#And then I have to research and write another report on Canada's World War 1 heritage and memory in France and submit it by January 6

[wandeel]

Currently doing a report on imperial cult in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, and this is exactly the kind of funny video I need to keep from sinking into depression and insulting Octavian Augustus for the umpteenth time as a son of lupa.

In the club

[blog-cosmosuniverse1]

Medical Ignorance and the Mass Murder of Coronavirus Patients

Commentary by W. Gifford-Jones, MD

(OMNS Oct 20, 2020) In treating the sick, Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine counselled, "First, do no harm." Unfortunately, this cherished principle has not been followed in caring for patients with coronavirus infection. Losing a loved one due to cancer and other diseases is always tragic. But losing one due to the coronavirus pandemic when it could be prevented is an unforgivable act resulting in the mass murder of innocent lives. It has happened due to ignorance about history, hypocrisy, a lack of training of doctors about alternative medicine, and closed minds about the life-saving medical benefits of high doses of intravenous vitamin C.

I would not have the knowledge to write this article if one event in my life had not happened. At 74 years of age I nearly died of a serious heart attack. Doctors said I'd be dead in a few years without the help of cholesterol-lowering drugs. Luckily, several years earlier I had interviewed Dr. Linus Pauling, two-time winner of the Nobel Prize. He advised me of the important role of vitamin C in decreasing the risk of coronary disease. This is when I made one of the most vital decisions of my life. I decided to take 10,000 milligrams (mg) of vitamin C daily, rather than believe Big Pharma. But I also worried because Pauling, although a brilliant chemist, was not a doctor. Was he right about vitamin C? It was only years later when Dr. Sidney Bush, a English researcher proved that vitamin C could reverse atherosclerosis (hardening of arteries) that I knew I had made the right decision. [1]

Now, 22 years later, the doctors who told me I'd be dead in a few years without cholesterol-lowering drugs are dead, and I'm in my 97th year, still alive. It's this experience with the cardiovascular effects of vitamin C that's triggered my interest in the anti-infective and other medical benefits of vitamin C, especially how it can decrease deaths from viral and bacterial diseases.

Klenner went on to show that large doses of vitamin C could also cure other viral diseases such as meningitis, hepatitis, measles, mumps, pneumonia, shingles and even the poisonous bite of a rattlesnake. [2-4]  Since that time other researchers have reported that there is no viral disease that high-dose IVC cannot successfully treat.

But Klenner did not win a popularity contest with his colleagues. He wrote in frustration that "Some physicians would stand by and see their patient die rather than use ascorbic acid because in their finite minds it exists only as a vitamin."

Since that time closed medical minds have resulted in thousands of deaths from coronavirus and other diseases in Canada and worldwide. Because of a misconception that vitamin C is just another vitamin. But there is proof that vitamin C is a potent anti-infective nutrient that attacks both viral and bacterial diseases.

Infection triggers a severe inflammatory cellular reaction in the body which results in a decrease in vitamin C. It's like being caught in a snow storm on a lonely road and running out of gas. But in this case white blood cells need C to fight the infection. And if you have not been taking C on a regular basis, your white blood cells without C are like a gun without bullets.

Many people do not realize that nearly all animals make their own vitamin C. Humans lost this ability eons ago due to a genetic mutation. For instance, dogs produce 5,000 milligrams (mgs) daily. Health Canada maintains humans need only 90 mgs. But if a dog gets an infection, it will automatically produce up to 20,000 mgs daily!

During the coronavirus pandemic I've listened to Medical Officers of Health, TV anchors, politicians and medical experts all discuss the importance of distancing and frequent hand washing. But I have only heard one discuss the advantages of vitamin C and D in building up the body's immunity. [5] And I have not heard any explain how the use of high doses of IVC could save lives.

Dr. Lendon H. Smith outlined the clinical experiences of Frederick Klenner in "Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C". It contains a wealth of information on how vitamin C treats many diverse diseases. And how prescribing insufficient amounts of vitamin C can lead to failure in therapy. This medical information is available for all to read. [6]

I've have written before that if a family member died due to coronavirus infection and doctors and hospital refused to use IVC, I would contest this situation in a court of law. I believe I would win because historical evidence is so overwhelming that large doses of C save lives.

The hypocrisy surrounding vitamin C is mind boggling. Dr, Linus Pauling complained, "The medical community requires rigorous evidence supporting vitamin C, but accepts flimsy evidence against it." Little has changed since I interviewed Pauling. This deficit is evidently caused by the minds of medical professionals refusing to accept scientific fact. And we will never know the number of needless deaths this has caused during the pandemic.

A year ago, as a journalist, I was invited to be a member of the Orthomolecular Medical News Service.   It's international editorial board is composed of distinguished physicians, professors, and researchers. Several months ago I asked all members how they would treat several viral infections. The overwhelming response was "high dose intravenous vitamin C." OMNS has published twenty-two physician case reports of success with IVC. [7]

Since February, researchers in China have been conducting double-blind studies on IVC. This means one group will receive IVC and a control group will get a placebo. Some studies have already been completed, and the results show that IVC saves more lives than placebo. [8]

"Dr. Enqiang Mao, chief of emergency medicine at Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai, stated that his group treated ~50 moderate to severe cases of COVID-19 infection with high dose intravenous vitamin C. "The IVC dosing was for 7-10 days, with 10,000 mg for moderate cases and 20,000 mg for more severe cases. "All patients who received intravenous vitamin C improved, and there was no mortality." "There were no side effects reported from any of the cases treated with high dose IVC." (Richard Cheng, MD, PhD, reporting from Shanghai) http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v16n12.shtml

But even in one of these recent laudable studies, there was a flaw. According to the report, all patients received a certain dose for moderate infection while others a higher dose for a more severe one. But patients who died had not received the higher dose. [9]

This reflects everything that Dr. Linus Pauling and Dr. Frederick Klenner stressed. As Pauling told his critics, "It's the dosage!" Or, as Klenner claimed, "Some infections require a much larger dose." As we all know, half an aspirin will not cure a migraine headache.

But there is more disturbing news. Chinese researchers are experiencing trouble getting their findings published. Contacts also tell me that doctors who use IVC in North America are being harassed by authorities. In some case, being told that if they persist they will lose their license to practice medicine.  

To get an update on what was happening in some parts of Canada and the U.S I contacted several infectious disease specialists, Medical Officers of Health (MOH), and university hospitals, asking a simple question. "Do you prescribe intravenous vitamin C or know of anyone who does to treat coronavirus infection? And if terminal patients are not receiving IVC, why is this the case"?

It proved to be a time-consuming assignment. Many replied they would get back to me but failed to do so. I could only conclude they were not using IVC and did not want anyone to know about it.

Or they responded, "We have checked with our infectious disease specialist and confirm that high dose C is not being used to treat coronavirus infection."

What was shocking is that not a single Medical Officer of Health replied that IVC was being prescribed to those dying from coronavirus infection.

Another surprise was the reaction of Johns Hopkins one of the great hospitals of the world. Its distinguished professors were the first to introduce the value of bedside teaching for students. During this pandemic they were considered the authority in reporting the number of coronavirus deaths. So, I was shocked to receive this response, "We are not conducting clinical trials or administering C as a treatment for COVID 19." And even Harvard Medical School where I spent so many years as a student and later training as a surgeon, never replied to me.

What is going to happen?  It's that the Chinese study will likely fail to end the controversy and patients will continue to die needlessly of this virus. I was hoping that one infectious expert, or Medical Officer of Health, would possess the intellectual curiosity to ask, "I wonder if high does IVC could save lives?" It's tragic this has not occurred. Some would label this as medical ignorance, others as malpractice, or if a loved one has died as murder, and finally a court of law looking all the facts decide it's been mass murder.

So, we have a unique situation. It's been said that war is far too important to be left to generals. Due to the economic chaos caused by coronavirus this disaster may be much too important to be left to medical experts when so many North Americans have suffered.

It's time for the government to demand that our medical schools conduct a study of IVC. There is no shortage of patients. We have the scientific talent in our universities. Vitamin C is inexpensive and will virtually never cause complications. Vitamin C has never killed anyone. Besides, this study could be done in a short time and not require thousands of patients.

Who will grasp the moment and save countless lives?

(Syndicated columnist W. Gifford-Jones, MD, (also known as Kenneth Walker, MD) graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1950. He did surgical residencies at McGill University, the University of Rochester, and Harvard Medical School. Still an activist, his website is http://www.docgiff.com.)

To learn more: Several dozen articles related to vitamin therapy for COVID are posted for free access at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml . Many are available in French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Italian, Korean, Chinese, and Norwegian. Japanese translations may be found at https://isom-japan.org/top_after .

[pierrehardy]

COVID-19 x China: A Geopolitical Analysis

This week, I focused my research on the pandemic and how it changes the world stage with regards to China. I have seen one too many Facebook posts going along the lines of “ChInA hAs WoN tHe ThIrD wOrLD WaR wItHOuT fIrInG a SInGle BuLlET.” So, let’s see, is China about to replace America as the leading global superpower? 

TL;DR

Nope. But that’s not to say China is not ambitious and trying to be more influential, but they have a long way to go.

Currently, Chinese propaganda is in full swing. Donations and aid to other countries are highly publicized while diplomats are furiously deflecting blame for the pandemic. Chinese state news blasts four main messages on the regular: (1) China’s leaders are great. (2) China’s system is superior to the Western system. (3) The West’s handling of the pandemic sucks. (4) The virus was an American bioweapon (and other conspiracy theories). All in all, the publicity stunts are quite inelegant.

Why isn’t China going to replace America anytime soon?

World trade still runs on the dollar. 

Economically and militarily, America is still on the top and has a sizable lead. 

China is still relatively not trusted. From their data (economic figures, COVID-19 figures) to their crass propaganda (motives are seen too clearly), it is turning people off more than winning their hearts (Have you seen the song they made for the Philippines regarding our disputed islands?) Trust, accountability, and likeability are needed to be a global leader. 

The predicted global supply chain shift away from China would erode its importance in world trade. 

China does not seem to actually want to replace America. Instead, it wishes to lower America’s dominance to make itself more influential. More on just balancing the playing field than outright replacing. What China wants is for critics to leave them alone and not try to change them (with its view on civil liberties, internet censorship, and authoritarian socialism). 

China attempts to expand its power by:

Racing to be the winner of the COVID-19 vaccine race.

Increase its soft power by winning over Westerns with Western methods (like making news broadcasts of sanitized Chinese news in a Western “style” and making their diplomats use Twitter, which is banned in their own country).

Improve relations with poorer nations by showing a willingness to be forgiving of debt during this pandemic. 

By placing diplomats in various international organizations. 

Finally, to answer one more question, did China find an opportunity to grow during this pandemic? Yes. It was able to flex the advantages of its system in a time of crisis. Compared to the West, their economy fared better. This flex showed three benefits of the Chinese regime.

While America had to whip out trillions to prop up the economy, this mechanism is already “built-in” in the Chinese system. State-owned banks regularly finance private and state-owned firms. 

