#U.S. Poison Control Centers

[xtruss]

Prescription drugs accumulate in a box at the Back Cove Trail parking lot in Portland, Maine, during a take-back event. Photograph By Ben McCanna, Portland Portland Press Herald/Getty Images

How You Should Dispose of Unused or Expired Medications

Flushing or throwing away leftover drugs can contaminate waterways, threatening people and wildlife. Here are some safer solutions.

— By Priyanka Runwal | Published July 22, 2022 | Sunday August 6, 2023

If you have a stash of unwanted, unused, or expired medicines in a cabinet or drawer somewhere in your home and you don’t know the best way to get rid of them, you’re not alone.

A 2021 survey conducted on behalf of Covanta, a New Jersey-based waste management company, found that 53 percent of the 2,000 Americans polled had no idea what to do with their old medications. Pill hoarding is a common outcome, and many people eventually toss these drugs into household trash or flush them down the toilet or sink—none of which may be a good idea.

Unused or expired medicines lying around at home can get into the wrong hands, leading to accidental poisoning or drug overdose. One study found that between 2000 and 2015, U.S. Poison Control Centers received roughly 32 calls a day about children accidently ingesting opioids that had either been stored or disposed of incorrectly.

When drugs are flushed or sent to landfill, the pharmaceuticals can contaminate our groundwater, lakes, rivers, and streams, threatening human and aquatic life, although our urine and feces that contain remnants of consumed medication are bigger sources of pollution. Wastewater treatment plants aren’t designed to remove these pharmaceuticals, Tim Carroll, a spokesperson for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, says in an email. “EPA’s first message to everyone is do NOT put leftover, unused drugs down the drain.”

So how does one dispose of unneeded over-the-counter and prescription medications accumulating in our homes? There are a few options.

Drug Take-back Programs

In an effort to find a solution to drugs languishing in medicine cabinets or lurking in waterways, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration launched its first National Take-Back Day in September 2010. More than 4,000 sites across 50 states collected nearly 250,000 pounds of pharmaceuticals that people returned. Since then, DEA has hosted this single-day event biannually; in April this year, more than 5,000 sites collected about 721,000 pounds of pharmaceuticals.

People can also use mail-back envelopes or drop off their unwanted medications year-round at DEA-registered collection kiosks in police stations, pharmacies, community health centers, and hospitals. These returned drugs are then sent to medical waste incinerators.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Soldiers from the New Jersey National Guard's Counter Drug Task Force dumped prescription drugs to be incinerated at the Covanta Essex Resource Recovery Facility during Operation Take Back New Jersey in Newark, N.J., Oct. 31, 2017. Operation Take Back New Jersey is a DEA program that provides a safe and legal method for the citizens of New Jersey to dispose their unwanted, unused, and expired medicines. The New Jersey National Guard assisted with the collection and disposal of the medications. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Master Sgt. Matt Hecht) Photograph By Master Sgt. Matt Hecht, AB Forces News Collection/Alamy Stock Photo

In 2021 Stericycle, the largest medical waste incinerator company in the U.S., burned 40 million pounds of unused and expired pharmaceuticals, says Jim Anderson, the company’s vice president for product management and innovation. Incineration produces an inert ash that’s sent to landfills. However, one downside of this disposal method is that transporting and burning such waste and its packaging can release greenhouse gas emissions that can be potentially greater than those generated if the drugs were dumped in landfill, according to one study estimate.

But take-back programs are preferred as they reduce the risk of drug misuse and the incineration “effectively eliminates the entrance of these pharmaceuticals into our nation’s waters,” Carroll says.

However, Steve Skerlos, a mechanical, civil, and environmental engineer at the University of Michigan argues that take-back programs could still result in medicines piling up in homes—a problem such programs were designed to address in the first place. “The question is, if I have extra, unused medication, am I going to leave my house in the next day, or week, even a month, to return that,” he says, especially in rural settings where take-back sites may not be as easily accessible. “A reasonable person may consider landfill to get it out of the house fast.”

In such cases, the DEA suggests mixing medicinal tablets and capsules with undesirable substances like coffee grounds or kitty litter and tossing the mixture into the trash inside a sealed bag or container. (Don’t crush the drugs though.)

And while the EPA advises against flushing pharmaceuticals down the drain, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration maintains a list of limited medications that have the potential to be misused or result in death if taken inappropriately and so can be flushed when safer disposal alternatives are lacking.

Pharmacies also sell drug destroyers such as DisposeRx that can work with pills, tablets, capsules, liquids, and powders. “It’s about the size of a packet of sugar,” says Thomas Menighan, former CEO of the American Pharmacists Association. “You open it, put it in a bottle of unused opioids, or any medicine, for example, you pour a little water in and shake it up, it turns into a white slurry,” which can then be tossed into the trash.

But it’s unclear if these products permanently bind or inactivate the medicinal compounds so that they don’t end up in the landfill liquid, which is released into wastewater treatment plants, and can eventually contaminate our waterways.

Recycling Pharmaceuticals

Perhaps surprisingly, not all unused medications need to be thrown away.

