A six-year-old boy who attends Lincoln Elementary in Redwood, Oregon has been publicly humiliated by school officials on multiple occasions because he showed up a few minutes late to school. 1st grader Hunter Hoover has been made to sit by himself during lunch, behind a cardboard divider for something that was totally out of his control.

On one recent morning when his mother's car had trouble starting, Hunter arrived to school exactly one minute late and was reprimanded by administrators. Someone from Hunter's family stuck around, and were absolutely horrified by how he was isolated at lunch.

Hours later, Laura Hoover, the boy's grandmother, made a post to facebook showing a picture of her gandson's punishment. Her post said:

This is my grandson, Hunter. He's a little first grader. His momma's car sometimes doesn't like to start right up. Sometimes he's a couple minutes late to school. Yesterday, he was 1 minute late and this is what his momma discovered they do to punish him! They have done this to him 6 times for something that is out of this baby's control! They make a mockery of him in front of the other students! The principal is responsible for this. His mom found him there, crying, and took him home for the day. Anyone want to help me flood this lady principal with calls telling her how inappropriate this is?

The post sparked national outrage and eventually the school was forced to respond and change their policy. The school then issued the following notice:

For the past twenty-four hours, there has been considerable general and social media attention regarding the Lincoln Elementary School Attendance/Tardy Catch-up Protocol. This afternoon, Principal Fitzsimmons was able to meet with both parents to discuss their concerns. We are pleased to report the meeting was productive. The parents' concerns were politely discussed and, ultimately, the issues were resolved to the satisfaction of both the parents and the school. All parties involved believe that an appropriate resolution has been reached and are anxious to move forward with their normal daily routines.

This is just another example of why state-run schools and government do not always know what is best for our children. Do you truly believe this school had Hunter's best interest in mind when they secluded him because his mother dropped him off one minute late?

Pakistani authorities have conducted their first-ever mass arrest of parents for refusing to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio.

Authorities in Peshawar, in the north-west of the country, detained 471 people and charged them with "endangering public security".

The local government says they will only be freed once they have pledged in writing to vaccinate their children.

The Taliban prohibit vaccinations and have attacked health workers.

The Pakistani government has declared "war" on the disease. "We have decided to deal with the refusal cases with iron hands. Anyone who refuses will be sent to jail," said Riaz Khan Mehsud, deputy commissioner of Peshawar.

Pakistan accounts for the vast majority of polio cases globally and is one of only three countries where it remains endemic.

In 2014, polio cases in the country reached a 14 year high of 306. Nine new cases have been detected so far this year.


In June 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that all international travellers from Pakistan be administered polio drops at airports to prevent its spread.

The Taliban have claimed that the polio vaccination drive is a front for espionage or a conspiracy to sterilise Muslims.

In November four polio vaccination workers were shot dead in the south-west city of Quetta.

The FBI and Wilson County authorities are investigating the theft of an estimated $4 million worth of gold reportedly stolen during an armed robbery along Interstate 95 near Wilson Sunday evening, the sheriff's office says.

Two armed security guards told authorities that they were traveling from Miami to Massachusetts with a shipment of silver and gold when they pulled over at mile marker 114 after mechanical problems with their truck.

The sheriff's office says the guards reported that three armed men in a white van approached them, ordered them to the ground, tied their hands behind their backs and forced them to walk into some nearby woods.

Students at a California high school reportedly found their teacher hanging from the classroom ceiling on Monday morning in what was described as a suicide.

According to The Orange County Register, the 31-year-old woman was discovered in an El Dorado High School classroom by students and faculty at around 8:30 a.m.

Police said the door had been locked when class was scheduled to begin on Monday, so students asked another teacher to unlock the door. Reports said that the teacher was still alive when she was found, and that the students attempted to take her down.

"When police and fire arrived, the teacher was in cardiac arrest," police Lt. Eric Pointe said. "After several minutes, she was declared deceased at the scene."

According to court documents obtained by BuzzFeed's Stephanie McNeal, the city of Cleveland, Ohio is claiming that 12-year-old Tamir Rice's death — as well as the pain and suffering caused to his family by it — was his own fault.

Tamir Rice was shot and killed while playing with a replica gun in a park last November. Rice had been playing with the replica in the park when rookie Officer Timothy Loehmann and his partner pulled up in a police cruiser and, within two seconds, shot him dead.

The incident was captured on video, but neither Officer Loehmann nor his partner knew that when they gave investigators their initial statements, in which they claimed that Rice was with a group of young boys and was waving the gun around with the intention of shooting someone.

One of the more troubling aspects of the Homan Square interrogation facility is the death of John Hubbard who is said to have died of an accidental heroin overdose while in police custody after buying drugs from an undercover officer.

Prior to the other revelations about Homan Square, it would have just been assumed that the cops were incompetent and let the suspect shoot up the evidence. Then it would have been assumed that they were lazy when parts of the file missing. After the explosive revelations about the facility, the public has to wonder how a suspect was capable of shooting up while inside of a police facility. It is highly unlikely that a suspect on the verge of overdose would be out attempting to purchase narcotics. The only likely scenario is that he injected, or someone else injected him with, the narcotics inside the police facility.

In light of the situation, The Fifth Column began reaching out to other victims of Homan Square. One of those was Jose Gonzales. During our interview he relayed his story:

Authorities said Sunday night that Los Angeles police fatally shot a man on skid row during a struggle over an officer's weapons.