In general, China is more cautious than the West. Currently, they are not impatient to craft policies to hasten the rebound of the economy. I find this to be a merit. China is also careful in spending too much so as not to unravel their progress for lessening their debt. A bit of prudence would indeed go a long way. 

Finally, China was able to show the attractiveness of their bonds (higher yields than American bonds while still being quite high quality) and of their technology (China is the leader in e-commerce and digital payments, which is predicted to have a boost thanks to the virus). They’re also exhibiting signs of being a reasonable creditor.

This write-up was a bit of a struggle to organize as it can get all over the place, but I tried my best to structure it like this:

Retelling the story

Past: How did it all start, and how did China handle it?

Present: What are they doing now?

Future: What are the risks they could face?

Geopolitical analysis

What is China doing to revive the economy?

What are the perks that China is enjoying right now?

Why is China not about to replace America?

A segue explaining the criticisms against WHO

What is China actually aiming for?

Retelling the Story

Past: How did it all start, and how did China handle it?

As someone who reads the news every morning (or afternoon), the first time I remember this virus being reported was around late November or early December 2019. It was reported to be a disease among pigs that was not transmissible to humans. 

Well, that was a lie. 

China then proceeded to gyrate wildly from extremes. First, local officials of Wuhan gagged the doctors and journalists wanting to sound the alarm, then next, Beijing imposed the swiftest and most massive lockdown in history. [1] This move seemed to work, limiting its casualties (especially compared to other countries), and lifting it after 77 days.

Present: What are they doing now?

Currently, businesses are open and Chinese propaganda is in full swing. The propaganda has been, to put it gently, quite inelegant and rather crude. This is what they’re doing: 

State news. The messages revolves around:

Praising their country’s leaders. [2]

Bragging by pointing out how badly other countries (read: America) are handling the crisis compared to how great China did it. [2]

Spreading conspiracy theories (usually that the virus was an American bioweapon). [3] One conspiracy theory that backfired is that Africans are, for some reason worse carriers, leading to mass evictions and maltreatment of Africans in China. [4] 

Sending the message that the system of Chinese socialism is better than the free and democratic system of the West. 

Magnanimous posturing when giving aid. Every donation to other countries and every discussion of Xi Jinping to a foreign world leader is heavily publicized. Here are examples of some high-profile donations:

Donations for Spain [5]

Sponsor: China

Contents: 800 protective suits, 110,000 masks (totalling (just) $50,000)

Criticisms

The donations arrived 2 weeks after. By that time, Spain has already bought 10,000x more than what they have donated. [6] In fact, China has earned about$1.45 billion from sales of medical equipment. [2]

China’s donations are dwarfed by what Germany and France donated to Italy (2 million masks, tens of thousands of protective suits) without any publicity. [7]

Also, for all the airs and graces, China seems to have forgotten that America and the EU gave them a total of 30 tons of medical donations back when the outbreak was just beginning in China. [8][9]

Donations for Africa

Sponsor: Jack Ma, China’s most prosperous businessman. 

Contents: So far, 120 million masks, 4.1 million testing kits, and 3.7k ventilators [10]

Donations for other countries like Canada and the Netherlands (read: countries hesitant on investing in Huawei made 5G infrastructure)

Sponsor: surprise, Huawei

Contents: For Canada, 1 million masks, 30k face shields, 50k gloves. [11]

Diplomatic sharp power. Every Chinese diplomat would shake their fists and bluster at anyone trying to implicate or assign blame to China for this pandemic. [12]

All these state-sponsored bla-blas isn’t mainly for winning the hearts and minds of other countries. They also do this to deflect any blame from their leaders for how they mismanaged the initial response to the outbreak. The death of the first doctor from Wuhan who rang the alarm sparked some outrage back home, prompting the higher ups to pacify their citizens as much as they can. [13]

Future: What risks they could face?

For all this triumphant marching, the riskiest thing to happen is for there to be rain on their parade. A possible second wave of infections can ruin their narrative. In fact, there have been footages of hushed up additional deaths caused by the virus post-lockdown. [14] 

Another one is if the economy fails to pick up, wherein unemployment can rise, increasing social tensions in China.

Geopolitical Analysis

What is China doing to revive the economy?

If you look at it from the outside, they seem to be doing nothing, which is strange. In the past, when there’s a slump, China goes on an infrastructure spending spree to jump-start the economy. So are they really doing nothing? Well, no, they’re not not doing anything, but they are indeed doing less than what they usually would.

Firstly, they are being cautious. I believe this is merit. This prudence is likely caused by the fact that the government manages every facet of the lives of more than a billion citizens. Not only that, but they’re also cautious of derailing their progress on shaving off debt. They seem to have accepted the fact that there are too many unknowns to make the right policy move. 

The second thing to note is that the trillions that the American government is whipping out to prop up the economy are already “built-in” to the Chinese system. State-banks are regularly lending money to state and private firms. Thanks to this, economic damage has been limited from the start. One can conclude that the Chinese regime does have some advantages in a time of crisis. It is indeed true that a centralized government can mobilize huge amounts of resources more quickly when needed.

What are the perks that China is enjoying right now?

Because of the aforementioned advantages, China can enjoy some perks thanks to the pandemic.

First, China was able to flex the resilience of its system during a crisis (Figure 1). For more explanation on interpreting this graph, check out appendix A. I will explain very quickly what bonds and yield spreads are.

Figure 1 [32]

This flex can also highlight the attractiveness of their bonds (Figure 2).

Figure 2 [33]

As mentioned in my previous blog, the pandemic can accelerate the adoption of e-commerce and digital payments. China is one of the technological leaders in this field. [15]

If China’s propaganda of its medical donations to the West fails to win them over, a more potent option is to extend their generosity as creditors to poorer nations. If they show a willingness to be more forgiving to its poor debtors, that’s a sure way to win their hearts.

Why is China not about to replace America?

Before I list the reasons why China is not about to replace America, let’s first touch upon the factors that conjured this idea in the first place. Basically, it’s because of Trump.

Trump showed an unwillingness to lead the world in overcoming this pandemic (unlike America’s leadership to dealing with AIDS/HIV in the past [16]). This provided a gap in which China is more than happy to fill. 

Trump puts America first to such an extent that other countries found it selfish, irking some of its allies. There were complaints that America diverted much needed medical supplies en route to Europe for its own use. 

Trump attacked the World Health Organization (WHO) for mismanaging the initial response to the pandemic (nevermind that WHO labeled the outbreak as a pandemic quite early as Trump downplayed it). For this one, however, Trump is not totally without reason.

So another segue, what’s up with the criticism against the WHO?

The criticism: the WHO is too friendly with China.    

WHO praised China’s leadership. [17]

WHO failed to challenge China’s early claims that the coronavirus is not transmissible to humans. [18]

WHO is cited as corrupt since it fumbled on Taiwan’s request to be a member of the organization. [19]

Result: America threatened to withhold its monetary contributions to the organization. This is no small thing since America is the biggest donor of the WHO (Figure 3).

Figure 3 [20]

My personal take: cut the WHO some slack. This is where I argue for some empathy for the organization. First, we need to realize that WHO cannot stand on its own. WHO cannot function without funding. And who funds them? That’s right, multiple countries. This makes the diplomatic balancing act very difficult. WHO effectively relies on keeping everyone happy, so they continue to fund and to cooperate with the organization. This is very difficult to do. As we know, the Taiwan-China issue is very thorny, and I cannot blame them for squirming after being put in a difficult situation. Personally, I don’t know what was the right thing to do. All I can say is I understand them and cannot blame them.

Okay, with that out of the way, let’s go to the bread and butter of this write-up. What are the reasons why China is not about to replace America’s dominance? What does it even mean to be the world’s leading superpower? Here’s some ways to measure it: 

Hard Power - these are the most evident manifestations of a country’s muscle to influence others. It consists of two main things:

Military. Who has the strongest military? Let’s use the 2020 Military Strength Ranking [21] as a guide since it takes into account not just military numbers but also technological superiority. It ranks America as the strongest military in the world (with a score of 0.0606; smaller value means more muscle). China ranks third (with a score of 0.0691), just behind Russia. So militarily, it’s America.

Economy. We will measure this using the nominal GDP, or the country’s income without adjusting for its inflation. Typically when seeing the progress of a country, real GDP is better. However, if we’re comparing brute economic might, nominal GDP paints a better picture (Figure 4). Currently, the biggest economy goes to America with $21 trillion. China comes second at $14 trillion. [22] Despite being the second-biggest economy, the gap between their incomes is wide.

Figure 4 [34]

Soft Power - these are the less obvious strengths of a country. If hard power is used to arm wrestle others to get what you want, soft power is more for convincing them to cooperate with you. This is done by being diplomatic, likeable (which are usually achieved by cultural exports. Do you like KDrama or KPop? Those are deliberate moves by the South Korean government to expand their soft power), and trustworthy.

Let’s see how China is doing on that front. First is trustworthiness. As it stands, people do not trust China, especially when it comes to disclosing data about their country [23][24]

Second, their propaganda, as mentioned, is crass. The West can see right through this and are turned off by it. Hell, even its neighbors. Admittedly, the music video they made for the Philippines was lame and of poor taste. [25] (1.9k likes vs 139k dislikes. Surprised they didn’t turn off the likes and dislikes). To most Filipinos, it felt like a robber breaking into your house then, while they’re looting your own home, they’re also singing a song for you. Then acting as if the song makes what they’re doing alright. 

There are also economic factors considered as soft power.

Currently, the world still runs on the dollar. During the pandemic, everyone rushed to obtain dollars [26] and the dollar is still the biggest foreign currency in reserves (Figure 5). This can actually exhibit an unhealthy dependence on the dollar, but that’s for another time.

China’s dominance as the world’s supplier can be eroded as the pandemic spooked businesses into plans of shifting their supply chains away from China. I talked about this in more detail in my previous blog.

Figure 5 [35]

With all this discussion of China not being able to replace America, did we even consider if China even aims to do that? 

What is China actually (probably) aiming for?

Back in the 2017 National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping mentioned that their goal is for China to be a global leader for international influence by the midcentury. Pair this with their efforts to gain soft power, it’s natural to assume that they aspire to be the world leader in the future [27]. However, there’s a line that Xi Jinping always says, echoing the same sentiment of Mao Zedong, which is the aim for “peaceful coexistence.” [28]

Currently, despite trying to step up to America’s shortcomings, China has been a rather timid leader. Their actions are mainly motivated by deflecting criticisms and toppling the American world order, not replacing them. What I believe makes more sense is to think that China doesn’t want to lead, but instead, it wants not to be meddled with and to be allowed to grow the way it wants to without constraints. This is similar to the cause of North Korea’s belligerence: they are afraid by the West’s tendency to assert their worldview unto others. China wants critics to leave alone how it handles its citizens’ liberties, internet censorship, and authoritarian socialism.

So basically, China doesn’t want to replace America, but simply to chip away at its dominance so it can pull its weight to the world without being constrained and bothered. Here are some examples of its efforts to do so:

China is working on developing its soft power.

