#Doctor of Public Health Administration

[prashasconsulting]

The Value and Importance of an Honorary Doctorate

An Honorary Doctorate is a prestigious recognition awarded to individuals who have made significant contributions to society in fields such as academia, arts, business, or public service. While it is not an academic degree earned through coursework, it acknowledges the individual's lifetime achievements, impact, and expertise.

Receiving an honorary doctorate enhances personal credibility and opens doors to greater opportunities in professional and social spheres. It’s a mark of respect and an endorsement of one's contributions to their field or society at large. This recognition can also boost one's profile, attracting new collaborations, speaking engagements, and influence in various domains.

At Prashas Research Consulting, we assist deserving candidates in securing honorary doctorates, recognizing their accomplishments, and helping them elevate their professional standing.

[scientissimum]

In the age of digitalization, even the most traditional professions must pivot to harness the power of online platforms. For doctors and private practices, digital marketing isn't merely a trendy buzzword; it's a crucial strategy for attracting new patients, retaining current ones, and establishing oneself as an authority in the medical field. Here’s a comprehensive guide to help you dominate digital marketing and make your medical practice thrive. Scientissimum Healthcare Marketing Agency prepared a report!🥼🏥

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #24

June 21-28 2024

The US Surgeon General declared for the first time ever, firearm violence a public health crisis. The nation's top doctor recommended the banning of assault weapons and large-capacity magazines, the introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons. President Trump dismissed Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy in 2017 in part for his criticism of guns before his time in government, he was renominated for his post by President Biden in 2021. While the Surgeon General's reconstructions aren't binding a similar report on the risks of smoking in 1964 was the start of a national shift toward regulation of tobacco.

Vice-President Harris announced the first grants to be awarded through a ground breaking program to remove barriers to building more housing. Under President Biden more housing units are under construction than at any time in the last 50 years. Vice President Harris was announcing 85 million dollars in grants giving to communities in 21 states through the  Pathways to Removing Obstacles to Housing (PRO) program. The administration plans another 100 million in PRO grants at the end of the summer and has requested 100 million more for next year. The Treasury also announced it'll moved 100 million of left over Covid funds toward housing. All of this is part of plans to build 2 million affordable housing units and invest $258 billion in housing overall.

President Biden pardoned all former US service members convicted under the US Military's ban on gay sex. The pardon is believed to cover 2,000 veterans convicted of "consensual sodomy". Consensual sodomy was banned and a felony offense under the Uniform Code of Justice from 1951 till 2013. The Pardon will wipe clean those felony records and allow veterans to apply to change their discharge status.

The Department of Transportation announced $1.8 Billion in new infrastructure building across all 50 states, 4 territories and Washington DC. The program focuses on smaller, often community-oriented projects that span jurisdictions. This award saw a number of projects focused on climate and energy, like $25 million to help repair damage caused by permafrost melting amid higher temperatures in Alaska, or $23 million to help electrify the Downeast bus fleet in Maine.

The Department of Energy announced $2.7 billion to support domestic sources of nuclear fuel. The Biden administration hopes to build up America's domestic nuclear fuel to allow for greater stability and lower costs. Currently Russia is the world's top exporter of enriched uranium, supplying 24% of US nuclear fuel.

The Department of Interior awarded $127 million to 6 states to help clean up legacy pollution from orphaned oil and gas wells. The funding will help cap 600 wells in Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, New York and Ohio. So far thanks to administration efforts over 7,000 orphaned wells across the country have been capped, reduced approximately 11,530 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions

HUD announced $469 million to help remove dangerous lead from older homes. This program will focus on helping homeowners particularly low income ones remove lead paint and replace lead pipes in homes built before 1978. This represents one of the largest investments by the federal government to help private homeowners deal with a health and safety hazard.

Bonus: President Biden's efforts to forgive more student debt through his administration's SAVE plan hit a snag this week when federal courts in Kansas and Missouri blocked elements the Administration also suffered a set back at the Supreme Court as its efforts to regular smog causing pollution was rejected by the conservative majority in a 5-4 ruling that saw Amy Coney Barrett join the 3 liberals against the conservatives. This week's legal setbacks underline the importance of courts and the ability to nominate judges and Justices over the next 4 years.

[texilaeducation]

Online Doctor of Public Health Administration

Overview

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Well-structured, international standard curriculum

Gain proficiency to become a public health expert

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Doing a Doctor of Public Health Administration program (DPHA) is now accessible to anyone committed to upgrading their academic attainments. Aspirants can do a Public Health Administration Course by joining a DPHA distance program.

The minimum education required is a Master’s Degree and 5 Years of managerial experience in the public health sector. Candidates applying for the public health administration programs are required in a panel interview.

The scope for a satisfying career in public health administration is vast and finding a job will not be a problem. The program will teach you leadership quality, fine-tune your research skills, publish research papers, and prepare you to occupy high-level jobs in Government and non-profit organizations worldwide.

Texila American University, in academic partnership with the University of Central Nicaragua, is the preferred destination of many doctoral aspirants because it offers the best quality of online education. It has experienced faculty, mentors, and advisors for guidance. Your success is assured. Apply today itself and ensure your admission.

[queerpunktomatoes]

Here is the pdf version of Project 2025. It's long and dry, so here are some talking points for you.

Note the page numbers so you can back yourself up. Most people are not going to read the whole document (because it's awful to read tbh) so you need to be able to defend your critiques.

