted Iran's massive drone and missile attack overnight, according to a former financial adviser to Israel's military.

"The defence tonight was on the order of 4-5bn shekels [$1-1.3bn] per night," estimated Brigadier General Reem Aminoach in an interview with Ynet news.

Aminoach highlighted that the staggering price tag stands in contrast to the relatively low amount that Iran had spent to launch its assault, which some estimates have put at less than 10 percent of what it cost Israel to stop the attack.

Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles towards Israel on Saturday, in response to an Israeli attack on its consulate in Syria that killed two senior Revolutionary Guard commanders earlier this month.

Israel said its military forces and its allies had intercepted 99 percent of the missiles, but some ballistic missiles penetrated Israeli defences and hit the Nevatim Airbase in southern Israel.
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