Confucius Institutes are established all around the world for promoting Chinese culture and language. [29]

They present sanitized news for a Western audience, delivered in a Western way. [30] 

By making their diplomats use Twitter, an app banned in their own country. [12]

China is showing a willingness to spend money to gain influence. This is exhibited in their readiness to provide debt relief to the poor. [31] But it’s worth noting how China deals with its debts. It prefers bilateral and discreet arrangements. For example, last year, China forgave Cameroon’s debt. Cool. But then afterwards, Cameroon withdrew its candidate for a position in a UN body, making it easier for the Chinese candidate to get the job. [2] This clearly shows that they had some hidden arrangements behind that debt forgiveness. Which leads us to its third effort:

China tries to station diplomats in various international organizations. 

Finally, China is leading the race for developing the vaccine for COVID-19. Whoever creates the vaccine first gets the prom queen. Speaking of vaccines, check out my next blog to know more about the current status of the vaccine race. 

So all that being said, why can’t we just let China grow the way it wants to then? Well, that’s because they have a tendency to step over the weak by abusing their strength. Filipinos such as myself don’t need to be reminded of this. China has slowly claimed our seas and for some reason flooding our country (causing distorted housing prices and being treated like second class citizens in our own country). What we need is a world order where it’s not a threat to be weak. A world order that is more cooperative and not “leave me alone to do my own thing.”

Appendix A: Bonds and Yield Spreads

To explain concisely, figure 1 shows the ratio between high-quality corporate bonds over government bonds.

Here are some basic finance concepts explained quickly: bonds are basically IOUs. In other words, when you buy a bond, you’re lending money to the government or companies where they promise to pay you back.  Government bonds are considered to be the closest you can get to a risk-free investment (no such thing as risk-free but yeah). So what this graph shows is that when it is higher, it means that corporate bond yields (yields are how much you earn from bonds. It’s like the interest rate of the loan) is much higher than government bonds. Bonds, being a safe investment (relative to stocks), are typically expected not to yield high values. But if they do, it means that investors are demanding more “interest” to their “loans” to compensate for the risk that they don’t get paid back. An alternative way of viewing this, which is perfectly complementary, is that demand for bonds is lower, pushing the price down. See, in reality, bonds are like discounted money. A bond can have 100 dollars written on it, and it is only sold for 80 dollars. Depending on how soon the company/government is going to exchange the bond into real 100 dollars (called the maturity date) and depending on the demand, that 80 dollar price tag can move up/down. This can affect how much yield that bond really earns you. So if people are not buying corporate bonds because they find it risky, demand goes down which then makes the price of the bond go down which then makes the yield higher! Either way, pick whichever interpretation that is more intuitive for you. Both perspectives are correct.

So in figure 1, the spike in the yield spread means investors suddenly felt like the economy is not doing very well. Suddenly, yields from corporate bonds are higher relative to government bonds. The investors demanded more yield for the heightened perceived risk on the economy. You can also observe that the spike quickly went down. Investors are fickle creatures like that. So to summarize, higher in that graph = economic climate isn’t very nice. 

References

[1]https://www.vox.com/2020/2/4/21122072/china-coronavirus-healthcare 

[2]https://www.economist.com/china/2020/04/16/chinas-post-covid-propaganda-push 

[3]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/chinas-covid-19-conspiracy-theories/609772/ 

[4]https://qz.com/africa/1842768/racism-to-africans-in-guangzhou-hurts-china-coronavirus-diplomacy/ 

[5]https://www.railfreight.com/beltandroad/2020/03/27/china-sends-thousands-of-masks-to-spain-by-train/?gdpr=accept 

[6]https://www.news18.com/news/world/spain-buys-467-million-in-medical-equipment-from-china-to-fight-covid-19-epidemic-2551105.html 

[7]https://ec.europa.eu/info/live-work-travel-eu/health/coronavirus-response/coronavirus-european-solidarity-action_en 

[8]https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_20_178 

[9]https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-tons-ppe-china/ 

[10]https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-52325269 

[11]https://news.abs-cbn.com/overseas/04/08/20/canada-says-huawei-medical-donations-wont-sway-policies 

[12]https://www.wcjb.com/content/news/Chinas-diplomats-show-teeth-in-defending-virus-response-569915181.html 

[13]https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/feb/07/coronavirus-chinese-rage-death-whistleblower-doctor-li-wenliang 

[14]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says 

[15]http://www.china.org.cn/top10/2019-02/08/content_74433001.htm 

[16]https://eu.sctimes.com/story/opinion/2019/03/08/u-s-leadership-hiv-aids-fight-matters/3085743002/ 

[17]https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3050351/coronavirus-who-head-stands-his-praise-china-and-xi-jinping 

[18]https://www.newstatesman.com/world/asia/2020/04/how-world-health-organisation-s-failure-challenge-china-over-coronavirus-cost-us 

[19]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/30/senior-who-adviser-appears-to-dodge-question-on-taiwans-covid-19-response 

[20]https://howmuch.net/articles/united-nations-budget-contributions-by-country-2019 

[21]https://www.globalfirepower.com/countries-listing.asp 

[22]https://www.investopedia.com/insights/worlds-top-economies/ 

[23]https://www.fxstreet.com/analysis/economic-commentary-challenging-chinas-state-reported-economic-data-201908181614 

[24]https://time.com/5813628/china-coronavirus-statistics-wuhan/ 

[25]https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/4/26/Iisang-Dagat-tribute-video-sparks-outrage-online-West-Philippine-Sea.html 

[26]https://bfsi.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/dollar-gains-as-investors-continue-to-rush-to-convert-their-assets-into-cash/74778328 

[27]https://www.ft.com/content/24eeae8a-b5a1-11e7-8007-554f9eaa90ba 

[28]https://www.stanforddaily.com/2020/04/12/covid-19-a-warning-for-rational-proactive-protectionism/ 

[29]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute 

[30]https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/dec/07/china-plan-for-global-media-dominance-propaganda-xi-jinping 

[31]https://www.newsweek.com/china-debt-relief-african-countries-struggling-coronavirus-1497733 

[32]https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/04/16/why-has-chinas-stimulus-been-so-stingy 

[33]https://www.ft.com/content/41044876-6ab4-11ea-a3c9-1fe6fedcca75 

[34]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal) 

[35]https://matasii.com/us-dollar-status-as-the-global-reserve-currency/

[newsnigeria]

COVID-19 – What people say, and only 5 realities

by Amarynth, drawing together a braintrust from The Movable Feast Cafe We set up a ‘brain trust’ in the Cafe in order to write a combined sitrep for The Saker Blog about the Coronavirus. The new name in the taxonomy is COVID-19 but let’s stick to Novel Coronavirus for now. It is of course too early to come to any conclusions, but we can start isolating the discernible high level trends and perhaps get an early glimpse as to what effect the outbreak may have geopolitically and economically, although it is very early days. We will not attempt to look at the technical picture here – the numbers of recoveries, the death rates and the infection rates, rates of transmission, life of virus on surfaces and so on because the technical picture is not yet clear and all data is in a state of flux with opposing and inconsistent reports from all sides. One cannot expect otherwise as the world is still shooting at a rapidly moving target in terms of statistical ground and epidemiological analysis. In addition, we have professional organizations like the WHO and the CDC not really in lockstep and giving different pronouncements on a professional level. It is too early to draw conclusions. What people are saying: – Let us look for a moment as to what ‘people are saying’. (If you want to end up deeply into conspiracies, I would suggest you go to subReddits /r/Coronavirus and /r/China_Flu ) – What ‘people are saying’ runs the gamut from messages received in meditation, prayer, even channeling, and this information is being put out there as valid for everyone else in the face of no definitive information you can hang your hat on. – Every talking head on youtube has suddenly turned into an expert, both on China and on the Novel Coronavirus. Every uninformed blockhead has now turned into a specialist. Every Twitter feed out there now considers itself an insta-influencer. – Most of the western alternative news medias have suddenly decided to follow their governmental lead on China, and the message is overwhelmingly that Brutal China is indeed very Brutal and very Bad. Note this curse, and the spat is still continuing:

