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WikiLeaks Manuscript. The Geography of the WikiLeaks Afghanistan War Logs, 2004-2009. A team of U.S. political geographers analyzes the secret Afghanistan war logs released by WikiLeaks.org. They offer the chance to examine in detail the dynamics of the conflict in that country. Doing so in a spatial framework is possible because each of the 77,000 events has geographic coordinates and dates. Using cartographic and geostatistical tools, the authors map the changing distribution of the events and compare them to the well-known violent-events ACLED database (see O’Loughlin et al., 2010 in this issue). They conclude that ACLED comprises a representative set of the more comprehensive data in the released files. The released war logs show that the Afghan insurgency spread rapidly in 2008–2009, that the insurgency is moving out of its traditional Pashtun heartlands, and remains mostly rural in location. Hotspot and cluster analysis identifies the ke y locations of the current war, which indicate that it is relocating to new provinces in Afghanistan while intensifying in the eastern border regions and in the south.
John O’Loughlin, Frank D. W. Witmer, Andrew M. Linke & Nancy Thorwardson, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 2010, 51 No.4, pp.472-95.
WikiLeaks Editor Julian Assange
Believe it or not, they are actually charging Julian Assange with rape and other sex crimes again! Will we see an even bigger media circus now? Something clearly is wrong with the Swedish justice system. From ”guilty with a warrant for arrest” – to ”no wait, innocent”, – to ”no wait, we changed our mind, guilty again!” How many chances do the Swedish prosecutors need to get it right? Now regardless of what happens serious errors have been made. No existing law in Sweden, or anywhere I know in the western world, force men to tell women what other women they sleep with and certainly no law in existence makes it illegal for a woman to sleep with two men at the same time while not telling them. "I'm losing confidence in the Swedish justice system," said WikiLeaks editor, Julian Assange. Watch the video and read the commentary.
Erik, Aktivarum
A terrifying video clip courtesy of CNN in America is published. "The Director of National Intelligence has given the go ahead for the nation's spy satellites to be used regularly by civilian agencies and law enforcement... This is a development all Americans should have great pride in," Department for Homeland Security Assistant Secretary, Charlie Allen. How far away are we from having this in Britain? Probably not that far...
Dylan Sharpe, Big Brother Watch
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Dylan Sharpe, Big Brother Watch
Healthcare professionals should be required to get vaccinated against seasonal influenza or else lose their jobs and professional privileges, the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) says in a position paper released today. The position paper, which updates a SHEA statement issued in 2005, recommends mandatory vaccination of all HCP working in all healthcare settings, regardless of whether they come into contact with patients and whether they are directly employed by the facility. The recommendation extends to students, volunteers, and contract workers. "One hopes that, in the interests of protecting both patients and their members, these organizations will not oppose mandatory programs that are developed in collaboration with employees," the position paper states. One author of the position paper reports that he is a consultant for Joint Commission Resources. He and some other authors report various financial rel ationships with Avianax, BD Diagnostics, Care Fusions, CSL, Cubist, EMD Serono, Emergent BioSolutions, GlaxoSmithKline, Human Genome Sciences, Liquidia Technologies, MedImmune, Merck, Novartis Vaccines and Therapeutics, Novavax, OrthoMcNeil, PaxVax, Pfizer, Rymed Technology, Sage, Sanofi Pasteur, Theraclone Sciences (formally Spaltudaq Corporation), Vaxxinate, and/or Wyeth. Mandated vaccination has been met with resistance.
Robert Lowes, Medscape Today
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Eben Harrell, TIME Magazine
Jenny Hope, Daily Mail
Press Release, Science Daily
NVIC Requests Additional Safety & Monitoring of the Influenza Vaccine by the National Vaccine Advisory Committee. On Aug. 25, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC), a public oversight committee created by Congress under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, whose members are appointed by the National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO) under the US Department of Health & Human Services, held a public teleconference and discussed how best to monitor the safety of the 2010/2011 influenza vaccine, as well as target groups identified for the vaccine. NVPO staff and advisors strongly promoted the vaccination of pregnant women and supported the American Medical Association (AMA) and American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommendation that healthcare workers should receive influenza vaccines. NVIC's Executive Director, Theresa Wrangham made public comments encouraging the NVAC to step-up the safety monitoring of this year's vaccine to match the monitoring efforts during 2009/2010 pandemic H1N1 season. The committee voted to accept interim recommendations to pursue safety monitoring of this season's trivalent influenza vaccine as an inter-agency effort only. It did not recommend convening an independent and external committee to review vaccine safety data as was done to monitor the 2009/2010 monovalent pandemic H1N1 vaccine through the specially appointed Vaccine Safety Risk Assessment Working Group (VSRAWG). Unfortunately, at this time, NVAC has no plans to extend the life of the VSRAWG or to create another independent, external working group to rapidly review safety and monitoring data of the 2010/2011 trivalent influenza vaccine that contains the 2009/2010 monovalent pandemic H1N1 strain.