Police officials offered a detailed account of what they say prompted the Sunday morning shooting, which was captured on video by a bystander.

Cmdr. Andrew Smith said officers assigned to the LAPD's Central Division and Safer Cities Initiative — a task force focused on skid row — responded to the location about noon Sunday after receiving a 911 call reporting a possible robbery.

A New Jersey woman has filed a lawsuit claiming she was held for six days in a New York hospital's psychiatric ward after first complaining of flu-like symptoms.
NJ.com reports Kaitlin Taylor was a student at Syracuse University in 2013 when she went to the school's medical center seeking a prescription because she believed she had the flu or a bad cold.

While there, Taylor reportedly spoke briefly with a school counselor and said she was considering changing her arts major and had wanted to take a leave of absence from the school but missed an important deadline to file paperwork.

Taylor said she was then informed that no one at the medical center could write her a prescription and was taken to nearby St. Joseph's Hospital where she was dropped off in front of the emergency room.

As she waited at the ER, Taylor said she grew more stressed and felt as though she was getting sicker by the minute.

"I was getting stressed by the circumstances and the surroundings," she told The New York Post in a written account of her experience. "I thought I'd only be there for an hour or two."

Taylor said she was eventually led to an office where she spoke to a psychiatrist for about 15 minutes. She said she told the psychiatrist she had been having trouble sleeping and was struggling to keep up with coursework.

The psychiatrist's notes indicate the student was admitted for "involuntary treatment" for "insomnia, pressured speech, disorganized, declining grades."

Taylor said she spent the next six days in an observation room with other patients.

Health Impact News Editor Comments

Spain now joins a growing list of countries where criminal lawsuits have been filed against manufacturers of the HPV vaccine, which includes France, India, Japan, and many more.

In the United States, however, you cannot sue the manufacturers of vaccines, as they are protected from civil criminal prosecution. As a result, marketing efforts to increase the sale and distribution of the HPV vaccine are increasing. (See: Merck aims to boost HPV vaccination rates amid lagging numbers)

Gardasil: Criminal complaint filed in Spain

By Norma Erickson
SaneVax, Inc.

June 19 2014, Logroño, Spain: Attorney Don Manuel Sáez Ochoa filed a criminal complaint against Merck-Sanofi Pasteur Laboratories, Spanish National Health authorities, and the regional health authorities of the La Rioja province on behalf of Zuriñe Jiménez Guereño and her mother Doña Maria del Carmen Jiménez Guereño for injuries and disabilities suffered by Zuriñe after the administration of Gardasil.

The complaint states that Merck Laboratories failed to use an inert placebo during clinical trials, thereby manipulating data and marketing Gardasil under false pretences. Despite complaints of several young women with similar new medical conditions after Gardasil injections, the Spanish health authorities ignored calls for a moratorium on the use of Gardasil until the safety issues were resolved.

Both regional and national health authorities made no attempt to verify the accuracy of the safety data Merck submitted to gain approval for the widespread administration of Gardasil as a cancer preventative; nor did they make any attempt to inform the public that an already proven safe and effective means of controlling cervical cancer was already in existence.

The complaint goes on to say both national and local health authorities had adequate knowledge regarding the potential harmful effects of Gardasil and chose to recommend administration of the HPV vaccine anyway. The complaint alleges this showed an absolute disregard for the health and well-being of young Spanish girls.

According to the complaint, the attitude of the Merck pharmaceutical company and Spanish health authorities (both national and regional) before, during and after the administration of Gardasil shows they care nothing about the risk to which medical consumers expose themselves whenever Gardasil is used.

The complaint states, prior to administration, no one was concerned about possible adverse reactions to the vaccine. When adverse reactions did occur, those who experienced them were treated with contempt leaving them in a state of helplessness. There was allegedly not one single official inquiry about the girls' post-Gardasil conditions even though they were healthy prior to being injected with Gardasil.

An outcry from the public calling for a moratorium on the use of Gardasil until safety issues were resolved was ignored by Spanish health authorities. Injections of Gardasil continued despite the damage left behind.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, speaking Thursday at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an ultra-right political conference held in suburban Washington DC, compared the working class and student protesters who thronged the streets of Madison in 2011 to ISIS terrorists. "If I could take on 100,000 protestors, I could do the same across the world," he said, boasting that his defeat of the unions in Wisconsin qualified him to wage war in the Middle East.

Following his remarks, Walker was criticized by at least one other potential candidate, former Texas governor Rick Perry, who said on MSNBC, "You are talking about, in the case of ISIS, people who are beheading individuals and committing heinous crimes, who are the face of evil. To try to make the relationship between them and the unions is inappropriate."

In a brief interchange with reporters, Walker backtracked, saying, "There's no comparison between the two, let me be perfectly clear. I'm just pointing out the closest thing I have to handling a difficult situation was the 100,000 protesters I had to deal with."

He continued, attacking the media questioners, saying, "You all will misconstrue things the way you see fit. That's the closest thing I have in terms of handling a difficult situation, not that there's any parallel between the two." Walker's campaign later issued a statement declaring, "He was in no way comparing any American citizen to ISIS."

No one at CPAC was fooled by the subsequent disclaimers. On the contrary, Walker's remarks, including his comparison of protesters to ISIS, were greeted with noisy cheering, and his speech was the most well-attended of the day's events. Walker is a top-tier candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, leading in party polls in Iowa, the first state primary contest, and well financed by billionaire supporters like the Koch brothers.