– It is a bioweapon because of how the Chinese are reacting. This was a conspiracy theory just a week ago, but now it is reaching mainstream. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tom-cotton-demands-beijing-prove-ncov-isnt-bioweapon-another-conspiracy-theory-goes – It is bioengineered because some Indian researchers have found strands of HIV in the analysis of the virus, but then had to retract their studies. – The Chinese stole it from Canada. – The US has a patent on Coronavirus. – Just a short time before the outbreak became public, Bill Gates et al did some kind of a scenario planning on the corona virii becoming a global pandemic – http://thesaker.is/moveable-feast-cafe-2020-02-17/#comment-762067 – China is attacking her own people to reduce population – Lab Accidents happen. (this is of course a pragmatic view, but usually Level 4 laboratories are situated very far away from the center of busy cities). – Chinese dissidents spread the virus – So, China is killing its dissidents and carrying out genocide against its own people. Here is an example of this thinking: https://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=140446 – Wuhan was on the point of massive riots, Hong Kong Style against their government – The Chinese government is lying and not reporting correctly. The death rate is much higher. – The Chinese Defense Forces are riddled with virus infected soldiers, and they are being contained somewhere else. There is no information on this excepting wild speculation. – Every non-flattering video from China is being passed along salaciously; usually grainy and one cannot really figure out where it is from – no markings, road signs, store names or anything where anything can be identified.  The scuttlebut is that these mostly security camera videos and actively distributed by Falun Gong.  Your guess on this is as good as mine. As you can see from this list, and it is by no means exhaustive, all over the show, and there are literally 10’s more of these What the timing indicates The timing is suspicious no matter how you look at it. Manufacturing usually shuts down or goes slow over Chinese New Year / Spring Festival which can last as much as 15 days. So, economically, this was a good time for a virus (if China ‘did it’). On the other hand, this holiday gives rise to the greatest migration of people on our planet which also makes it an ideal time to infect a population (if someone outside of China ‘did it’). The timing so close to the signing of the of the US/China Phase I Trade Agreement, which the Chinese referred to as only a ‘cease fire’ in the trade war, and the US referred to as a great breakthrough, is suspicious. The Chinese were indicating that they are very hesitant to even go to a phase II negotiation. And of course, there is a black part of the actual agreement that we do not know about. The Main Tropes 1. The main trope out there is that this is a bioengineered bioweapon. But right at that point opinions diverge so widely that one can only ask questions, and not conclude anything. 2. The second trope is that people are being arrested widely. We’ve seen reports of arrests in Canada and in the US, and out of Harvard. Here is but one: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/harvard-university-professor-and-two-chinese-nationals-charged-three-separate-china-related Not only are people being arrested, some are most probably being taken out. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/canadian-scientist-center-chinese-bio-espionage-probe-found-dead-africa 3. The third trope is that China is “The Sick Man”, and we hate them for dumping this virus on the rest of us. Let me just say that the level of invective against China is not only unprecedented, it is also suspicious. Rebranding of the Coronoa Virus to the Chinese Virus is proceeding apace, even though it has a formal name now – COVID-19. In my life I have never seen such an overt manipulation of the common headspace such as this, since ‘weapons of mass destruction’. 4. The fourth trope is that the US, on a public and governmental basis has decided to vilify China, correctly or incorrectly. Note Mr Pompeo. Is he only taking an opportunity that is presented to him, or does he know more than what we think? https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pompeo-warns-governors-of-china-infiltration 5. The fifth trope is that the civilizational fear against China is suddenly out in the open for everyone to see. It is almost a morphic resonance of fear expressed against China and that China is the culprit. However, we don’t really know who the culprit is actually. We don’t even know if there is a culprit. Is China the culprit, or is China the victim, or is this a virus that spread from animal to human or has it escaped from some or other lab by accident (or on purpose)? We do not know any of this and this trope just creates more FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt). 6. The sixth trope is that China is wrong no matter what she does. Quarantine and even forced quarantine is expressed by the blockheads of Brutal China Cracking Down on Their People, without thinking what is actually necessary to do for this kind of outbreak, no matter where it comes from. One after the other video supposedly from China showing the so-called Brutal Chinese government is distributed with relish, with nary a thought that you and I are actually being protected by these heavy handed tactics.  The snoflakes are out in force talking about human rights, yet, by the looks of things, China is going all out protecting the many. Because there is a strange consistency in what the State (used generally) says, and what the alternative media says, this is more worrying than anything else. On the one hand nobody can believe the State, and on the other hand alternative media is reproducing and disseminating the message of the State. 7. The seventh trope is that the few voices, even here on The Saker Blog, that try to look at this realistically are drowned out in the general societal willingness to believe the worst. Viva free speech!?! The formal state, and the western alternative media are generally in lockstep on this issue. China is now attempting to go back to work. We do not know how successful this is, but some are trying to measure the actual air pollution to try and figure out if China has gone back to work, or not. Economically China has also given guidance to business, saying that this event is a force majeure, known colloquially in contractual terms as ‘an act of God’, and therefore they can renegotiate contracts, delivery dates and completion. Let us look at what is clear. 1. China is fighting for its life. The death-toll or even containment is not truly visible in any numbers as yet. This will have tremendous impact on supply lines and not only on China’s economy, but all parts of the international supply chain, upstream and downstream. China is acting on expressed unhappiness of their people. They are firing those who do not perform, who put red-tape in the path of directly fighting this virus. It may look brutal to lock people into their homes, but how many do they save by this action? Where do these get food? It is in the Chinese media that food gets delivered. This is something that the western youtube pundits (and their a-hole brothers) forget to report, although this is open and publicized in the Chinese media. 2. This is a catastrophe. It is not a flu, it is not a common cold, it is not something that 5G brought onto China, it is not God punishing the Godless red commies. Whatever it is, it is a catastrophe with world-wide consequences. We do not know enough to come to any meaningful conclusions except to say that considering the timeline, we are right to be suspicious and we may be right to prepare with the basic masks, gloves and limited public exposure, i.e., not visiting large gatherings, for a period of time. 3. If this virus continues, it will have societal impact that may be severe – we won’t shake hands, we won’t hug babies, social interaction will be vastly compromised, and a few more common contact methods like music concerts or sporting activies for humans will be left by the wayside. 4. If it continues much beyond the current level, the extensive economic fallout cannot be estimated.  You and I and no analyst in the world can truly get their arms around the economic fallout and the breakdown of worldwide supply chains.  Who knows, we may be out of a specific little part for a normal service of a vehicle, we may be out of medicines (the idea of the many people that are taking anti-depressants and such types of medicines having to go cold-turkey is quite scary, and there may be a severe shortage of simple medical equipment, like masks and gloves that are even now getting hard to source – just try buying masks on Amazon). 5. In the current analysis and according to what we have available, we do not yet know enough to be meaningful. Much more than that is pure speculation and gives rise to other agendas being seeded into the public narrative. What is clear, is that people are scared and terrified. Read the full article

[mckenzieherron-posts-blog]

1. The author of this article is John D. Sutter. He is a reporter for CNN and created the Two Degrees project and the Change the List project. He has more than ten years of writing experience and he covers topics in the region of the United States and Canada. Sutter has won many awards for his investigative writing including: the Livingston Award and the Batten Medal. 

2. The article was published on CNN and the digital mission is “to inform, engage, and empower the world”. They are a news outlet informing the world on political issues around the globe. Their “parent company” is WarnerMedia and their political standpoint is leaning towards democratic or liberal views. 

3. The audience for the article goes along with CNN’s point of view politically which would be for democrats or liberals. Of course, other people with different political views can go to this news outlet to get more information, there are different media outlets bias to political views.

4. I believe the purpose of the article was to inform and persuade the audience to reflect on the impact that humans are having on the world today leading to an increasing amount of global warming. It is now believed that “there are no truly natural disasters now” and that everything is being cause by the human race by the things we are pumping into the atmosphere such as pollution. This article was a way to reach the people and try to sway them to start making a difference before it is too late. 

5. The author promotes his message by using logos and ethos. He brings in other reliable sources that have covered the increasing amount of pollution and global warming. He uses ethos by bringing in how long-term effects can eventually destroy the world as we know it if something is not done soon. 

6. I believe this article can be a biased source because it is focused on one political viewpoint. I think that if there were an article that covered both sides of the political spectrum it would be more reliable. For example, it brings in the mentioning of the Trump Administration and how it was not of concern until Trump came into office. I believe it has always been of some concern, but people always want someone to blame for their own mistakes. Also one of the references they use in their article is the New York Times and they are in the same political standpoint as CNN. I think it would have been more effective if they brought in other viewpoints in as well. 

7. I think the presence of bias makes the article neither right nor wrong. I think it is all based on what people want to believe and where they stand on the political spectrum. I think it has good reasoning, but there is always another side to the story and more can be contributed to the article, politically speaking.

8. I could use this as a source for my research paper, but I would also develop my research by bringing in an article from FOX or another media outlet that has a different political standpoint. It would enhance my writing and better develop my paper or research.

[jerome-katie]

The Environmental Effects of The War in Iraq

Katie Jerome

It’s no secret that war is not good for the environment. When the U.S. military bombs another country we are destroying their physical environment even when we don’t try to (e.g. precision strikes). Bombs explode and hurt children and women and not often their targets. They blow up houses, landscapes, farms, the way people get their livelihood, cultural centers, and places of religious worship. The U.S. does this all in the name of democracy and freedom, and we have done it again and again throughout history in order to maintain power and control over other nations. This blog focuses on the Iraq war specifically and will start by discussing how we got to war with them, then I will discuss effects, and lastly, I will discuss symbolic packages the United States government did use to convince us we needed to be in this war.

A Brief History

We went to war with Iraq on March 19th, 2003 shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. We started the war on the principle of the Bush Doctrine which made it okay to preemptively strike countries who we thought would attack us. Al-Qaeda brought the planes into the towers, they are a part of the Afghani terrorist group called the Taliban, not based in Iraq. But Bush and the American government and media lead the people to believe that we were going into Iraq to fight the War on Terror, the War on Terror was being fought in Afghanistan already at the same time.  

America has a history of infiltrating other countries government’s when they’re not being run the way America wants them to be run. We have invaded in Iran’s government and Iraq’s to create an anti-Iran sentiment. Saddam Hussein was America’s puppet until he invaded Kuwait in 1990 that was when the war became really about assonating him in 2003. That is why we went to war with Iraq. It was painted that Iraq terrorists were the ones who crashed planes into the towers on 9/11, but that was not true. We went to Iraq to get after Saddam Hussein because he wasn’t doing what America wanted him to do. So we went to war in Iraq and we still have troops there 14 years later.

Here is a video clip explaining all that happened.

In the documentary, “Why we Fight” there is a clip of Geroge W. Bush Jr. saying he knows that Saddam Hussein didn’t have anything to do with 9/11. Bush Jr. was the president at the time. Why are we fighting when the head of the U.S. government doesn’t know why we’re fighting it?? George W. Bush is seen as one of the dumbest presidents there has been until Trump came along, but still, even he should be able to know why we went to war in Iraq.

Additionally, Vice president Dick Cheney was the vice president of a military contract company called Halliburton. That connection also adds to how militaristic we’ve become in the last 10 years.

Environmental issues of the Iraq War

War causes so many issues to the environments both social and physical I’m not going to go in depth about them because there’s already a lot of research out there talking about effects.

Some effects on the environment during combat are:

Destruction- Setting off bombs is going to destroy anything that it hits for at least 300 meters around it as my professor said in class one bomb will destroy the length of 7 cars. It’s no joke.  

Resource Extraction- War uses a lot of resources oil and oil is a reason why we have gone to war in the past thinking about the war in Afghanistan and Kuwait. The Middle East is home to oil reserves where we have been getting our oil from for decades.

Invasive Species- The planes, helicopters, and other vehicles that come from America to the other countries to a foreign country bring seeds, pollen, and sometimes weeds with them to the other country and those species aren’t native to the country, so that causes problems for the ecosystems that are already at work there.

Hunting and Poaching- Soldiers need to eat in the field and when there is combat. Farmers and others who live around the combat site will flee they will kill and eat their livestock. Meat is easy to cook and right there in front of them. Soilders also are given rations and will get care boxes from home occasionally, so if the food is durable enough to go into the field with them they will take that as well.

Social Issues of the Iraq War

War causes all kinds of issues for the humans involved in the military and the civilians abroad.

War creates veterans who often have a hard time getting work after they return home and have psychological issues like depression and PTSD after having to kill people in combat if not also permanent or not injuries from combat. Vets from Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom have between 3 and 25% of a chance of having depression when they return. And between 10 and 18% have PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder according to the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs.

War creates refugees who can no longer stay in their homelands because it’s no longer safe to live there. 1 in 25 Iraqi’s were displaced from their homes according to the Costs of War study done by the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs at Brown University.

War also causes the death of civilians, soldiers, and academics. Death also affects the families that are left behind. There was a case of a father who lost his son in the World Trade Center bombings on 9/11. He wanted to get back at the people who killed his son, he got a bomb with his son’s name on it and it was sent with 100% accuracy to Iraq the military claimed. He finds out later that were not in the conflict that he thought we were in and he was devastated that he put his son’s name on a bomb, but he didn’t know at the time, so he says he doesn’t regret what he did because he didn’t know. He also talks about the loss of feeling like we can trust our government to do what’s best for our country this is especially hard for him to believe because he’s a Vietnam veteran, he served his country and trusted them to know what’s best.

The Media

A significant part of this issue is also the media. News reporters who were to report on the Iraq war were to be pro-military and many news folks who didn’t support the war or said anything remotely not supporting the war was fired. Even reporters who went over to Iraq to be with soldiers. Not to say that many reporters just didn’t survive being in Iraq. This is the same with government representatives. Anyone who is anti-war is seen as a crazy liberal socialist, so even democratic political leaders have to support military action to be respected in government and continue their work and the climb of the government ladder.