We don't need false arguments to weaken our entirely correct conviction that Trump is a fascist.

Page 5 "Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children... should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered." Translation: Transgender people should be seen as pornographic, and those who make/distribute porn should be imprisoned. Being transgender should be illegal.

Page 94 "Sustain support for Israel." Translation: Continue funding the Palestinian genocide with taxpayer money.

Page 97 "Senior acquisition leaders should design a system that allows decision-makers to stay within the law but bypass unnecessary departmental regulations that are not in the best interest of the government and hamper the acquisition of capabilities that warfighters require." Translation: Reduce workplace safety regulations in the interest of making more money.

Page 103 "Require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding." Translation: Children in public schools have to take the military entrance exam. Children in private schools do not.

Page 104 "Reverse policies that allow transgender individuals to serve in the military. Gender dysphoria is incompatible with the demands of military service." Translation: Keep trans people out of the military.

Page 155 "Of the utmost urgency is immediately ending CISA’s counter-mis/disinformation efforts... The entirety of the CISA Cybersecurity Advisory Committee should be dismissed on Day One." Translation: End FBI's effort to combat disinformation.

Page 246 "Conservatives will thus reward a President who eliminates this tyrannical situation. PBS and NPR do not even bother to run programming that would attract conservatives." Translation: Don't publically fund anything that isn't explicitly right-wing, including children's entertainment.

Page 259 "The next conservative Administration should rescind President Biden’s 2022 Gender Policy. It should remove all references, examples, definitions, photos, and language on USAID websites, in agency publications and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include the following terms: 'gender,' 'gender equality,' 'gender equity,' 'gender diverse individuals,' 'gender aware,' 'gender sensitive,' etc. It should also remove references to 'abortion,' 'reproductive health, and 'sexual and reproductive rights'... produces unnecessary consternation and confusion among and even outright bias against men.” Translation: All language related to gender, equality, and sexual rights should be removed from all official USA websites and documents.

Page 260 "PLGHA requires foreign NGOs, as a condition of receiving assistance, to agree not to perform or actively promote abortions as a method of family planning in foreign countries... The new pro-life executive order should apply to foreign NGOs." Translation: American doctors are not allowed to perform abortions domestically or internationally.

Page 285 "The department [of education] is a convenient one-stop shop for the woke education cartel, which—as the COVID era showed—is not particularly concerned with children’s education. Schools should be responsive to parents, rather than to leftist advocates intent on indoctrination—and the more the federal government is involved in education, the less responsive to parents the public schools will be. This department is an example of federal intrusion into a traditionally state and local realm. For the sake of American children, Congress should shutter it and return control of education to the states." Translation: The Department of Education should be eliminated.

Page 302 "Return to the Original Purpose of School Meals. Federal school meals increasingly resemble entitlement programs... To serve students in need and prevent the misuse of taxpayer money, the next Administration should focus on students in need and reject efforts to transform federal school meals into an entitlement program." Translation: Roll back free school lunches to apply to ~185% fewer people than it does currently.

Page 320-322 "In July of that year, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1964, after Congress reached a consensus that the mistreatment of [B]lack Americans was no longer tolerable and merited a federal response... In 1973, [Congress] passed the Rehabilitation Act, and, in 1975, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act... The next Administration will need a plan to redistribute the various congressionally approved federal education programs across the government, eliminate those that are ineffective or duplicative, and then eliminate the unproductive red tape and rules by entrusting states and districts with flexible, formula-driven block grants." Translation: Repeal the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Page 372 "The U.S. nuclear arsenal needs to be updated and reinvigorated... Fund the design, development, and deployment of new nuclear warheads, including the production of plutonium pits in quantity. Expand the U.S. Navy and develop new nuclear naval reactors to ensure that the Navy has the nuclear propulsion it needs to secure America’s strategic interests. End ineffective and counterproductive nonproliferation activities like those involving Iran and the United Nations." Translation: Withdraw from "let's not use nuclear weapons" agreements, build more nuclear weapons, and resume nuclear weapons testing.

Page 451 "Families comprised of a married mother, father, and their children are the foundation of a well-ordered nation and healthy society. Unfortunately, family policies and programs under President Biden’s HHS are fraught with agenda items focusing on 'LGBTQ+ equity,' subsidizing single-motherhood, disincentivizing work, and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable, married, nuclear families. Working fathers are essential to the well-being and development of their children, but the United States is experiencing a crisis of fatherlessness that is ruining our children’s futures... homes with non-related 'boyfriends' present are among the most dangerous place for a child to be. HHS should prioritize married father engagement in its messaging, health, and welfare policies. In the context of current and emerging reproductive technologies, HHS policies should never place the desires of adults over the right of children to be raised by the biological fathers and mothers who conceive them." Translation: The cishet nuclear family is the only valid, legally recognizable family.

Page 474 "Reissue a stronger transgender national coverage determination. CMS should repromulgate its 2016 decision that CMS could not issue a National Coverage Determination (NCD) regarding 'gender reassignment surgery' for Medicare beneficiaries. In doing so, CMS should acknowledge the growing body of evidence that such interventions are dangerous and acknowledge that there is insufficient scientific evidence to support such coverage in state plans." Translation: Remove all gender-affirming care coverage from government insurance plans.

Page 482 "Eliminate the Head Start program." Translation: Remove free education/health programs for low-income families.