Every year five billion dollars’ worth of unexpired medicine ends up being discarded in the U.S. That could happen because a patient dies, their condition improves and they no longer need their prescribed medication, there’s a dose change, or they experience side effects and are put on new drugs. In such cases these unexpired medications—worth an estimated $700 million—can be recycled.

“We’re wasting a lot of medication which is already paid for,” says Anandi Law, a patient engagement specialist at the Western University of Health Sciences in California. “We could have somebody else who needs it have it.”

Millions of U.S. adults skip or delay getting their prescriptions filled due to high costs. Hence, at least 40 states have passed legislation to establish medication repository programs that allow pharmacies, drug manufactures, medical and long-term care facilities, and sometimes individuals to donate their unused drugs in original sealed containers or tamper-evident packaging.

A licensed pharmacist then inspects the donated medication to check the expiry date and look for signs of tampering, misbranding, or any indication that the drug could be compromised. Once approved, the drugs can be dispensed to uninsured or underinsured individuals via state-approved pharmacies, hospitals, charitable clinics, or community health centers.

Since its inception in 2007, Iowa’s drug donation program, SafeNetRx, has served more than 117,000 patients and redistributed nearly $54-million worth of medication and supplies. Georgia’s program formally launched in 2018, and it has already filled prescriptions worth over $50 million.

“Even though over 40 states have these drug donation laws, a lot of people don’t know that they exist,” says Kiah Williams, co-founder of SIRUM, a nonprofit organization that works with pharmacies and health facilities across the country to assist with drug donation.

Donating unused medications or using take-back programs are voluntary for households, but experts hope more people will use these options instead of disposing of their leftover drugs in the trash or down the drain, which tends to be more convenient.

“All of these efforts are still relatively new,” Carroll says. “We expect we have a long way to go until households change their habits.”

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall-Free

"The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule Tuesday [October 8, 2024] requiring water utilities to replace all lead pipes within a decade, a move aimed at eliminating a toxic threat that continues to affect tens of thousands of American children each year.

The move, which also tightens the amount of lead allowed in the nation’s drinking water, comes nearly 40 years after Congress determined that lead pipes posed a serious risk to public health and banned them in new construction.

Research has shown that lead, a toxic contaminant that seeps from pipes into the drinking water supply, can cause irreversible developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems among children. In adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead exposure can cause increased blood pressure, heart disease, decreased kidney function and cancer.

But replacing the lead pipes that deliver water to millions of U.S. homes will cost tens of billions of dollars, and the push to eradicate them only gathered momentum after a water crisis in Flint, Mich., a decade ago exposed the extent to which children remain vulnerable to lead poisoning through tap water...

The groundbreaking regulation, called the Lead and Copper Rule Improvements, will establish a national inventory of lead service lines and require that utilities take more aggressive action to remove lead pipes on homeowners’ private property. It also lowers the level of lead contamination that will trigger government enforcement from 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb.

The rule also establishes the first-ever national requirement to test for lead in schools that rely on water from public utilities. It mandates thatwater systems screen all elementary and child-care facilities, where those who are the most vulnerable to lead’s effects — young children — are enrolled, and that they offer testing to middle and high schools.

The White House estimates that more than 9 million homes across the country are still supplied by lead pipelines, which are the leading source of lead contamination through drinking water. The EPA has projected that replacing all of them could cost at least $45 billion.

Lead pipes were initially installed in cities decades ago because they were cheaper and more malleable, but the heavy metal can wear down and corrode over time. President Joe Biden has made replacing them one of his top environmental priorities, securing $15 billion to give states over five years through the bipartisan infrastructure law and vowing to rid the country of lead pipes by 2031. The administration has spent $9 billion so far — enough to replace up to 1.7 million lead pipes, the administration said.

On Tuesday, the administration said it was providing an additional $2.6 billion in funding for pipe replacement. Over 367,000 lead pipes have been replaced nationwide since Biden took office, according to White House officials, affecting nearly 1 million people...

Environmental advocates said that former president Donald Trump, who issued much more modest revisions to the lead and copper rule just days before Biden took office, would have a hard time reversing the new standards.

Erik Olson, the senior strategic director for health at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that the Safe Drinking Water Act has provisions prohibiting weakening the health protections of existing standards...

Olson added that the rule “represents a major victory for public health” and will protect millions of people “whose health is threatened every time they fill a glass from the kitchen sink contaminated by lead.”

“While the rule is imperfect and we still have more to do, this is by far the biggest step towards eliminating lead in tap water in over three decades,” he said."

-via The Washington Post, October 8, 2024

[robertreich]

10 Worst Things About The Trump Presidency

Donald Trump left office with the lowest approval rating of any president ever. But some people now seem to be suffering from amnesia.

Let me jog your memory. Here are 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency — in no particular order.

#1. Trump fueled division and sparked a record uptick in hate crimes.

#2. Murder went way up under Trump. He presided over the largest ever single-year increase in homicides in 2020. A number of factors might have contributed to that, but a big one is…

#3. Gun sales broke records under Trump, who has bragged about how he “did nothing” to restrict guns as president in spite of…

#4. Under Trump, America suffered more than 1,700 mass shootings.

#5. Trump said there were "very fine people" among the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville.

I’m halfway to ten. If you think I’m missing something big, leave it in the comments.