Symbolic Packages of America

We want to think that democracy works the way that we’ve always been told it works. People continue to tell us to call or write our government leaders when we have a problem with a policy, but we forget that think tanks are also a part of the governmental system. They have more power than citizens have to change things especially when it comes to military policy decisions.  

I’m coming to believe that the America I thought I lived in isn’t the America that the rest of the world sees. America is home to many struggles and we are one of the most diverse countries in the world because of war, really. We pride ourselves on freedom, democracy, individualism, and the free market, but as I get older I’m starting to see a different America. An America where I can’t trust the government because something is always going on that I don’t know about. We go to other countries and undermine and destroy their governments so that we can remain in power. What are we so afraid of? America not being number one? Maybe were so afraid of losing power because we didn’t have it in the first place?  We’ve been stealing since day one when Europeans claimed this land after native people had been living here for centuries. America likes to paint other countries as bad and scary and unsafe to live in and because of that for a long time I’ve looked at the Middle East and only seen the conflict and refugees coming over here not knowing how to speak English and making me take extra time to help them at work, but not the beauty that can be in these places and not the sadness that they feel in having to leave their homelands and come to America and Canada to the very countries that are bombing their homes.

Iraq is beautiful and culturally rich and though a bit more patriarchal than America. But what irks me is this feeling that American government has this need to take over other countries governments and continue to keep them relying on us for leadership and guidance when we don’t spend enough money or time on our own people who are suffering here. Pertaining to the Iraq war specifically, it’s a war that we didn’t need to start and one that has gone on for more than 10 years.

Conclusion

War causes a lot of destruction and damage to the communities we infiltrate abroad. What can we do here is talk about war as a real issue, call congresspeople, protest the war, realize how militaristic the U.S. actually is and see it as not a given it doesn’t have to be this way and we should know what is going on in our country with our leaders all the time. Trump is causing harm in a lot of areas right now so there’s a lot of work to do, but it’s important to note that President Obama dropped bombs too, in fact, he spent on average 18.6 billion dollars more a year than George W Bush in his time in office. War is a systemic issue within American society and the government it isn’t one president or one leader it’s an issue with many more facets than I talked about here. Choose one that intrigues you and fight!  

Note: In this blog I don’t go into the physical monetary costs of war, but I attached a video by the company “GOOD” who does a really good job of breaking down the costs and the money that we put into war it’s outrageous what we spend on war as a country and it connects back to Eisenhower’s farewell address warning us against the military industrial complex and giving too much power to that system. I also have his full speech attached here and the quote where he talks about the military industrial complex specifically.

Works Cited

Jarecki, E. (Director), Jarecki, E., & Shipman, S. (Producers), & Jarecki, E. (Writer). (January 2005). Why we fight [Video file]. Retrieved May 10, 2017.

LALLANILLA, M. (2016, October 04). How Does War Affect the Environment? Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.thespruce.com/the-effects-of-war-on-environment-1708787

Costs of War Project. (n.d.). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/refugees

PTSD: National Center for PTSD. (2007, January 01). Retrieved May 10, 2017, from https://www.ptsd.va.gov/public/ptsd-overview/reintegration/overview-mental-health-effects.asp

War documentary that we watched earlier in the semester for extra credit...

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[ryan1garret-blog]

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

For Order This And Any Other Test

 Banks And Solutions Manuals, Course,

 Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, Exams,

 Contact us At: johnmate1122@gmail.com

     CHAPTER ONE

 Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

  OBJECTIVES

  STUDY OF THIS CHAPTER WILL ENABLE STUDENTS TO:

 1.                  Define cultures and subcultures, and describe various types of subcultures.

 2.                  Examine characteristics of a culture and determine how they affect the people under your care.

 3.                  Evaluate values, and discuss how they influence clients, families, and health care workers.

 4.                  Consider ways to identify diverse groups in Canada.

 5.                  Defend the importance of nurses providing cultural care to Canadians.

 6.                  Examine several health trends occurring in Canada.

 7.                  Compare and contrast attitudes toward health and illness.

 8.                  Analyze the influences of socioeconomic levels on the health status of people and groups.

 9.                  Identify key concepts of health promotion.

 10.              Determine how knowledge of cultural and socioeconomic levels can contribute to the effectiveness of health promotion.

 11.              Evaluate ways to meet the needs of a person with cultural values and a socioeconomic level different from your own.

 12.              Apply knowledge about the teaching–learning process to a health promotion education program.

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 TEACHING–LEARNING STRATEGIES

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 1. Construct the meaning of culture and subculture in Canada. Have students who represent various cultures or subcultures present a seminar to explore the values and customs of each of their cultural backgrounds as each perceives it. After the seminar, discuss how a person’s cultural background might influence his or her disposition toward the care of patients/clients.

 Have students compare themselves to what the research literature says about their culture/subculture.

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 2. Discuss the importance of cultural and family rituals to child development. Encourage students to give personal examples of each of the above.

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 3. Discuss components, patterns, and values found in every culture. Share examples of components and traditional and emerging values of Canadian culture. With the students, identify how this knowledge is essential in assessing, planning, and implementing the promotion of health.

 Have students differentiate between Generation X and Generation Y on the basis of diverse values. Encourage them to speculate on how each affects Canadian society.

 Teaching–Learning Strategies 4–7. Communication is basic to any culture. Help students learn the preferred health care terminology of the culture of the clients they will be working with.

 Have students listen carefully to their words. When speaking to or about others, regardless of culture or situation, certain words or phrases convey more dignity, while others convey a stereotype.

 Emphasize to students that when they are speaking to someone with a disability, they should speak directly to the person, not through a companion. Health care providers should reinforce individual qualities, achievements, and abilities. They should remember to make reference to the person first, then to the disability. Have the person with the disability tell how the professional may assist movement or function.

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 Assign students to write a personal values paper, relating the values held in their particular cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Include family and environmental influences, socioeconomic level, and other influences.

 Have students participate in a culture/ethnic awareness exercise by answering the following questions. Then divide the class into groups of four so that students can share their perceptions with each other.

 a.                   What is your ethnic or racial background? What has it meant to you to belong to your ethnic or racial group?

 b.                  What other ethnic or racial groups reside where you grew up?

 c.                   What was your first experience with feeling different? What was/were the contributing factor(s)?

 d.                  What are your earliest memories of, and related feelings about, being a member of your race/ethnicity (Caucasian, French-Canadian, English-Canadian, Italian, German, First Nations, Ukrainian, etc)?

 e.                   How do you think others perceive your ethnicity or racial identity?

 Encourage students to share information and examples from their personal or work experiences, or from other references. Assign each group to summarize attitudes toward health and illness typical for each group. Identify specific nursing approaches or intervention measures that could be used to help persons from each culture promote health and cope with illness, hospitalization, and treatments. Have each group recorder report back to the entire class.

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 8. Assign each student to interview someone from a culture/subculture different from his or her own. From the data obtained, the student is to describe: (a) a verbatim account of the interview, and (b) implications from the data obtained for client care.

 Topics or issues the student could ask about include: role of the family; main occupations for men and women; choice of occupation or mate; regard for marriage; special marriage customs;

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 pre- and postnatal care; rate of infant mortality; role of children; attitudes and methods of child-rearing; common political or religious practices that affect the health and well-being of citizens; weather or environmental factors significant to health; foods commonly eaten and how they compare to Eating Well with Canada’s Food Guide; special eating or cooking customs; general nutritional status of people; attitudes toward time, privacy, society in general, work, leisure, education, and change; common health problems; availability of physical exams and dental care; daily living practices affecting health, which should be known by health care providers from another culture; average life span; and special celebration of life or mourning customs.

 Contact a local homeless shelter or transitional residential facility to learn about people who are homeless or at risk for homelessness. If permissible, assign students to talk with individuals at these sites about their needs and experiences, prior lifestyle, health problems, and what would be the most helpful health promotion measure(s).

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 9. Have students complete the following exercises about values.

 Values Clarification

 Values are our own priorities, which we live by on a regular basis. Values are a set of personal beliefs and attitudes about the truth, beauty, or worth of any thought, object, or behaviour.

 Values are always in the process of changing. Values change as new information is gathered and examined for its worth.

 Values are personal guidelines from which judgments are made and action is taken.

 Values are individual, and are different for each person. Values influence the choices we make.

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

  Below are some examples of values. Circle the 10 that are the most important to you:

 Learning (education)                                                   Life

 Entertainment                                                                 Sex

 Money                                                                                 Religion and morals

 Relaxing                                                                             Having fun

 Work                                                                                    Family

 Beauty                                                                                Financial security

 Freedom                                                                             Friendship

 Goodness                                                                          Education

 Health                                                                                 Independence

 Love                                                                                     Security (personal)

 Security (job)                                                                   Respect for others

 Peace                                                                                   Salvation

 Success                                                                               Wisdom

 Controlling expenses                                                   Trust

 Car                                                                                        Clothing

 Sobriety                                                                              Sharing

 Children                                                                             Reliability

 Honesty                                                                              Integrity

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 What Are My Values?

 Below is a list of 12 values arranged in alphabetical order.

 Study the list carefully. Place the number 1 next to the value that is most important to you, 2 next to the one that is next most important, and so on. The value that is least important to you relative to the others should be ranked 12. Reflect on how your personal values affect your nursing practice.

 Please take the time you need to think about this, so that the end result is a true representation of your values.

 ___        A COMFORTABLE LIFE (a pleasurable, successful life)

 ___        EQUALITY (brotherhood, equal opportunity for all)

 ___        NATIONAL DEFENCE (protection from attack)

 ___        FREEDOM (independence, free choice)

 ___        FRIENDSHIP (close relationship with another)

 ___        PERSONAL SECURITY (safe, free from worry)

 ___        RESPECT FROM OTHERS (looked up to, admired by others)

 ___        SALVATION (saved, eternal life)

 ___        SELF-FULFILLMENT (developing myself fully)

 ___        A WORLD AT PEACE (a world free of war and conflict)

 ___        A WORLD OF BEAUTY (beauty of nature and the arts)

 ___        WISDOM (mature understanding of life)

 1.                  Share with the other members of the group the two values most important to you and the two values least important to you, and then explain the basis for your choice.

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 2.                  Share your reactions and feelings about your choices with others.

 3.                  Does holding certain values, as opposed to other values, make one person better than the next? How so?

 Present Life Values

 Read the list of present life values below.