Page 508 "Repeal climate change initiatives and spending in the department’s budget request." Translation: End all programs that address climate change.

Page 524 "Rescind the Biden rules and reinstate the Trump rules regarding... The Endangered Species Act rules defining Critical Habitat and Critical Habitat Exclusions." Translation: Remove protections for endangered animals.

Page 524 "Reinstate President Trump’s plan for opening most of the National Petroleum Reserve of Alaska to leasing and development." Translation: Expand Arctic drilling.

Page 587 "The Working Families Flexibility Act would allow employees in the private sector the ability to choose between receiving time-and-a-half pay or accumulating time-and-a-half paid time off." Translation: Employers are not required to pay extra for overtime.

Page 592 "Employers and employees should be able to set a two- or four-week period over which to calculate overtime. This would give workers greater flexibility to work more hours in one week and fewer hours in the next and would not require the employer to pay them more for that same total number of hours of work during the entire period." Translation: The 40-hour work week should become a 160-hour work month, so employers can make you work extra hours with no overtime pay by cutting your hours later in the month.

Page 664 "The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) should be dismantled and many of its functions eliminated, sent to other agencies, privatized, or placed under the control of states and territories." Translation: Americans should not get free extreme weather warnings. We should have to pay for it, and watch commercials between segments.

Page 708 "The next conservative Administration should take affirmative steps to expose and eradicate the practice of critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) ... Treat the participation in any critical race theory or DEI initiative, without objecting on constitutional or moral grounds, as per se grounds for termination of employment." Translation: Fire any/all government employees who participated in DEI training.

And remember:

[fxirysforesight]

Future Career Pick A Card

Directions: Take 3 Mindful Breaths and Pick The Work Set-Up That Attracts You The Most!

Disclaimer: This is a general reading. It may not resonate for everyone and that's okay! If you are having trouble choosing a pile, take a minute to relax and then try again.

Pile One:

What Career Path Is Pile One Looking To Go Into?

Judgment, 9 of Cups, 4 of Swords

I feel like this is my Legal Studies, Politics, and Healthcare Pile. A lot of you are looking to go into Law or careers where you feel as though you are doing the right thing. You may want to go into careers where you are representing people or being a voice of reason for someone. You all seem to be problem solvers or at least interested in conflict-resolution based careers. Those of you who chose this pile are probably all or nothing people. I don't think a lot of you have any Plan B's or C's. You probably decided very early on what you want to be or do and that's what your heart is set on. You are looking for a career that has everything that you want. A career that fits your wants and needs and is a source of fulfillment for you is ideal Pile One.

These Are Some Careers I See You All Looking To Go Into/Be: Lawyers, Judges, Administration, Healthcare (Doctor or Nurse, a Veterinarian as well), Legal Work, Therapist (Mental Health, Massage, Etc.), Yoga or Meditation Instructor? For some of you, I see jobs where you are the Middle Man like for example a Hiring Recruiter.

What Career Path Is Best For Pile One?

8 of Cups Rx, The High Priestess, Strength

Pile One, you need to go into a career path that you know you won't walk away from. A career path that is sustainable for YOU. Regardless of the pay or whatever other constraints there may be, you need to find a job that satisfies your soul and not just your financial or social needs. I said before how I think that you all may enjoy conflict-resolution careers. It would be best for you all to find a career from which you can learn from or solve problems within. You would likely excel in careers that involve caring for someone or something in some way, shape, or form.

These Are Some Careers I Think You Would Excel In: Healthcare (Doctor, Nurse, Vet, Psychiatrist, Psychologist) Detective Work, Professor or Teacher, Guru, Counselor, Medium, Psychic, Astrologer, Tarot Reader.

Significators: French, Frenchie, or French Tips, Aries, Spring Months (March, April, May), 20+, Dyed Hair, "Not Yet", 444, Libra, 7th House Placements (Specifically Mercury and Sun), Strong Pisces, 12th House Sun or Moon, Moon and Neptune Dominant, Leo or 5th House Placements.

Pile Two: (This Pile was very similar to Pile One. If you felt drawn to that Pile go and give it a read and see if it resonates!)

What Career Path Is Pile Two Looking To Go Into?

5 of Swords Rx, The Star, The Wheel Of Fortune

The first thing I saw and heard was "Giving Back". This is my Humanitarian pile. A lot of you are likely studying or wanting to study Humanitarian Studies. You likely find yourself leaning towards careers or social endeavors that benefit not only yourself but the rest of the world as well. Your ultimate goal in a career is overcoming challenges, compromising or ending a conflict of some sort. You all want to change the world and give the up and coming generations inspiration and hope for a better world to live in. You want renewal. A fresh start.

These Are Some Careers I See You All Looking To Go Into/Be: Public Service, Tech and IT Jobs, Motivational Speakers or Anything To Do With Public Speaking, Freelancers or Non Contract Workers, Nonprofit Organization Workers, Health and Safety Professionals, Human Rights Activists, Scientists, Researchers, Entrepreneurs, Advocates, Social Workers.

What Career Path Is Best For Pile Two?