#6. Trump allied himself with the Proud Boys, a violent hate group who helped orchestrate the Jan 6 Capitol attack.

#7. Trump’s not wrong when he says…

TRUMP: I got rid of Roe v. Wade.

It is entirely because of Trump’s judicial appointments that 1 in 3 American women of childbearing age now lives in states with abortion bans.

#8. One of Trump’s Supreme Court justices was Brett Kavanaugh, a man accused of sexual assault by multiple women.

#9. Trump’s White House interfered in the FBI’s investigation of Brett Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assaults.

And now: #10. Trump has been convicted of committing 34 felonies while in office. The criminally false business filings he got convicted for in New York? All of them were committed while he was president.

I’m sorry, did I say the 10 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency? I meant 15.

#11. Trump’s failed pandemic response is estimated to have led to hundreds of thousands of needless deaths. By the time Trump left office, roughly 3,000 Americans were dying of covid every day. That’s a 9/11-scale mass casualty event every single day. How did Trump screw up so badly?

#12. Trump’s White House discarded the pandemic response playbook that had been assembled by the Obama administration.

#13. Trump disbanded the National Security Council’s pandemic response team.

#14. Trump repeatedly lied about the danger of covid, saying it was no worse than the flu or that it would go away on its own.

But behind closed doors, Trump admitted he knew covid was deadly.

#15. Trump promoted fake covid cures like hydroxychloroquine and even injecting people with disinfectants.

After Trump’s “disinfectant” remarks, poison control centers received a spike in emergency calls.

That’s fifteen things. Should I keep going? Ok, I’ll keep going. The 20 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#16. Trump presided over a net loss of 2.9 million American jobs — the worst recorded jobs numbers of any U.S. president in history.

#17. Trump profited off the presidency, making an estimated $160 million from foreign countries while he was president.

#18. Trump also billed the Secret Service over $1 million for the privilege of staying at his golf clubs and other properties while they protected him. That’s your money!

#19. Trump caused the longest government shutdown in U.S. history when he didn’t get funding for his border wall, which he said Mexico was going to pay for.  

#20. Under Trump, the national debt increased by about 40% — more than in any other four-year presidential term — largely because of his tax cuts for the rich and big corporations.

You didn’t really think I was stopping at 20, did you? We’re going to 25 —

#21. Trump separated more than 5,000 children from their parents at the border, with no plan to ever reunite them, putting babies in cages.

#22. The Muslim Ban. Yes, Trump really did try to ban Muslims from entering the country.

#23. Trump sparked international outrage by moving the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem while closing the U.S. mission to Palestine.

#24. Trump tasked his son-in-law Jared Kushner with drafting a potential Middle East “peace plan” with zero Palestinian input.

#25. And finally, Trump recognized Israel’s occupation of the Goh-lahn Heights, which is considered illegal under international law.

So there you have it, folks: The 25 Worst — Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Did I mention the impeachments? We’ve got to do the impeachments. Let’s go to 30.

#26. Trump broke the law by trying to withhold nearly $400 million of U.S. aid for Ukraine in an effort to extort a personal political favor from Ukraine’s Pres. Zelensky. Trump wanted Zelensky to interfere in the 2020 election by announcing an investigation into the Bidens. Delaying this aid to Ukraine weakened Ukraine and strengthened Russia.

#27. Trump personally attacked and ruined the careers of everyone who stood in the way of his illegal Ukraine scheme, including Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch and Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman.

#28. To cover up the scheme, Trump ordered the White House and State Department to defy congressional subpoenas.

#29. For these reasons, on December 18, 2019, Trump became the third U.S. president to be impeached. He was charged with Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Congress.

#30. Even while he was being investigated for trying to get Ukraine to interfere in the U.S. election, Trump publicly called for China to interfere in the election.

So those are the 30 Worst Things —

I’ll go to 35.

#31. Long before Election Day, Trump started making false claims that the election would be rigged.

#32. After losing, Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen, even though his own inner circle, including his campaign manager, White House lawyers, and his own Justice Department and attorney general told him it was not.

#33. Trump kept telling his Big Lie even after more than 60 legal challenges to the election were struck down in court, many by Trump-appointed judges.

#34. Trump ordered the Department of Justice to falsely claim that the election “was corrupt.”

#35. Trump and his allies used threats to pressure state leaders in Arizona and Georgia to falsify the election results.

We may go to 40.

#36. When none of the previous schemes worked, Trump and his allies produced fake electoral votes cast by fake electors in multiple swing states. His former White House chief of staff and Rudy Giuliani are among the many members of his inner circle who have been criminally indicted for this scheme.

#37. Trump tried to bully Vice President Pence into obstructing the certification of the election.

#38. Trump invited a mob to the Capitol on Jan 6 with his “be there, will be wild” tweet.

#39. Sworn testimony alleges that when Trump was warned that members of the crowd were carrying deadly weapons, he ordered security metal detectors to be taken down.

#40. Knowing the crowd had deadly weapons, he ordered them to go to the Capitol and…

TRUMP: …fight like hell.

#41 — Yes, yes, I know, bear with me.

Trump betrayed his oath to defend the nation by doing nothing to stop the Jan 6 violence. Instead, according to witness testimony, he sat and watched TV for hours.