 Rank in order the five values most important to you—1, 2, 3, 4, 5

 Rank in order the five values least important to you—24, 23, 22, 21, 20

 ___        Make a new discovery

 ___        Complete my education

 ___        Achieve the goals of my religion (salvation, nirvana)

 ___        Be at peace with myself

 ___        Learn to resolve conflicts I have with others

 ___        Have a close relationship with another adult

 ___        Have and rear children

 ___        Be accepted by my parents for the person I am

 ___        Accept my parents for the people they are

 ___        Be in excellent health

 ___        Change my appearance to the beautiful person I want to be

 ___        Live in a world of peace

 ___        Understand human behaviour

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 ___        Know myself

 ___        Be aware of my own feelings

 ___        Express my own feelings

 ___        Develop close friendships

 ___        Live a peaceful life

 ___        Work/study part-time so I have time for other important activities

 ___        Have a challenging job even if it takes more than 40 hours a week

 ___        Gain recognition, be an expert and authority in my chosen field

 ___        Develop an active life

 ___        Feel I have contributed to the well-being of mankind

 ___        Travel at will, be free of commitments and responsibilities

 Values Study Sheet

 Write the names of three people you dislike or avoid. Without censoring your thoughts, make a list of five descriptive words that come to mind when you think of each person.

 N  _________________

N  _________________

N  _________________

1

_________________

1

_________________

1

_________________

2

_________________

2

_________________

2

_________________

3

_________________

3

_________________

3

_________________

4

_________________

4

_________________

4

_________________

5

_________________

5

_________________

5

_________________

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 Now compare these lists:

 a.                   What similarity of adjectives exists? Identify these similarities.

 b.                  Are there any similarities in the persons selected? Identify these similarities.

 c.                   How do the qualities listed compare to your own behaviour?

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 10. Consider the following when teaching and leading class

 discussions.

 Words to Avoid

 1.                  cripple; handicapped invalid (not valid)

 2.                  victims; afflicted by; afflicted with; stricken with

 3.                  restricted; confined to a wheelchair; wheelchair-bound

 4.                  normal (for non-disabled—it conveys disabled are abnormal)

 5.                  deaf mute; deaf and dumb

 6.                  birth defect; deformed; maimed; disfigured

 7.                  crazy; insane

   8.                  slow; stupid; moron; imbecile

   9.                  fits; spastic; palsied

   10.              poor; pitiful; pathetic

  11.              unfortunate; pathetic

 12.              differently abled (conveys abnormality)

 13.              abnormal (conveys illness, dysfunction, poor health)

 Preferred Words

 1.                  Person who is challenged; person with a disability

 2.                  Person who has experienced

   3.                  Person who uses a wheelchair

   4.                  Non-disabled individual

   5.                  Individual who cannot hear or speak

 6.                  Person was born with; person was disabled at birth

 7.                  Person who has mental illness or emotional disorder

  8.                  Person who has a developmental delay

 9.                  Individual with seizures; seizure disorder

 10.              Individual has experienced

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

   12.              Individual is able to

 13.              Person has a disability, is not necessarily chronically ill or unhealthy

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 11. In a class discussion, have students summarize pertinent information from a client they have cared for in either a hospital or a community setting. Relate their information to influences of culture and social determinants of health. Discuss specific ways to meet the needs of persons from a different culture. Similarly, discuss ways to meet the needs of persons from various socioeconomic levels.

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 12. Have each student prepare a written teaching plan about a specific topic, such as a special diet, for a client previously cared for.

 Have the students role-play their teaching plans. Alternate the roles of teacher and the person from another culture or social class. Have different members of the class role-play the person from another sociocultural setting. Have that person react to the teaching method used.

 Have students discuss the health status of Aboriginal clients in Canada. Alternatively, have students discuss the health status of immigrants to Canada.

 Teaching–Learning Strategy 13. Guide the student in the clinical setting to assess, care for, and teach a patient or family who presents a different socioeconomic level or culture.

 The assessment and care plan should include the following:

 a.                   Language or communication patterns

 b.                  Physiological and anatomical differences related to ethnicity or race (i.e., skin, body build, resistance or susceptibility to certain diseases).

 c.                   Diet (food preferences, cooking practices)

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 d.                  Family beliefs, rituals, or customs that are used to prevent illness or promote health

 e.                   Alternative therapies used for this condition/illness

 f.                   People or other resources that will be of assistance during or after the illness

 g.                  Special modifications in the home that will be necessary after discharge, related to usual cultural practices

 Guide the student in evaluating whether or not the care plan, and the care given, were acceptable to the person.

 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

  Novels or books can be helpful in understanding people from various sociocultural backgrounds, especially when they are ethnically authentic. These books could be read by different students and the main points reported in class discussions.

 Several articles, books, and websites would be useful to incorporate into class discussion. Included here are a few examples. Challenge the students to obtain and share with the class other good reference examples they have found.

 1.                  Srivastava, R. “Understanding Cultural Competence in Health Care.” In R. Srivastava (ed.), The Healthcare Professional’s Guide to Clinical Cultural Competence, 3, 140. Toronto: Elsevier, 2007.

 2.                  Canada. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, Vol. 1—Looking Forward Looking Back. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1996.

 3.                  Macionis, J., and L. Gerber. Sociology, 6th Canadian ed. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2008.

 4.                  Foster, C. H. “What Nurses Should Know when Working in Aboriginal Communities,” Canadian Nurse, 102(4), (2006), 28–31.

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 5.                  Statistics Canada. Population Projections of Visible Minority Groups, Canada, Provinces and Regions, 2001–2017 (Catalogue no. 91–541–XIE). Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2005.

 6.                  Soroka, S. N. Canadian Perceptions of the Health Care System: A Report to the Health Council of Canada. Toronto: Health Council of Canada, 2007.

 7.                  Kikuchi, J. F. “Cultural Theories of Nursing Responsive to Human Needs and Values,”

 Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 37(4) (2005), 302–307.

 8.                  Curtis, L. J., and M. Pennock. “Social Assistance, Lone Parents, and Health: What do We Know, Where do We Go?” Canadian Journal of Public Health, 97, Supplement 3 (2006), S4–S10.

 9.                  Labonte, R. Health Promotion and Empowerment: Practice and Framework. Toronto: University of Toronto, 1993.

 10.              Hannah, K. J. “The State of Nursing Informatics in Canada,” Canadian Nurse, 103(5) (2007), 18–22.

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

    CHAPTER 1 TEST QUESTIONS

  The correct answer to each test question is filled in or indicated by an asterisk (*).

 Matching: Place the letter from Column B to the left of the appropriate term in Column A.

 Column A                                                                                    Column B

 D

1.

Culture

B

2.

Culture  shock

A

3.

Cultural relativity

C

4.

Ethnocentrism

H

5.

Subculture

E

6.

Ethnic

J

7.

Regional  culture

 I                      8. Socioeconomic level

 G

9.

Religious culture

F

10.

Family  culture

K

11.

Health

 M                  12. Health promotion

 L             13. Holistic health

 O                   14. Primary prevention

 N             15. Caring

A.   Behaviour that is normal for one culture may not be for another culture.

 B.   Feelings of confusion or inability to adapt to differences in customs that are a part of a new culture.

 C.   Personal behaviour is based on the belief that the customs of one’s group are superior.

 D.   Sum total of learned ways of doing, feeling, and thinking of a social group.

 E.   Group of people with same cultural and national background.

 F.   Cultural heritage is transmitted through a family’s way of living.

 G.   Religion provides the basic way of living for a group.

 H.   Group of persons within the larger culture that has its own identity.

 I.   Group of people that have similar financial position or social status.

J.   Geographical area, climate, and local resources influence variations in cultural lifestyles.

 K.    State of well-being in which the person is able to use purposeful, adaptive responses to stressors.

 L.    View of health that includes the unity of body, mind, and spirit, and the person’s interrelatedness with others and the environment.

 M.   Activities that increase the level of well-being and maximize the health potential of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society.

 N.   Assistive, supportive, or facilitative activities to improve a human condition.

 O.   Activities that decrease the probability of occurrence of a specific illness or dysfunction.

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

  Multiple Choice: Select the best answer. The asterisk (*) indicates the best answer.

 1.                  Which one of the following characteristics is most pertinent to all cultures?

 *A.        adaptation is maintained through language and tradition

 B.                 adherence to norms in a subculture may introduce change into the culture gradually

 C.                 religious influences promote the socialization process of understanding culture

 D.                culture is uninfluenced by geographical region or natural resources

 2.                  Components of all cultures include:

 A.                communication and transportation

 B.                 ways to provide for physical survival

 C.                 social controls and customs

 D.                knowledge and belief systems

 a.  A and D       b.  B and C       c.     A, B, and C             *d.     A, B, C, and D

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 3.                  You move to a rural area to do nursing practice. A review and study of cultural concepts is essential because you are informed that:

 A.                as a nurse, you can teach people to do things your way

 B.                 health practices you introduce will be effective whether or not they threaten established values

 C.                 the health programs you devise and that are acceptable to leaders in the community will be followed by everyone

 *D.        you will find a need to live with the people to learn of their culture from their viewpoint prior to instituting new health care practices

 4.                  Understanding socioeconomic class lifestyle is important in health care because:

 A.                a person’s behaviour is primarily influenced by social class background

 B.                 assessment should be based on social class background

 *C.        intervention can be individualized according to socioeconomic class differences

 D.                expectations of health care are the same for the members of any socioeconomic class level

 5.                  Whether or not a person seeks medical help when he or she feels ill (and, if he/she does seek help, how quickly he/she does so) depends on:

 A.                socioeconomic level

 B.                 attitude of family toward health care system

 C.                 attitude toward spending money for health care

 D.                self-concept and roles of the person

 a.     A and B     b.     C, D, and E             c.     A, B, and C             *d.     A, B, C, and D

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 6.                  In caring for a patient, the health care provider needs to recognize that:

 A.                the client’s behaviour is a manifestation of cultural identity

 B.                 when a person is ill, he or she behaves in a culturally defined way

 C.                 one’s own ways of behaving are most appropriate

 D.                new health habits are easily learned without regard for previous cultural training

 *a.     A and B b.      C and D    c.     A, B, and C             d.     A, B, C, and D

 7.                  Which one of the following may be a problem area for post-industrial society or post-modern society?

 *A.   increased life expectancy

 B.                 cultural lag in society

 C.                 global migration by older adults

 D.                abundance of possessions and opportunities for baby boomers

 8.                  Vulnerable populations include people:

 A.                in any age, economic, or ethnic/racial group

 B.                 who lack power in social and political relationships

 C.                 who are discriminated against or are in subordinate positions

 D.                who have unusual diseases that reduce quality of life

 a.     A and B     b.     C and D    *c.     A, B, and C           d.     B, C, and D

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 9.                  Characteristics of migrant labourers and families that make it difficult for them to receive health care include:

 A.                geographic mobility

 B.                 poverty-level earning

 C.                 employment conditions

 D.                health care facility regulations

 a.     A and B     b.     C and D    c.     A, B, and C             *d.     A, B, C, and D

 10.              Simon, an older First Nations man whom you see at a northern community nursing station, complains of often being thirsty and of frequent urination. These symptoms may indicate that Simon is predisposed to:

 *A.   Type 2 diabetes

 B.                 anxiety disorders

 C.                 electrolyte imbalance

 D.                substance abuse

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 11.              You are caring for Mr. H., an elderly gentleman who is upper-class and lives in an exclusive part of town. Based on your understanding of culture, you would expect which combination of the following?

 A.                You listen attentively as he talks about his personal achievements.

 B.                 You are aware that his attitudes of ancestry and family regarding health care might have an effect on his response to you.