The Emperor, 4 of Swords Rx, Ace of Wands

Pile Two, you need to go into a career path where you have the opportunity to lead. A career path that offers you stability and structure. A career path that is practical and logical according to your own needs. All jobs will make you feel stress, but I would advise you to enter a career that provides you with the sanctuary you need to rest and recuperate. I feel like those of you who chose this pile get tired or burnt out pretty quick? Extroverts with low social betteries? It would do you well to enter into careers that you see yourself building a future off of. Additionally, for some of you I think jobs that are more hands on and interactive would be better for you. Careers that provide you with passion, action, and excitement!

These Are Some Careers and Career Titles I Think You Would Excel At: Self Employment, CEO's or Bosses, Government Based Careers, Entrepreneurs, Engineers, Military, Managers, Administration, Manual Labor, Tech and IT Jobs, Freelancing, Careers That Allow You To Travel, Sports or Athletics. This Pile has a VERY strong Masculine Energy. A lot of you may find yourselves in Male Dominated Career Paths, and you may have a lot of Masculine Energy in your Natal Charts as well.

Significators: Aries, Leo, Aquarius, Libra, Spanish, 10th House Mercury, 10th House Uranus, Chart Ruler in 11th House, Air and Fire Dominants, Mars in 1st or 10th, Libra Mercury, Sun-Mars and Sun-Saturn Aspects, 555, Aquarius Midheaven and DSC, Uranus Dominant.

Pile Three:

What Career Path Is Pile Three Looking To Go Into?

Queen of Wands, Queen of Cups, Page of Cups Rx

Creative Workers. A lot of you who chose this pile may have struggles or are currently struggling with finding the career path that suits you. You WANT to do a certain career, but you may think that you NEED to do another career because the career you dream of is unrealistic or out of reach or maybe just doesn't fall into your life plans or budget. You are likely searching for a career that you have an emotional connection to. Although money is important to you, you're not really concerned too much about monetary matters, because you know that you can't be happy in a career that doesn't speak to you. You want a career that you get excited about being able to do, a career that allows you to feel as though you are in control of your own life. A lot of you want to work with kids and young people, I can tell.

These Are Some Careers I See You All Looking To Go Into/Be: Elementary School Teachers, Leaders of Some Kind, Child Counselors, Midwives, Nannies, Children's Book Authors, Music Teachers, Singers, Poets, Interior Design, Home Business (Maybe a Daycare), Family Therapist, Realtor or Real Estate. In contrast to Pile Two, there is a lot of Feminine Energy in this pile. You all may find yourselves in Female Dominated career paths and you may have an abundance of Feminine Energy in your chart.

What Career Path Is Best For Pile Three?

King of Swords, The Chariot, Justice

Pile Three, I would advise you all to go into career paths where you have structure and routine. A lot of you who chose this pile have very strong morals and values with all of this watery energy here. You are kind and empathetic but you are also logical and firm. You would do well in a position of authority, where you are allowed to demonstrate and enforce self-discipline and hardwork. You will likely be known for your candor and integrity in your careers pile three. You value honesty and fairness, and it will show regardless of what path you choose. You would thrive in careers that allow you to teach others about the wonders of the World, whatever that may mean to you.

These Are Some Careers and Career Titles I Think You Would Excel At: Counselors, Networking, Mediators, Influencers, Authors, Motivational Speakers, Auditors, Elementary School Teachers, Family Therapists, Behavior Technicians, Children's' Book Authors, Interior Design, Home Businesses, Real Estate.

Significators: "Soon", Cancer, Sagittarius, Gemini, 20+, Fire, Musician, 10th House Sun or Moon, 1st House Moon, Mercury in 9th House, 4th House Stellium, Water Dominant, Pisces Moon, Cancer Midheaven, Libra, Saturnians.

[covid-safer-hotties]

The US Government Is Shutting Down A Key Covid Website

Tomorrow the US government agency responsible for biomedical and public health research, The National Institutes of Health, will shut down its Covid-19 ‘special populations’ website.

This site hosts a huge amount of information about how to treat covid and long covid in the immunocompromised and in people with HIV, cancer and similar immune supressing conditions - so-called ‘special populations.’

The site is going totally offline.

It’s a shameful dereliction of duty by the NIH which, behind Harvard, is the second largest publisher of biomedical research papers in the world. Doctors and clinicians all over the world use the NIH site for advice and treatment ideas.

And it’s going offline during a massive summer surge of covid infections in the US, a surge that is now topping 1.3 million infections per day. (One of whom was Anthony Fauci, who was infected for the third time last week). A surge killing 750 people a week in the US. Many of whom will be precisely the type of people this website is intended to help clinicians treat.

It’s a scandal.

The message it sends to vulnerable people could hardly be clearer - when it comes to covid, there’s nothing else we can do for you. Sorry. That’s it. We’re done.

It’s so terrifying.

It also sends a terrible signal to the medical community about where we are with covid

and will be materially damaging in efforts to treat vulnerable people, both in the acute stage of the disease and those with long covid.

The move to shut the page down is premised on an entirely false assumption: that we already know everything we’ll ever know about how to manage covid so there’s no point keeping a live web resource because they’ll never be anything to update it with ever again.

This is simply not true. While we know a lot about treating covid four years in, we absolutely do not know everything, not by a long stretch. As evidenced by the hundreds still dying every week in summer 2024. And as for long covid, we know very little about how to treat it. For a start, there is no agreed treatment plan. Absolutely none. But apparently we also know so much about this disease we can start shutting down online resources dedicated to it.

Please imagine for a second if a Trump administration rather than a Biden-Harris administration was doing this.