Information Release, National Vaccine Information Center
WASHINGTON — Andrew White returned from a nine-month tour in Iraq beset with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder: insomnia, nightmares, constant restlessness. Doctors tried to ease his symptoms using three psychiatric drugs, including a potent anti-psychotic called Seroquel, produced by AstraZeneca PLC. Thousands of soldiers suffering from PTSD have received the same medication over the last nine years, helping to make Seroquel one of the Veteran Affairs Department's top drug expenditures and the No. 5 best-selling drug in the nation. Several soldiers and veterans have died while taking the pills, raising concerns among some military families that the government is not being up front about the drug's risks. They want Congress to investigate. Andrew White's father, Stan White, a retired high school principal, has confirmed at least a half-dozen deaths among soldiers on Seroquel, and he believes there may be many others. The drug's side effects, i ncluding diabetes, weight gain and uncontrollable muscle spasms, have resulted in thousands of lawsuits. Last year, researchers at Vanderbilt University published a study suggesting a new risk: sudden heart failure. Spending on Seroquel by the Department of Defense, has increased nearly 700 percent since 2001, to $8.6 million last year, according to purchase records. Since White died, his family has been searching for an explanation — and for a way to prevent other deaths.
Matthew Perone, Associated Press
Luc Montagnier, the French virologist who won a Nobel Prize in 2008 for linking HIV with AIDS, last week made controversial claims that highly dilute solutions of harmful viruses and bacteria emit low-frequency radio waves, allegedly from watery nanostructures formed around the pathogens. Similar claims have been made for homeopathic remedies. Homeopathy has been subject to periodic attacks from the mainstream medical and scientific community aided and abetted by uninformed journalist in the mainstream press eager to create a good impression with the scientific establishment. The most difficult hurdle in getting general acceptance for homeopathy is without doubt the lack of an explanation, based on contemporary science, on why it would work. In my view, that is more important than getting double-blind, placebo-controlled data on efficacy. Such an explanation is beginning to emerge, and Luc Montagnier’s research team may have provided some key obser vations. Montagnier’s recent work, summarily dismissed in the New Scientist and elsewhere, has been published in two papers in 2009, and the evidence presented is clear and informative. The first paper reports the capacity of some bacterial DNA sequences to induce electromagnetic waves at high dilutions in water , and appears to be a “resonance phenomenon” triggered by the ambient electromagnetic background of very low frequency waves. Interestingly, genomic DNA of most pathogenic bacteria contain sequences that are able to generate such signals, suggesting that highly sensitive detection system might be developed for chronic bacterial infections in human and animal diseases. The second paper follows up this suggestion, showing that it is indeed possible to detect the presence of HIV DNA even when the RNA of the virus has disappeared from the blood of people infected with HIV and undergoing antiviral therapy.
Dr Mae-Wan Ho, Institute of Science in Society
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Sanchita Sharma, Hindustan Times
The daughter of a woman who died in a hospital investigated over the deaths of elderly patients led a protest march to Downing Street. An inquest jury found that Dr Jane Barton prescribed drugs which contributed to the deaths of five patients, including Mrs Devine, at the hospital during that time. Earlier this year, the General Medical Council (GMC) also ruled that Dr Barton was guilty of multiple instances of professional misconduct relating to 12 patients who died at the hospital. The panel found she made a catalogue of failings in her treatment of the patients, who later died, including issuing drugs which were "excessive, inappropriate and potentially hazardous". The doctor's series of failings included making inadequate examinations of patients, failing to consult colleagues and poor note-keeping. But instead of being struck off she was given a list of 11 conditions relating to her practice. Last month, the Crown Prosecution Service, which reviewed the case for the third time, said that there was "insufficient evidence to prosecute" Dr Barton following a review of the evidence from the GMC hearing.
Press Association
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Michael Powell, Portsmouth News
BBC News / The One Click Group
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