#42. On January 13, 2021, Trump became the only president ever to be impeached twice. This time he was charged with incitement of insurrection. It was a bipartisan vote.

#43. The majority of senators — 57 out of 100 — voted to convict Trump, including 7 Republican senators.

So that’s the two impeachments and the Big Lie, but wait, we haven’t dealt with Russia, right? So we’re going to 50.

#44. In a likely obstruction of justice, Trump pressured then FBI Director James Comey to stop the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn. This was documented in the Mueller report.

#45. When Comey didn’t bend to Trump’s will, Trump fired him.

#46. Trump tried to shut down the Mueller investigation by ordering White House Counsel Don McGann to fire Mueller. McGann refused because that would be criminal obstruction of justice.

#47. When news got out that Trump tried to fire Mueller, Trump repeatedly told McGann to lie — to Mueller, to press, to public — and even create a false document to conceal Trump’s attempt to fire Mueller.

#48. Trump ordered his staff not to turn over emails showing Don Jr. had set up a meeting at Trump Tower before the 2016 election with representatives of the Russian government.

#49. Trump convinced Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about Trump’s plans to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, and Cohen served prison time for lying to Congress.

#50. Trump was not charged for criminal obstruction of justice because it’s the Justice Department’s policy not to indict a sitting president, but more than a thousand former federal prosecutors who served under both Republicans and Democrats, signed a letter declaring there was more than enough evidence to prosecute Trump.

So those are the 50 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency. Now I could go on…

And I will! The 75 Worst Things About the Trump Presidency.

#51. Trump said he’d hire only the best people, but…

His campaign chair was convicted of multiple crimes.

So was one of his closest associates.

His deputy campaign chair pleaded guilty to crimes.

So did his personal lawyer

His National Security Adviser

The Chief Financial Officer of his business

A campaign foreign policy adviser

And one of his campaign fundraisers.

They all committed crimes, and Trump pardoned most of them.

#52. Trump said he’d drain the Washington swamp. But he appointed more billionaires, CEOs, and Wall Street moguls to his administration than any administration in history

#53. Trump intervened to get his son-in-law, Jared Kushner top-secret clearance after he was denied over concerns about foreign influence.

#54. Trump hosted a Russian Foreign Minister to the Oval Office, where Trump revealed top-secret intelligence.

Oh, and Trump’s economic policies!

#55 Trump promised that the average American family would see a $4,000 pay raise because of his tax cuts for the wealthy and big corporations. How’d that work out? Did you get a $4,000 raise? Of course not! Nobody did!

#56. Trump vowed to protect American jobs, but offshoring increased and manufacturing fell.

#57. Trump said he would fix America’s infrastructure, but it never happened. He announced so many failed “infrastructure weeks” they became a running joke.

#58. Trump said he would be “the voice” of American workers, but he filled the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union flacks who made it harder for workers to unionize.

#59. Trump’s Labor Department made it easier for bosses to get out of paying workers overtime, which cheated 8 million workers of extra pay.

#60. Trump repeatedly suggested he might serve more than two terms in violation of the Constitution — and continues to do so.

#61. Trump called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries.

#62. Trump tried to terminate DACA, which protects immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. Luckily this was struck down by the courts.

#63. Trump called climate change a “hoax.”

#64. Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

#65. Trump rolled back more than 100 environmental protections.

#66. Every budget Trump proposed included cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

#67. Trump tried (and failed) to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would have resulted in 20 million Americans losing insurance. And striking down the ACA’s protections for the roughly 130 million people with pre-existing conditions could have driven up their insurance premiums or led to a loss of coverage.

#68. Trump made it easier for employers to remove birth control coverage from insurance plans.

#69. By the end of Trump’s term, the number of people lacking health insurance had risen by 3 million.

#70. Trump lied. Constantly. He made 30,573 false or misleading claims while president — an average of 21 a day, according to Washington Post fact-checkers.

#71. Trump allegedly took hundreds of classified documents on his way out of the White House, reportedly including nuclear secrets, which he then left unsecured in various parts of Mar-a-Lago, including a bathroom. He was even caught on tape showing them off to people.

#72. Trump seriously discussed the idea of nuking a hurricane.

#73. When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico, Trump delayed $20 billion of aid and allowed Puerto Rico to be without power for 181 days.

#74. Trump suggested withholding federal aid for California wildfire recovery and said the solution was to “clean” the “floors” of the forest.

#75. Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, placing Iran on a path to developing nuclear weapons.

Honestly, there’s so much more, from exchanging “love letters” with North Korea’s brutal dictator to publicly denigrating a Gold Star military widow and making her cry, to the way he attacked journalists, to late night tweet binges.

Look, I can understand why a lot of people want to block all of this out of their memories. But we cannot afford to forget just how terrible Trump’s time in the White House was for this nation.

And we sure as hell can’t afford to put him back there.

[leveloneandup]

Christen Press' transformative journey back from injury

Christen Press once believed she was indestructible, immune to the injuries that had sidelined teammates and ended careers. But in 2022, an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear shattered not only her knee but also the carefully constructed armor she had relied on throughout her career.