There would be an outcry.

But this move has so far been greeted by media silence.

It is left to a few disability activists and the covid aware to shout into the social media void.

Not that this is a surprise. This is how it has been for the last two years at least, guided by the business as usual, vax-and-forget strategy. More people have died of covid under the Biden-Harris administration than died under Trump. Despite having vaccines since 2021. You’d never know it by mainstream media coverage.

Some people have written to the director of the NIH, Monica Bertagnolli, and asked them to keep the advice live and up-to-date. If you want to do this her email address is:

monica.bertagnolli@nih.gov

Long Covid Action has archived the site here

Maybe if enough people write to her and enough noise is made the decision will be reversed. Worth a try.

Overall it’s just another grim episode in the handling of the pandemic by the current US administration, an administration who, we should never forget, won power in large part due to the outrage at Trump’s handling of the first nine months of covid.

Solidarity to everyone still trying to protect themselves and their communities from covid against all the odds.

At least we can keep fighting for each other.

[sharlineshine]

Our online doctor of public health administration program provides advanced training to play a leadership position in the public health sector.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dave Jamieson at HuffPost:

The co-chair of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s transition team promoted the debunked theory that vaccines cause autism in a CNN interview Wednesday. He also said Trump ally Robert F. Kennedy Jr., hopes to get “data” through a Trump administration to have vaccines pulled “off the market.” Howard Lutnick, the billionaire CEO of investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and a longtime friend of Trump’s, told the network’s Kaitlan Collins that vaccines are “not proven” to be safe. Lutnick said he’d recently been schooled on vaccines by Kennedy, the failed independent presidential candidate and anti-vaxxer who has endorsed Trump. Kennedy has said he would have significant influence over public health policy if Trump wins the White House. “So, I spent two-and-a-half hours this week with Bobby Kennedy Jr., and it was the most extraordinary thing. Because, let’s face it, we’ve all heard on the news all sorts of sort of snarky comments about him,” Lutnick told Collins. Recounting his conversation with Kennedy, Lutnick went on to link autism to the growth of vaccines — a discredited idea that dates back to a retracted study from 1998 — before Collins interrupted to remind viewers Lutnick is not a scientist. “Hang on,” the anchor said. “OK, neither of us are doctors. Vaccines are safe.” “Why do you think vaccines are safe? There’s no product liability anymore. They’re not proven,” Lutnick said.

“Because they’re proven. Kids get them and they’re fine,” Collins said. “Why do you think they’re fine?” Lutnick responded. A Trump spokesperson did not immediately respond Thursday morning when asked if the campaign stood by Lutnick’s comments. Lutnick went on to say that Kennedy wants vaccines pulled off the market ― and that Kennedy hopes a Trump administration could get him the data to accomplish that. “He wants the data so he can say, ‘These things are unsafe,’” Lutnick said. “He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe. And if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off ― off of the market.’ So that’s his point.”

The former president himself has long voiced skepticism of vaccines and has promised to cut funding for schools that require them, playing into anti-vax conspiracy theories that have gone mainstream in the Republican Party. (All states have variations of laws requiring certain vaccines.)

Appearing on CNN’s The Source Wednesday night, Trump transition team co-chair Howard Lutnick made the anti-vaxxer extremists happy by endorsing a plan to yank vaccines off the market. Host Kaitlan Collins defended the safety of vaccines, rebutting Lutnick’s logic-free nonsense.

A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to legitimize anti-vaxxer nonsense like this. Vote Kamala Harris for sound vaccine science!

From the 10.30.2024 edition of CNN's The Source:

See Also:

Daily Kos: Make Diseases Great Again: Trump team says they're coming for vaccines

[beardedmrbean]

Few in the media seemed eager to attend a ceremony last week in Washington, D.C., where the prestigious American Academy of Sciences and Letters was awarding its top intellectual freedom award.

The problem may have been the recipient: Stanford Professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.

Bhattacharya has spent years being vilified by the media over his dissenting views on the pandemic. As one of the signatories of the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration, he was canceled, censored, and even received death threats.

That open letter called on government officials and public health authorities to rethink the mandatory lockdowns and other extreme measures in light of past pandemics.

All the signatories became targets of an orthodoxy enforced by an alliance of political, corporate, media, and academic groups. Most were blocked on social media despite being accomplished scientists with expertise in this area.

It did not matter that positions once denounced as “conspiracy theories” have been recognized or embraced by many.

Some argued that there was no need to shut down schools, which has led to a crisis in mental illness among the young and the loss of critical years of education. Other nations heeded such advice with more limited shutdowns (including keeping schools open) and did not experience our losses.

Others argued that the virus’s origin was likely the Chinese research lab in Wuhan. That position was denounced by the Washington Post as a “debunked” coronavirus “conspiracy theory.” The New York Times Science and Health reporter Apoorva Mandavilli called any mention of the lab theory “racist.”

Federal agencies now support the lab theory as the most likely based on the scientific evidence.

The Biden administration tried to censor this Stanford doctor, but he won in court

Likewise, many questioned the efficacy of those blue surgical masks and supported natural immunity to the virus — both positions were later recognized by the government.

Others questioned the six-foot rule used to shut down many businesses as unsupported by science. In congressional testimony, Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted that the 6-foot rule “sort of just appeared” and “wasn’t based on data.” Yet not only did the rule result in heavily enforced rules (and meltdowns) in public areas, the media further ostracized dissenting critics.