 C.                 You should provide minimal care since he is likely to be self-sufficient.

 D.                You should avoid talking down as you explain or teach procedures.

 a.      C                  *b.     A, B, and D              c.     B and D      d.     A, C, and D

 e.  A, B, C, and D

 12.              Health interventions of the poor and homeless person who is ill include all of the following except:

 A.                frequent use of cultural remedies

 B.                 advice from friends and neighbours for treatment of an ailment or condition

 C.                 medical treatment frequently sought at a relatively late stage of illness

 *D.        inclusion of the latest scientific methods is a priority

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 13.              Which of the following statements, concerning usual health practices of the people in various socioeconomic levels, are true?

 A.                Poor persons are likely to have less access to accurate health information than members of middle or upper economic levels.

 B.                 Poor persons are more likely than members of the middle or upper economic levels to take preventive measures and to participate in community health programs.

 C.                 “Health” and “illness” may be defined differently by people in each economic level.

 D.                The poor person defines him- or herself as ill only when unable to fulfill daily responsibilities.

 a.     A and C     b.     B and D    *c.     A, C, and D          d.     A, B, C, and D

 14.              People from various racial/ethnic groups react differently to pain and illness. Research studies indicate that:

 A.                a person of Italian heritage is likely to complain of pain to obtain relief

 B.                 a person of Jewish heritage complains of pain and demands relief because of concerns about the effects of the illness

 C.                 a person of Anglo-Saxon heritage complains little about pain

 D.                a person of Oriental heritage complains considerably about pain

 a.     C b.        D *c.      A and B d.      A, B, and C             e.     B, C, and D

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 15.              In some cultures, individuals are less assertive in their interactions with others. Which of the following statements will be pertinent to the helper while caring for these individuals:

 A.Passive behaviour indicates that they are not interested in what you are teaching.

 *B.        The person is likely to be listening carefully even though they are asking few questions.

 C.                 Passive behaviour indicates that the person probably does not like you and is not likely to follow your suggestions.

 D.                The person actually desires an aggressive treatment response from the helper.

 16.              Your knowledge of language as a culturally acquired behaviour can assist you in communication with a client from another culture. Which of the following is true culturally about the use of language?

 A.                It is a stabilizing element of a culture, and it allows members to reinforce their identities as members of a group.

 B.                 It has verbal and nonverbal aspects.

 C.                 Identical words and gestures may have different meanings for individuals from different cultures.

 D.                Touch is a universal language and may be used with an individual from any culture to convey acceptance.

 a.     A and C     b.     B and D    *c.     A, B, and C               d.     A, B, C, and D

Instructor’s Manual—Health Promotion Strategies Across the Lifespan

 17.              To utilize a language interpreter or translator effectively during health care, you should:

 A.                prepare the interpreter with essential background information

 B.                 focus your conversation and the interview toward the translator

 *C.        recognize that the translator may be unwilling to convey all statements of the patient or family

 D.                interject questions as the translator speaks to the patient or family to get as much information as possible

 18.              Most people consider their needs, problems, lifestyles, and solutions to problems to be unique and useful to others. This attitude is known as:

 A.                egalitarianism

 B.                 animism

 *C.        ethnocentrism

 D.                dominance

 19.              Which of the following cultural values held by a person may influence the manner in which you communicate with or teach that person as a client?

 A.                Their value of privacy.

 B.                 Their value of education.

 C.                 Their values related to child-rearing.

 D.                Their values related to family relationships.

 a.     A                   b.     B                   c.     C and D     *d.     A, B, C, and D

CHAPTER 1—Sociocultural Influences on the Person and Family

 20.              According to the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), the key responsibility for nurses who wish to provide culturally appropriate care is:

 A.                to conduct an appraisal of the hospital’s mission statement

 B.                 to utilize appropriate facilitative techniques, such as interactive empathy, when working with clients and their families

 C.                 to implement standard nursing care measures to optimize health outcomes for all involved

 *D.        to take the time to examine one’s own personal attitudes and values about health and nursing care

[clubofinfo]

Expert: Freedom of expression includes not saying what you don’t want to. So these updates which may give some insight to ‘truth management’ in Canada start out with the journalist’s right to protect his/her sources. Refusing to reveal a source to the court in both the U.S. and Canada can place a journalist in jail. The extremes of countering an individual’s wishes not to reveal information have become the state’s domain due to current policies on torture. U.S. officials who have approved torture are allowed to enter Canada although torture is clearly against Canadian law. And the law is further compromised by government agencies accepting from other countries information which is obtained by torture. 1. The House of Commons has unanimously passed Bill S-231, allowing journalists to not reveal confidential sources unless required by a Superior Court judge.1 Superior Court judge approval will also be required for the police investigation of a journalist or search of his/her premises. While this seems to protect the journalist’s rights by taking such decisions out of the hands of lesser court judges, it still officially grants the state the right to criminalize a journalist for protecting his/her sources. Decency and professional standards stand in contradiction. 2. The Supreme Court has decided unanimously, that the records concerned with the abuse of native Americans at Canada’s residential schools, 38,000 accounts, will be destroyed.2 Individuals will have fifteen years to retrieve the records of their abuse. The destruction of records deprives the future of the truth. Without history the lessons may have to be learned all over again. Canada’s government wanted to archive the documents for historical record: analysis of church and government’s roles in the abuse of First Peoples remains incomplete. 3. In Ottawa a plaque at Canada’s new Holocaust Memorial Monument has been removed in response to protests that the text didn’t specifically deal with Jews. The text read: “The National Holocaust Monument commemorates the millions of men, women and children murdered during the Holocaust and honours the survivors who persevered and were able to make their way to Canada after one of the darkest chapters in history. The monument recognizes the contribution these survivors have made to Canada and serves as a reminder that we must be vigilant in standing guard against hate, intolerance and discrimination.” However the monument is shaped as a Star of David, during the Holocaust an emblem which applied only to the Jewish people.3 The monument also specifies the experience of Europe’s Jewish communities on the interior walls.4 Text of the replacement plaque has not been released. In addition to Jewish peoples and depending on the region of Europe, millions of people who weren’t Jews were rounded up and killed, Roma, Poles, Russians, Serbs, Non-Aryans, communists, nationalists, dissidents, homosexuals, handicapped, old people, sick people, prisoners, prisoners of war, resistance fighters died in labour camps, concentration camps, by injection, gas chanbers, on scaffolds, in the fields of resistance, at mass graves or through starvation and disease. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau inaugurated the monument on September 27th, 2017, but was publicly chided for not specifying Jews in his speech, and for the lack of specific reference in this particular plaque. Historical note: Edwin Black in his book, War against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Attempt to Create a Master Race,  relies less on the concept of the Holocaust as a war against the Jews, than on the Nazi’s attempt to create a genetically ‘superior’ race. Since the early 1920’s German eugenics research and resulting programs were heavily funded by the U.S.’s Rockfeller Foundation. Nazi programs of “racial hygiene” paralleled the rising anti-Semitism of the laws. In 1933 Reich Statute Part I, No 86, the Law for the Prevention of Defective Progeny was a mass sterilization law for those considered feebleminded, schizophrenic, manic depressive, and those with chorea, epilepsy, physical deformities, deafness, inherited blindness5 While the Rockefeller Foundation didn’t officially approve of the Reich’s policies in eugenics it continued to fund German eugenics mightily. If one considers the Holocaust a war on  Jews rather than a war of racial hygiene for the purity of a Nordic master race, then one needn’t investigate the wealthy and powerful sources of the crime, or reject the human sacrifices of eugenics. 4. As an alternative to re-writing history the perception managers have the option of not letting history occur – if it counters business interests. And Canadian courts have the option of placing publication bans or gag orders on what the public is allowed to know about what happens in legal proceedings. In Vancouver under the Conservative Harper government, environmental groups mobilizing to understand and counter the claims of large corporations to place pipelines across native lands, were infiltrated by government/police agencies. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is taking the government to court6 for allegedly spying on environmentalists of Lead Now, Stand Earth, the Dogwood Initiative and Sierra Club of B.C.; government spying criminalizes groups and people attempting to contribute to National Energy Board hearings on pipeline approval. Objections were initially raised before the Security Intelligence Review Committee (the watchdog committee for the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency) which rejected the case and forbid the environmentalists from publicly revealing evidence about the review. The environmentalists’ lawyer sees the gag order as a violation of freedom of expression. The Review Committee has used its authority as a tool of oppression. The gag order doesn’t benefit the people but CSIS protected corporate interests, and currently these are under some pressure. In what the Mayor of Montreal Denis Coderre finds a victory for the people, TransCanada has cancelled the 15.7 billion dollar Energy East pipeline.7 Its destruction of the environment will simply not occur. An estimated 236 million tons of carbon will not pollute the atmosphere. TransCanada also cancelled its Eastern Mainline pipeline. Reliant on freedom of expression and information sharing, grassroots mobilization across Canada has won an initial victory. 5. Information on the case of Alexandre Bissonnette remains tightly controlled and slightly…awry (“At the suspect’s court appearance on February 21, 2017, the judge ordered a publication ban”). There’s restricted release of any police evidence or the results and extent of any investigations into Quebec City’s Mosque murder of six Muslim worshippers this past January 29th. On October 2nd another charge was laid against the single suspect, Alexandre Bissonnette, for an additional attempted murder.8 So there are now six charges of “attempted murder with a restricted weapon” and the six charges of first-degree murder remain. To avoid time limits before the case is nullified, with the judge’s warning, the CBC assures us the Crown is passing over holding a preliminary inquiry, to simply proceed with the indictment. The CBC reports that the Mosque’s Muslim community still wants to know why Alexandre Bissonnette hasn’t, logically, incurred terrorism charges. The Crown Prosecutor has replied that murder is the most serious crime in Canadian law. This doesn’t really address a public understanding that charges of terrorism increase the terms of prison time at sentencing. So Canadians are denied the privilege of understanding the prosecutor’s compassion for this only suspect in a rather complicated and thorough murder of six Muslims at worship. The case goes to trial in court, December 11th. 6. The Huffington Post notes that Canada leads the United States in the number of corrupt companies blacklisted by the World Bank.9 We remember that this is the same World Bank which forced “austerity” on Greece in an attempt to sway the country to a more profitable fascism. The World Bank is not considered morally or ethically “fussy.” But #1 in the world Canada has 117 companies (mostly SNC-Lavalin-related) which the World Bank considers too corrupt for even them to do business with, while 2nd in the world U.S. has only 46 companies which are actually named. A difficulty with economic corruption is that it translates into the infrastructures of entire populations. For instance, one of Canada’s SNC-Lavalin companies is Candu Energy, famous for designing nuclear reactors. 7. An article by Tony Seed reveals that Canada’s Defence Cooperation Agreement with the Ukraine, not only allows expanded arms sales to a fascist government of the Ukraine but allows increased sales to Saudi Arabia by Canadian companies; i.e., Pratt & Whitney Canada, Esterline GMC Electronics.10 Saudi Arabia is currently bombing a poverty stricken Yemen where a million cases of cholera are expected before November. According to Democracy Now!:11 “The ongoing U.S.-backed, Saudi-led bombing campaign has destroyed Yemen’s health, water and sanitation systems…”.  An ongoing but ignored genocide warning continues for the people of Yemen.12 Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and former International Minister of Trade, Chrystia Freeland, currently negotiating the NAFTA agreement for Canada, has found it difficult to resist Canada’s anti-Russian, pro-U.S. policy in the Ukraine which blends easily with her own beginnings as a journalist for a Canadian Ukrainian nationalist newspaper (See “The Tactical Use of the Ukraine“). Supplying Saudi Arabia with weapons at this point should be considered a crime against humanity of major proportions and not concern simply the Canadian weapons suppliers but their government facilitators. Which leads us to the purpose of lies, of perception management, of suppressing news, of hiding the truth from the people. If capable of perceiving the damages they cause, surely the people would object. * Gloria Galloway,”Ottawa passes legislation to protect journalists’ anonymous sources from police,” The Globe and Mail, October 4, 2017. * Kathleen Harris, “Indigenous residential school records can be destroyed, Supreme Court rules,” CBC News, October 06, 2017. * Senator Linda Frum in “Conservative MP wants answers after National Holocaust Monument flub,” CTV News, October 5, 2017. * Bruce Campion-Smith. “National Holocaust Monument plaque pulled after panel omits mention of Jews,” thestar.com. * War against the Weak, p.299. * Mike De Souza and Carl Meyer, “Trudeau government taken to court over alleged spying during Harper years,” National Observer, October 4th 2017. * Jake Johnson, “Huge ‘People Over Pipeline’ Victory as TransCanada Forced to Kill Energy East,” Common Dreams, October 5, 2017. * Catou MacKinnon, “Crown charges Quebec City mosque shooter with attempted murder of attack witnesses,” CBC News, October 2, 2017. * “World Bank’s Corrupt Companies Blacklist Dominated By Canada,” September 18, 2013, The Huffington Post. * Tony Seed. “Background on Canada-Ukraine defence agreement: A ‘rich, mutually beneficial’ arms trade,” June 11, 2017, Tony Seed’s Weblog. * “Yemen: ICRC Warns of New Outbreaks as Cholera Cases Near 1 Million,” October 03, 2017. * Nightslantern.ca has carried genocide warnings for the people of Yemen since 2015 here. See 2015; 2016; 2017. http://clubof.info/