What followed wasn't just a physical struggle to return to the field but a profound journey of emotional recovery. Initially, Press saw rehabilitation as purely physical -- a means to heal her body. However, as setbacks kept her off the pitch and she explored new treatments, her perspective shifted.

The injury, the U.S. women's national team star realized, wasn't a curse but a gift, offering her an unexpected opportunity to confront long-buried grief and trauma.

"It wasn't painful," Press told ESPN in an exclusive interview. "It was more the realization that something was wrong with my body, and what that meant for my future."

In 2022, Press' future was tied to her hometown club, Angel City FC, after an 11-year professional career spanning America and Europe.

Incredibly, she had been available for every game except one, which she missed because of food poisoning. Her body had endured the physical demands of playing for both club and country. But in June of that year, during an NWSL match against Racing Louisville, she tracked back to help her team, committed to a challenge and crumpled to the ground following the contact.

Press had witnessed the ACL injury crisis in the women's game derail the careers of her peers, but she never imagined it would happen to her until it did, at the age of 33. By then, she was in the veteran stage of her career. An MRI confirmed the tear, and she underwent surgery soon after, beginning her recovery with a mix of apprehension and intrigue, expecting to return to competition within 9-12 months.

"I was sad, afraid and disappointed to miss the season," she recalled. "But part of me welcomed it because, as a professional athlete, pushing yourself is part of the process. I was confident I would gain something positive from the experience."

However, Press' body didn't respond well to rehabilitation. Significant challenges delayed her return to full fitness. Six months into her recovery, which had already included one revision surgery, Sarah Smith, Angel City's vice president of medical and performance, joined the club. With Angel City still developing its facilities, Press' rehabilitation took place off-site at the Meyer Institute of Sport, an elite rehabilitation and performance center.

Smith's team was in constant communication with the specialists, managing what became a complex injury. But soon, "career-altering problems" arose, causing the medical team "sleepless nights," Smith said.

"You think you're going to hit all the milestones and move smoothly through the continuum," she added. "But that's not always the case, and it's not reflective of the athlete's professionalism or the work they put in."

Every time Press neared a return to the field, another issue emerged. Devastatingly, this resulted in two more surgeries, making it four in total, testing her mental and physical resilience. She missed the 2023 Women's World Cup, and at times, it seemed her career was over.

"It was extremely confusing because every day I showed up with a smile on my face," Press said. "I never asked for a break, I never left early. I was very disciplined and extremely determined. I thought that would mean I'd have a linear path back, and it was challenging to accept it was out of my control."

Whenever she felt discomfort in her knee, she contacted her surgeon, desperate for some good news. But the diagnosis was always grim. "It was never just a bad day where the knee was actually fine. It was always, 'There's a cyclops lesion in your knee, and you can't play.'"

Running out of hope and options, Press started to explore alternative medicine.

"I have the best surgical team, the best physical therapy team, but that's not the only way to heal," she said. "I challenged myself to be around different types of healing."

What began as an attempt to fix her knee turned into an internal transformation, healing not just her injury but the trauma and grief she had been carrying.

"When I set out to heal my knee, I ended up healing my heart," Press reflected, referring to the pain she had harboured since the death of her mother in 2019. Her mother's death came as Press was preparing for the World Cup in France. The pursuit of ultimate glory became both an outlet and a distraction from her grief.

"Sport is so amazing in that it lets you process things differently -- getting all that adrenaline and sweat out of your body is detoxifying and balances your hormones, but it also masks a lot," she explained.

"It allows you to keep going and bury what's happened to you. When my mum passed in 2019, I missed one or two camps with the U.S. national team, then went back, and we won a World Cup.

"I was able to play for my mum, but it also left a lot of grief inside me that hadn't been addressed. That's the first thing I started to deal with in therapy.

"I did a lot of balancing my nervous system in acupuncture. I went to a homoeopathic doctor and he explained that in his opinion how the grief could have caused me to tear my ACL in the first place."

Away from her rehabilitation she remained in contact with the Angel City squad, attending game days and participating in meetings. Head coach Becki Tweed said Press requested a binder with set-piece tactics, to keep herself mentally engaged, while she was physically restricted.

The medical team remained cautious, taking a step-by-step approach to rebuild Press' capacity for movement, careful to avoid another major setback. Her rehabilitation work would often involve repeating movements 7-8 times more than a patient typically would, demonstrating the thoroughness required due to the complexity of her injury.

Throughout the monotonous rehab work and the frustration of watching her teammates train, the California native remained relentless in her quest to return to the field. Even when those closest to her wavered, she remained resolute.

"When you're told you need surgery for a fourth time, the people who love you start to ask, 'At what point is she going to wake up?'" said the two-time World Cup winner. "But it never even dawned on me to give up. That's just how I'm wired."

Her determination has left a lasting impression on the staff.

"You could see the discomfort in her knee during technical work," recalled Smith. "Watching her in pain, I wasn't sure more time or strength would help. It was hard to know that pushing through might not make it better.

"But she excelled throughout the two-year process, bringing optimism, hope, and joy to it all."