Again, Fauci and other scientists did little to stand up for these scientists or call for free speech to be protected. As I discuss in my new book, “The Indispensable Right,” the result is that we never really had a national debate on many of these issues and the result of massive social and economic costs.

I spoke at the University of Chicago with Bhattacharya and other dissenting scientists in the front row a couple of years ago. After the event, I asked them how many had been welcomed back to their faculties or associations since the recognition of some of their positions.

They all said that they were still treated as pariahs for challenging the groupthink culture.

Now the scientific community is recognizing the courage shown by Bhattacharya and others with its annual Robert J. Zimmer Medal for Intellectual Freedom.

So what about all of those in government, academia, and the media who spent years hounding these scientists?

Universities shred their ethics to aid Biden’s social-media censorship

Biden Administration officials and Democratic members targeted Bhattacharya and demanded his censorship. For example, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) attacked  Bhattacharya and others who challenged the official narrative during the pandemic. Krishnamoorthi expressed outrage that the scientists were even allowed to testify as “a purveyor of COVID-19 misinformation.”

Journalists and columnists also supported the censorship and blacklisting of these scientists. In the Los Angeles Times, columnist Michael Hiltzik decried how “we’re living in an upside-down world” because Stanford allowed these scientists to speak at a scientific forum. He was outraged that, while “Bhattacharya’s name doesn’t appear in the event announcement,” he was an event organizer. Hiltzik also wrote a column titled “The COVID lab leak claim isn’t just an attack on science, but a threat to public health.” 

Then there are those lionized censors at Twitter who shadow-banned Bhattacharya. As former CEO Parag Agrawal generally explained, the “focus [was] less on thinking about free speech … [but[ who can be heard.”

None of this means that Bhattacharya or others were right in all of their views. Instead, many of the most influential voices in the media, government, and academia worked to prevent this discussion from occurring when it was most needed.

There is still a debate over Bhattacharya’s “herd immunity” theories, but there is little debate over the herd mentality used to cancel him.

The Academy was right to honor Bhattacharya. It is equally right to condemn all those who sought to silence a scientist who is now being praised for resisting their campaign to silence him and others.

[thoughtlessarse]

It’s been nearly three months since the U.S. government announced an outbreak of the bird flu virus on dairy farms. The World Health Organization considers the virus a public health concern because of its potential to cause a pandemic, yet the U.S. has tested only about 45 people across the country. “We’re flying blind,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health. With so few tests run, she said, it’s impossible to know how many farmworkers have been infected, or how serious the disease is. A lack of testing means the country might not notice if the virus begins to spread between people — the gateway to another pandemic. “We’d like to be doing more testing. There’s no doubt about that,” said Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC’s bird flu test is the only one the Food and Drug Administration has authorized for use right now. Shah said the agency has distributed these tests to about 100 public health labs in states. “We’ve got roughly a million available now,” he said, “and expect 1.2 million more in the next two months.” But Nuzzo and other researchers are concerned because the CDC and public health labs aren’t generally where doctors order tests from. That job tends to be done by major clinical laboratories run by companies and universities, which lack authorization for bird flu testing.

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It's not just the US. We know cattle in the US have been infected with H5N1. We've had this version of bird flu in Europe longer than the US, but our cattle remain virus-free?

[antiporn-activist]

We knew this was coming, and it's here...

Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in Schools

Using artificial intelligence, middle and high school students have fabricated explicit images of female classmates and shared the doctored pictures.

April 8, 2024

After boys at Francesca Mani’s high school fabricated and shared explicit images of girls last year, she and her mother, Dorota, began urging schools and legislators to enact tough safeguards.Shuran Huang

After boys at Francesca Mani’s high school fabricated and shared explicit images of girls last year, she and her mother, Dorota, began urging schools and legislators to enact tough safeguards.Shuran Huang

Westfield Public Schools held a regular board meeting in late March at the local high school, a red brick complex in Westfield, N.J., with a scoreboard outside proudly welcoming visitors to the “Home of the Blue Devils” sports teams.

But it was not business as usual for Dorota Mani.

In October, some 10th-grade girls at Westfield High School — including Ms. Mani’s 14-year-old daughter, Francesca — alerted administrators that boys in their class had used artificial intelligence software to fabricate sexually explicit images of them and were circulating the faked pictures. Five months later, the Manis and other families say, the district has done little to publicly address the doctored images or update school policies to hinder exploitative A.I. use.

“It seems as though the Westfield High School administration and the district are engaging in a master class of making this incident vanish into thin air,” Ms. Mani, the founder of a local preschool, admonished board members during the meeting.

In a statement, the school district said it had opened an “immediate investigation” upon learning about the incident, had immediately notified and consulted with the police, and had provided group counseling to the sophomore class.

Tenth-grade girls at Westfield High School in New Jersey learned last fall that male classmates had fabricated sexually explicit images of them and shared them.Peter K. Afriyie/Associated Press

“All school districts are grappling with the challenges and impact of artificial intelligence and other technology available to students at any time and anywhere,” Raymond González, the superintendent of Westfield Public Schools, said in the statement.

Blindsided last year by the sudden popularity of A.I.-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, schools across the United States scurried to contain the text-generating bots in an effort to forestall student cheating. Now a more alarming A.I. image-generating phenomenon is shaking schools.