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The microbiome goes viral

In this post, I want to return to a topic that started to fascinate me in 2007, namely the microbiome. I published an article (with Iina Hellsten) about the metaphors used to make the microbiome public, but then didn’t do any further research on the topic, apart from writing a blog post stimulated by Jon Turney’s 2015 book I, Superorganism. I recently noticed that over the last few years the microbiome has attracted renewed attention and, indeed, inspired another important book by Ed Yong, I Contain Multitudes. So, I thought it would be worth looking again at the origins and spread of this increasing interest in microbes and us. See also the previous post by Nicholas Staropoli.

The Microbiome Project

In the year 2000, scientists published a first draft of the human genome. In 2003 the Human Genome Project, which had begun in 1990, was completed and the human genome was fully sequenced. In 2001 two microbiologists, David Relman and Stanley Falkow, set out their vision for a second human genome project, the ‘human biome project’.

Relman and Falkow pointed out that: “The human body is host to a myriad of microorganisms. We are still woefully ignorant of the composition and variability of our endogenous microflora. Many of these microorganisms depend on humans for their survival, and yet we still do not fully appreciate to what extent human life is dependent on its microflora. In the spirit of the recent ‘human genome project’ and in the hopes of capturing the imagination of the broad scientific community, it is time to embark on a comprehensive genomic inventory of the large portion of cellular life within the human body that has been ignored so far, the endogenous microflora. […] The human biome is as much an unexplored frontier as the collection of life found at deep-sea thermal vents, if not more so.” (2001: 208)

“The concept of the human microbiome was first suggested by Joshua Lederberg, who coined the term ‘microbiome, to signify the ecological community of commensal, symbiotic, and pathogenic microorganisms that literally share our body space’ (Lederberg and McCray 2001)” (See NIH microbiome project article, 2009).

So, 2001 was the year that the microbiome became a topic for research.

In 2007, the US National Institutes for Health (NIH) launched the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) (a meta-genomics project), stating that “The Microbiome is the full collection of microbes (bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc.) that naturally exist within the human body. Initiatives in this area would focus on developing a deeper understanding of these communities of microbes in order to determine how they affect human health”. In 2008, the International Human Microbiome Consortium was launched “with the mission of generating resources that would enable the comprehensive characterization of the human microbiome and analysis of its role in human health and disease.” (HMP)

At that time a blogger in a (no longer available) post asked “what field might strike the popular consciousness in the coming years. Could it be that it will be the realization that we are all ‘superorganisms’ […] and that our health does not only depend on our personal genome […] and our environment, but also on the extended genome provided by our very private microbiome?”

At first, this realisation didn’t seem happen and the microbiome didn’t really enter ‘popular consciousness’. However, in the last few years it has and the ‘microbiome’ has become a hot topic in science and in the popular media.

The multiple meanings of ‘microbiome’

Before I demonstrate just how popular the microbiome has become, I want to point out that the word ‘microbiome’ has multiple meanings (you can learn more about this here). There are at least two dominant meanings which have emerged over the last two hundred years or so. Formerly, the main meaning was, according to the Oxford English Dictionary: “A population of microorganisms inhabiting a specific environment; a microbial community or ecosystem, now esp. that of the body”. This use is attested in the OED from 1952 onwards (but probably goes back much further). Latterly, the main meaning has become “The collective genomes of all the microorganisms inhabiting a specific environment, esp. that of the body”. This usage is attested in the OED from 2001 onwards and attributed to Lederberg.

The microbiome goes viral

I had looked at early discussions of the microbiome in the news, shortly after the HMP had started. But I hadn’t really checked up on the microbiome’s fate in science and the media since 2008. So, I was surprised when I created various graphs which demonstrated how much the microbiome has risen to prominence, both in science and the media.

Some observers other than me had the same impression. One said: “Over the past decade, research into the microbial organisms that live in and on human beings has exploded dramatically.” Another even talked about a “Cambrian explosion“.

Science

Let’s have a closer look at that explosion. To do that I have used Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature (thanks Barbara Ribeiro for pointing me to Scopus analytics).

The following graph shows how scientific interest in the microbiome gradually grew after 2002 and then picked up speed around 2012 (there is a dip in 2017, because Scopus produced the graph for me on 5 May 2017).

In 2002 two seminal papers were published to which I shall come below in the media section, and in 2012 The Human Microbiome Project Consortium published two ‘milestone’ papers in Nature and PLOS. Overall, 12.419 scientific papers on the microbiome have been published up to now (according to Scopus, checked on 5 May, 2017). They appeared in the following journals, with Frontiers in Microbiology playing an important role in the recent wave of publications.

The top three institutions involved in microbiome research are Harvard Medical School, University of California, San Diego and VA Medical Center.

They are mostly situated in the United States, the UK, Canada, Germany and China.

Some of the most prolific authors are Rob Knight (paediatrics and computer science), John F. Cryan (anatomy and neuroscience) and Curtis Huttenhower (computational biology and bioinformatics) – with others on a more or less equal footing:

The subject areas that focus most on microbiome research are medicine, biochemistry, immunology and microbiology, and agriculture and biological sciences. There are 67 articles from the Social Sciences and 56 from the Arts and Humanities (as compared to 7971 from medicine).

Media

What about the media, at least the English language ones? The following graph, counting all articles produced by English speaking news (newspapers, some online sources, magazines etc) and captured by Lexis Nexis, mirrors the rise in scientific interest.

The first article that uses the word ‘microbiome’ was published on 1 April 2003 and was entitled “Aliens Inside US: A (Mostly Friendly) Bacterial Nation” (by James Gorman for The New York Times).

One paragraph is quite significant, as it started a myth that has been dispelled only recently, namely that a human being has 10 times as many bacteria as human cells: “There is a world within each of us, a living, evolving ecological system of 500 to 1,000 species of microbes, a ‘bacterial nation’ in the words of Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon, a microbiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. In fact, by numbers of cells, a human being has 10 times as many bacteria as human cells. The bacterial cells are much smaller, which is why we do not look like an overgrown petri dish.”

The article was triggered by a paper in Science and a commentary entitled ‘Honor thy symbionts” (by Dr. Gordon, Dr. Jian Xu and others) which suggests that “the powerful techniques of genomic research are providing new ways to investigate the lives of these bacterial cells. In separate reports, scientists describe the genomes of two different, common bacteria. One is Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron, a friendly symbiont; the other is a traitorous drug-resistant variant of Enterococcus faecalis, an otherwise mild-mannered garden-variety citizen of the gastrointestinal consortium.”

He introduces the word ‘microbiome’ in the following way: “The possibilities of genomic research into the bacteria of the gut are almost unlimited. Dr. Gordon suggested that one could think of the collected genomes of the bacterial species as a single unit, a microbiome. It would be similar in size to the human genome on the basis of the amount of raw DNA. But it would be much larger, 100 times as large, in terms of actual genes — DNA sequences that code for proteins.”

Jeffrey I. Gordon became, for a while, one of the most prolific metaphor users in the press coverage overall. However, two more articles explored this topic in 2003, one of them written by Lederberg and entitled “We must find a new inner peace” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Wisconsin, 27 April, 2003).

Gordon framed bacteria metaphorically as communities — either a ‘nation’ or an alien race, while Lederberg waged war against the war metaphor according to which bacteria are our enemies. Instead, Lederberg wanted to make peace with bacteria, that is between human and bacterial communities.

Media, marketing and confusion

Then, in 2012, the two landmarks papers mentioned above were published and media interest picked up steadily after that with a current peak in 2016. Now the microbiome (like synthetic biology) meets industry, marketing and (like epigenetics) media confusion.

So, as Matthew Niederhuber points out on blog hosted by Harvard University: “There is promising evidence that the microbiome is intimately involved in human health, including brain function and behavior. But there is equally clear evidence that media coverage walks far ahead of the scientific work it intends to report, too often condensing preliminary, correlative and complex data into pat headlines. As a result, the public impression of microbiotic research differs from the present-day reality, creating the serious risk that pre/probiotics will be marketed as miracle cures for a laundry list of physical and psychological ailments under a pseudo-academic purview. The likely end result is the degradation of public trust in the integrity and validity of scientific research.”

I would be great, if somebody had the time to study changes in metaphors and framing of the microbiome over time from 2007 to 2017, as well as shift in topics from the gut to the brain, from probiotics to faecal microbial transplants and beyond, while also keeping an eye on the fluctuating relationship between hype and reality.

Image: Flickr: Tony Webster – uBiome – Microbiome Sequencing Gut Bacteria Sample Kit

The post The microbiome goes viral appeared first on Making Science Public.

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