That perseverance has paid off. Although Press didn't make the 2024 Olympic squad, she is set to return for Angel City FC as the NWSL resumes this weekend. She's been training with the team for three months and made her return in early August, scoring a penalty in Angel City's shootout win over San Diego Wave in the NWSL x Liga MX Femenil Summer Cup.

"I had a conversation with her before the game, and she said, 'I'm not afraid,'" Tweed said. "During the game, she took the contact of a tackle, got up, and smiled. She needed that moment.

"After that, she had two shots. That's what she brings -- smart movement and the ability to find dangerous spaces around the 18-yard box."

At 35, with 64 international goals ranking her ninth in USWNT history, there's not much left for Press to achieve. But she's not done yet, even if her outlook has shifted.

"There are mixed emotions about how I can have the greatest impact for my team while minimizing long-term consequences for my life," she said. "But I'm excited to continue making progress and have a bigger impact on Angel City FC."

Her injury, though devastating, became a transformative experience -- physically, mentally, and emotionally.

As she steps back onto the pitch, Press is stronger in ways she never anticipated, having learned one key lesson: "You are exactly where you're supposed to be."

And for Press, that's back on the field at BMO Stadium this Sunday, with the grass under her feet.

[offender42085]

Post 1307

Robert Vance Dingman, New Hampshire inmate 70966, born 1979, incarceration intake in May 1997 at age 18, sentenced to life with possibility of parole, parole eligible June 2034

Murder

In May 2018, a Superior Court judge ruled that the state’s new recommended sentence for convicted teen murderer Robert Dingman doesn’t constitute a de facto life sentence.

Dingman was serving life without the possibility of parole for shooting his parents, Vance and Eve, to death in their Rochester home in 1996.

Dingman, who was 17 at the time of the crimes, was seeking a new sentence following a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ruled it unconstitutional for juvenile offenders to be given such sentences.

The state was requesting of the Court that Dingman be resentenced to two consecutive, 25-year sentences — one each for the murders of his parents. The defense has argued such a sentence would constitute a de facto life sentence due to Dingman’s age.

In a ruling, the state's Chief Justice determined the state’s recommendation isn’t the equivalent of a life sentence.

An aggregate 50-year sentence would give Dingman the possibility of release at age 67, which is less than a Centers for Disease Control analysis that found the average inmate’s life expectancy to be 76.

Robert and younger brother Jeffrey Dingman shot their parents as they arrived home from work in February 1996. The brothers wrapped the bodies in garbage bags and hid them in the attic and basement. They then played and partied over the weekend, returned to school Monday and were arrested after their parents’ coworkers called police.

Testifying at his brother’s trial, Jeffrey said he shot his parents first but said Robert instigated the killings and taunted each before firing the fatal shots. Prosecutors said Robert chafed under his parents’ rules and curfews, and in the months leading up to the killings the boys considered several outlandish plots, including poisoning their parents or pushing them onto thin ice.

Jeffrey, who was 14 at the time of the murders, received 30 years to life in a plea deal in exchange for confessing to police and testifying against Robert. Jeffrey was paroled in March 2014.

4l

[ralfmaximus]

Here's the complete list of DHS flagged search terms. Don't use any of these on social media to avoid having the 3-letter agencies express interest in your activities!

DHS & Other Agencies

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)

Coast Guard (USCG)

Customs and Border Protection (CBP)

Border Patrol

Secret Service (USSS)

National Operations Center (NOC)

Homeland Defense

Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Agent

Task Force

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

Fusion Center

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Infrastructure Security

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CIKR (Critical Infrastructure & Key Resources)

AMTRAK

Collapse

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SOCIAL MEDIA?!

[feminist-space]

Aug. 2, 2024 / Source: The Associated Press

By The Associated Press

"A deadly food poisoning outbreak has led to the recall of more than 7 million pounds of popular Boar’s Head deli meats made at a plant in Virginia.

U.S. health officials are investigating the outbreak of the bacteria listeria that began in May. Two people have died and nearly three dozen were hospitalized in 13 states.

Listeria poisoning is caused by a particularly resilient type of bacteria that can survive and grow even during refrigeration, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Here’s what you need to know:

How can listeria get into deli meat?

Listeria bacteria thrive in moist environments, including soil and water and decaying vegetation and are carried by some animals. The hardy germs are typically spread when food is harvested, processed, transported or stored in places that are contaminated with the bacteria. When the bacteria get into a food processing plant, they can be tough to eradicate.

Many of the people in the outbreak reported eating meats sliced at grocery store deli counters. During the investigation, listeria was detected in an unopened loaf of Boar’s Head liverwurst at a Maryland store; the Agriculture Department said further testing showed the same strain was causing illnesses in people.

Popular Deli Meat Maker Boar Head's Recalls 7 Million Pounds Of Meat After Listeria Outbreak

Boar's Head meats are displayed at a Safeway store on July 31, 2024 in San Rafael, California. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

How does listeria make people sick?

People are sickened with listeria poisoning when they eat foods contaminated with the bacteria. Symptoms can be mild and include fever, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. More serious illness can include headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions.

Listeria poisoning is tricky, because symptoms can start quickly, within a few hours or days after eating contaminated food. But they also can take weeks or up to three months to show up.

Those most vulnerable to getting sick include the very young, people older than 65 and those with weakened immune systems or who are pregnant.