Boys in several states have used widely available “nudification” apps to pervert real, identifiable photos of their clothed female classmates, shown attending events like school proms, into graphic, convincing-looking images of the girls with exposed A.I.-generated breasts and genitalia. In some cases, boys shared the faked images in the school lunchroom, on the school bus or through group chats on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram, according to school and police reports.

Such digitally altered images — known as “deepfakes” or “deepnudes” — can have devastating consequences. Child sexual exploitation experts say the use of nonconsensual, A.I.-generated images to harass, humiliate and bully young women can harm their mental health, reputations and physical safety as well as pose risks to their college and career prospects. Last month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned that it is illegal to distribute computer-generated child sexual abuse material, including realistic-looking A.I.-generated images of identifiable minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

Yet the student use of exploitative A.I. apps in schools is so new that some districts seem less prepared to address it than others. That can make safeguards precarious for students.

“This phenomenon has come on very suddenly and may be catching a lot of school districts unprepared and unsure what to do,” said Riana Pfefferkorn, a research scholar at the Stanford Internet Observatory, who writes about legal issues related to computer-generated child sexual abuse imagery.

At Issaquah High School near Seattle last fall, a police detective investigating complaints from parents about explicit A.I.-generated images of their 14- and 15-year-old daughters asked an assistant principal why the school had not reported the incident to the police, according to a report from the Issaquah Police Department. The school official then asked “what was she supposed to report,” the police document said, prompting the detective to inform her that schools are required by law to report sexual abuse, including possible child sexual abuse material. The school subsequently reported the incident to Child Protective Services, the police report said. (The New York Times obtained the police report through a public-records request.)

In a statement, the Issaquah School District said it had talked with students, families and the police as part of its investigation into the deepfakes. The district also “shared our empathy,” the statement said, and provided support to students who were affected.

The statement added that the district had reported the “fake, artificial-intelligence-generated images to Child Protective Services out of an abundance of caution,” noting that “per our legal team, we are not required to report fake images to the police.”

At Beverly Vista Middle School in Beverly Hills, Calif., administrators contacted the police in February after learning that five boys had created and shared A.I.-generated explicit images of female classmates. Two weeks later, the school board approved the expulsion of five students, according to district documents. (The district said California’s education code prohibited it from confirming whether the expelled students were the students who had manufactured the images.)

Michael Bregy, superintendent of the Beverly Hills Unified School District, said he and other school leaders wanted to set a national precedent that schools must not permit pupils to create and circulate sexually explicit images of their peers.

“That’s extreme bullying when it comes to schools,” Dr. Bregy said, noting that the explicit images were “disturbing and violative” to girls and their families. “It’s something we will absolutely not tolerate here.”

Schools in the small, affluent communities of Beverly Hills and Westfield were among the first to publicly acknowledge deepfake incidents. The details of the cases — described in district communications with parents, school board meetings, legislative hearings and court filings — illustrate the variability of school responses.

The Westfield incident began last summer when a male high school student asked to friend a 15-year-old female classmate on Instagram who had a private account, according to a lawsuit against the boy and his parents brought by the young woman and her family. (The Manis said they are not involved with the lawsuit.)

After she accepted the request, the male student copied photos of her and several other female schoolmates from their social media accounts, court documents say. Then he used an A.I. app to fabricate sexually explicit, “fully identifiable” images of the girls and shared them with schoolmates via a Snapchat group, court documents say.

Westfield High began to investigate in late October. While administrators quietly took some boys aside to question them, Francesca Mani said, they called her and other 10th-grade girls who had been subjected to the deepfakes to the school office by announcing their names over the school intercom.

That week, Mary Asfendis, the principal of Westfield High, sent an email to parents alerting them to “a situation that resulted in widespread misinformation.” The email went on to describe the deepfakes as a “very serious incident.” It also said that, despite student concern about possible image-sharing, the school believed that “any created images have been deleted and are not being circulated.”

Dorota Mani said Westfield administrators had told her that the district suspended the male student accused of fabricating the images for one or two days.

Soon after, she and her daughter began publicly speaking out about the incident, urging school districts, state lawmakers and Congress to enact laws and policies specifically prohibiting explicit deepfakes.

“We have to start updating our school policy,” Francesca Mani, now 15, said in a recent interview. “Because if the school had A.I. policies, then students like me would have been protected.”

Parents including Dorota Mani also lodged harassment complaints with Westfield High last fall over the explicit images. During the March meeting, however, Ms. Mani told school board members that the high school had yet to provide parents with an official report on the incident.

Westfield Public Schools said it could not comment on any disciplinary actions for reasons of student confidentiality. In a statement, Dr. González, the superintendent, said the district was strengthening its efforts “by educating our students and establishing clear guidelines to ensure that these new technologies are used responsibly.”

Beverly Hills schools have taken a stauncher public stance.

When administrators learned in February that eighth-grade boys at Beverly Vista Middle School had created explicit images of 12- and 13-year-old female classmates, they quickly sent a message — subject line: “Appalling Misuse of Artificial Intelligence” — to all district parents, staff, and middle and high school students. The message urged community members to share information with the school to help ensure that students’ “disturbing and inappropriate” use of A.I. “stops immediately.”

It also warned that the district was prepared to institute severe punishment. “Any student found to be creating, disseminating, or in possession of AI-generated images of this nature will face disciplinary actions,” including a recommendation for expulsion, the message said.