Does cooking kill listeria?

Listeria can survive and grow in food even when it’s refrigerated, but the bacteria can be killed by heating foods to “steaming hot,” or 165 degrees Fahrenheit (74 degrees Celsius), the CDC says. People who are most at risk for illness should avoid the products or heat them before eating.

Most deli meats, however, are eaten cold. Because listeria can survive under refrigeration, it’s important to clean and sanitize any surfaces, including refrigerator drawers and shelves, that may have come in contact with the products, the CDC says.

What should I do if I have the recalled deli meats?

Many of the products recalled by Boar’s Head are meats meant to be sliced at grocery store deli counters, though some prepackaged meats are included in the recall."

[benwvatt]

scavengers reign

[Image ID: A drawing of a lush, green forest on an alien planet in the TV show Scavengers Reign. On the left is a large, thick, white stone column covered with large, green, round globules of moss. The center contains large, white circular stepping stones on the ground, much larger than any living being in the image. A grey, deer-shaped alien with a slightly lighter grey underbelly and round, grey protrusions coming from its face sits curled up on one of the stones. On another stone, further back, sits a grey robot made up of a three large metal ovals next to each other. It tends to a small lily with four large, white petals growing from the stone.

In the center of the image, two thick, brown columns that could be stone or tree trunks rest behind the alien and the robot. One is diagonal and points to the upper right. The other is nearly upright and is tilted slightly to the left. The right side of the image contains three tall yellow broomstick-shaped stalks of what look like hay, and there are three jellyfish-shaped creatures with very short dark grey legs, small round red eyes, and dark grey bodies. One of the creatures looks sadly at the deer alien and the robot. The other two are walking away, out of the frame. End ID.]

Title: Scavengers Reign (2023-?)

Channel: HBO Max.

Origin: U.S. American.

Genres: 2D animation, science fiction, science fantasy, adventure, and horror.

Runtime: As of March 2024, there is 1 season with 12 episodes. Each episode is ~25 minutes. The show’s executive producers have mapped out future seasons and are excited to do more, but with HBO’s penchant for cancelling animated/sci-fi TV shows and removing them from streaming, I’m not sure if it’ll get renewed for more.

This show feels: Enthralling, wondrous, hypnotic, and horrifying.

Premise: Scavengers Reign is a science fiction show about the marooned survivors of a damaged cargo ship in outer space. They explore their mysterious, lush, and hostile new planet with caution, and, due to the crash, they have been isolated in three groups who must eventually make their way back to each other. Most of the cast are human, but one main character is a robot. The new planet contains fantasy-transformed plants, animals, and aliens. Does danger lurk around the next corner?

Themes explored by the show: Social isolation, mental health crises, survival in the wilderness, the ability to trust, human-alien interactions, grief, death, community, psychological horror/trauma, and the poisonous control that nostalgia holds over humans.

Representation & marginalized voices: Scavengers Reign has several nonwhite main characters, and about the half the cast are female while the other half are male. The nonwhite characters are also voiced by people of color, and there are many female voice actors in the cast. I appreciate that romance isn’t a core part of the show, as the story explores themes like survival and mistrust instead.

Notes:

Scavengers Reign is well-received by the public. It has a 100% approval score on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.7/10.

Scavengers Reign originally aired as an 8-minute, dialogue-free animated short film in 2016 on the Adult Swim channel. It is available to watch here on Vimeo.

Most U.S. American shows created by major streaming services or TV networks are available to pirate. Sites like FMovies or LookMovies should have it.

[meret118]

A farm is recalling two brands of eggs after 65 people in nine states came down with salmonella poisoning.

Wisconsin-based Milo’s Poultry Farms LLC is recalling eggs branded “Milo’s Poultry Farms” and “Tony’s Fresh Market” due to a salmonella outbreak that sickened people across the U.S.

Twenty-four of those people have been hospitalized and no deaths have occurred, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The eggs were distributed to restaurants and stores in Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, but the outbreak also spread to the states of Iowa, Colorado, California, Utah, Minnesota and Virginia.

The CDC is urging people to throw away or return eggs sold under the recalled brands. The agency is also encouraging those who had the recalled eggs in their possession to clean items and surfaces that came into contact with the contaminated product.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration classified a recently recalled egg brand as a high-risk “Class I” recall. According to the agency, a “Class I” recall is the highest possible risk category of recall classified by the FDA.

. . .

The strain of salmonella involved is antibiotic-resistant, meaning that it may be more difficult to treat severe bacterial infections.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Courthouse News:

A federal judge on Friday sided with two environmental advocacy organizations in their challenge to the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's updated program to use pesticides to combat grasshopper infestations on rangeland in the western U.S.

U.S. District Judge Marco A. Hernandez, a Barack Obama appointee, granted summary judgment to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the Center for Biological Diversity, agreeing that the federal service didn't adequately consider alternatives to the widespread use of the pesticides.

The organizations accused the service, a subdivision of the Department of Agriculture, of violating the National Environmental Policy Act by not considering, in its 2019 environmental impact statement, a holistic alternative to grasshopper control, failing to establish baseline conditions and failing to take a hard look at the program’s impact on sensitive species, such as pollinators and sage grouse.