Dr. Bregy, the superintendent, said schools and lawmakers needed to act quickly because the abuse of A.I. was making students feel unsafe in schools.

“You hear a lot about physical safety in schools,” he said. “But what you’re not hearing about is this invasion of students’ personal, emotional safety.”

Natasha Singer writes about technology, business and society. She is currently reporting on the far-reaching ways that tech companies and their tools are reshaping public schools, higher education and job opportunities. More about Natasha Singer

A version of this article appears in print on April 11, 2024, Section B, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fake A.I. Nudes Create Crisis in Schools. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

[djuvlipen]

A 6yo girl died of electrocution in a Romani camp in Italy last month. this is what racialized poverty looks like; children are always among the first victims. may she rest in peace

04 March 2024

The Saturday before she was due to start school, six-year-old Michelle died by electrocution in the Roma camp in Via Carrafiello di Giugliano in Naples. Despite desperate attempts to resuscitate the girl, who had brushed against exposed electrical cables, she was pronounced dead at about three p.m. on the 13 January 2024. 

Allegedly, distressed family members caused a disturbance at the hospital and were accused of attacking health care personnel and police. This ‘chaos’ quickly became the focus of local media attention, and coverage of the tragic death of a child quickly morphed into an issue of public order and security.   

Deputy Francesco Emilio Borrelli of the Alleanza Verdi Sinistra, weighed in by describing the Giugliano camp “populated by violent people whose lifestyle is many times beyond the law” as one of many “outlaw settlements where children are abandoned to degradation”; and declaring his solidarity with the emergency room doctors and the police. 

After a meeting of the committee for public order and safety, the prefect of Naples, Michele Di Bari, set the objectives for the local administration “Clean the camp from waste in the next few weeks and start the transfer of a Roma family of around 40 people, to an asset confiscated from organized crime.” 

The authorities responded with a blitz on the camp coordinated by local police, and supported by Carabinieri, military personnel and employees of the water company. Waste was removed, electrical cables made safe, vehicles seized, and the water supply was disconnected, leaving about 450 Romani people without access to water by 25 January. Behind the expressions of concern about the safety of children, the official stance is – to borrow a phrase from Matteo Salvini – one of “Legalità, ordine e rispetto prima di tutto!” (Legality, order and respect before all).

The reporter from Avvenire tells a different story, of bereaved families, wrongly accused of affray at the hospital, routinely scapegoated and repeatedly evicted. After the seventh eviction they ended up on this long-abandoned industrial site, amongst the rubble and mud, without water or electricity, except for illegal connections – an ‘informal settlement’ in officialese. In reality, a squalid and precarious site, where 200 Romani children subsist in conditions that do nothing to nurture “an atmosphere of happiness” for the “full and harmonious development of his or her personality”, envisaged in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In a submission to the UN Human Rights Council back in 2014, ERRC research revealed that Romani children raised in camps across Italy were prone to a number of severe and debilitating conditions: they suffered from high levels of anxiety, were more frequently born underweight, and became ill with respiratory disease in greater numbers. They suffered more often from poisoning, burns and accidents at home. There was a greater incidence of “diseases of poverty”, such as tuberculosis, scabies, and lice.

The roots of the crisis can be traced back to official policies in the 1990s which placed Roma in segregated ‘nomad camps��. Things worsened with Berlusconi’s illegal declaration of a State of Emergency to combat the so-called ‘Roma menace’ in 2008. This overtly racist demonisation of Romani people heralded a prolonged period of mass evictions and destruction of camps, harassment, expulsions, mob violence and pogroms against Roma communities. Up to this day, the legacy of this illegal state of exception still afflicts Roma, as successive governments have failed, or simply refused to honour the commitment to ‘get beyond the system of camps.’ 

For its part, the European Commission chose to remain silent in the face of mounting and overwhelming evidence of systemic anti-Roma discrimination, forced evictions and camp segregation. On 6 April 2017, The Financial Times reported that the European Commission had repeatedly blocked publication of a report which recommended sanctions against Italy for mistreatment of its Roma minority, in an attempt to avoid a damaging public row. Seven years later, little has changed in Brussels, and the Commission has consistently kept schtum on this issue.

On 20 May 2019, in response to an emergency case was brought before the court by Associazione 21 luglio and the ERRC, the European Court of Human Rights ordered the Italian Government to provide suitable accommodation for the 73 Romani families who were forcibly evicted from Giugliano the previous week. The court recognised the right to family unity and the need to provide adequate housing to the 450 Roma who had been evicted, and were camped in an area with no shelter, and were forced to sleep inside cars or outdoors, despite the difficult weather conditions, without access to electricity, clean water or toilets. And this is where Michelle and her friends spent the next four years.

Despite the availability of EU funds, the precarious living conditions endured by the Roma remained unresolved. On 12 January 2021, the Campania Regional Council approved the "Abramo" project worth €846,000 for a path of housing, work and social integration of the Roma populations of Giugliano in Campania. As is all too painfully evident, no tangible progress had been made on housing, and as Avvenire noted, in the aftermath of this latest tragedy “now the focus is on the reuse of houses confiscated from the Camorra.” As part of the education path of the Abramo project, “Interventions on school integration have started and yesterday Michelle would have gone to school with the apron and backpack given to her.” Instead, on that first day at school for the cohort of Romani kids, one desk remained empty.