Since grasshopper and cricket infestations reduce the forage available for livestock on rangeland, the service is legally required to carry out a program to control grasshopper and Mormon cricket populations on those lands. However, Hernandez found that the service analysis of alternatives to widespread aerial spraying was insufficient.

"By specifically focusing on suppression via direct intervention—or, in this case, the use of pesticides—the [environmental impact statement] is narrower than the relevant statutes and the purpose and need statement is invalid," Hernandez said, referring to the Plant Protection Act — which tasks the service with carrying out a program to control grasshoppers and Mormon crickets to protect rangeland — and the Food Quality and Protection Act.

"There is no evidence that focusing on pesticide treatments fulfills the overall purpose of the relevant statutes," the judge said. "Nor is there evidence that [integrated pest management] techniques were just given less attention than the use of pesticides ... Instead, the EIS appears to foreclose consideration of any non-suppression methods of managing the grasshopper population."

Integrated pest management is a sustainable approach to managing pests by combining biological, cultural, physical and chemical tools in a way that minimizes economic, health and environmental risks.

“For decades the Department of Agriculture has acted with impunity, drenching millions of acres of western ecosystems with deadly insecticides to kill the native grasshoppers and crickets that have always been keystone species here,” said Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Bees, butterflies, sage grouse and countless other critters join us in celebrating this resounding victory against this ecosystem-poisoning program.”

[shiftingtomydrs]

I've never read the Shatter Me series despite my friend telling me to so what's your dr like?

thanks so much for asking <3

i already made an introduction post for the dr which you can find here

spoiler alert under the cut for prolly all the books since my head likes to mix up what info is in which book

the shatter me series is set in a dystopian world, basically humans fucked the world up enough to more or less make it unliveable in (food was poisoned cos animals ate trash and shit e.g., illnesses like cancer were very common etc.) and then the re-establishment takes over. the re-establishment was elected by the people, promising to re-establish life as they knew it (spoiler alert: they didnt) and then took over the world, turning it into district 12 from the hunger games more or less, except its more technologically advanced (the technology is used to monitor civilians tho not to help them) while the psychopaths (really theres no better word, i dont even think that word is strong enough) at the top enjoy life

now more on my backstory (its basically just juliettes backstory from the books cos i dont have a creative bone in my body):

i was created by evie sommers (juliettes mother) whos also the supreme commander (kinda like president) of oceania in a petri dish out of her dna and maybe someone elses? idk but she modified the dna to basically make me the perfect specimen for her little project. my memories of all this are erased regularly btw so i dont talk about it to other people i coincidentally meet (this is before the re-establishment took over completely, which happens when im around 13-16?) bcs what shes doing is obviously lowkey illegal. anyway at some point (in my head when im around 4-5) she starts letting me play with the kids from the other future surpreme commanders (theres one for each continent) which is also where i get my name (as a project i dont need a name so evie never gave me one) which is juliette (its a bit complicated but basically juliette in the book is really called ella so for the sake of logic ill call her ella from now on and im juliette) and was given to me by aaron cos he likes shakespear and thought it fit me soo juliette it was. after evie discovers emmalines (ellas sister) abilities she decides to abandon me and puts me into a foster family similar to ella in the u.s. (for plots aka aaron and my love stories sake) and since theres this whole plot no-matter-how-many-times-they-erase-my-and-aarons-memories-we-always-fall-in-love-again anderson (aarons dad) thought itd be funny to make ellas undercover name juliette ferrars to see if itd make aaron change his mind (he does these fucked up little experiments for fun) or smth idk i dont understand that guy. anyway my powers (also in the introduction post) start manifesting when im like 10 or so and we have to move a lot after cos i cant control my powers yet. when im 14 it all escalates when i accidentally kill a classmate with my powers (he was an ass tho not to excuse my behavior but just wanted to add that) and after that my parents decide its best for them to give up guardianship for me and hand me over to the re-establishment / government. ella at this point already escaped her family to omega point before she ever touches that little boy in the grocery store. anyway the next few years are a lot of moving in between facilities and rehabilitation centers which ends with them locking me away in an asylum when im 16 and thats the point i shift to.

after that its mostly just the plot of the books which is i get pulled out of the asylum after a little less than a year on aarons orders, he wants to use me as a weapon for the re-establishment (but secretly not), i escape with adam (temporary love interest) and get to omega point along with kenji and then anderson takes 2 hostages from omega point and wants me as an exchange, i shoot him, we kidnap aaron, bla bla adam and i break up, aaron and i have this denial thing (from my side), aaron escapes, omega point fights against the re-establishment and gets defeated, anderson shoots me to teach aaron a lesson, i survive cos aaron saves me, we find the survivors of omega point, aaron gets them on base, we kill anderson and take over north america and then after that its the other books which are a bit more complicated but i can get into that too if anyone would like me to :)

now that i read it back its a tiny little bit confusing soo if you have any questions feel free to ask <3

[reasonsforhope]

"For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S.

"This is exciting," said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On Drug Abuse [NIDA], the federal laboratory charged with studying addiction. "This looks real. This looks very, very real."

National surveys compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention already show an unprecedented decline in drug deaths of roughly 10.6 percent. That's a huge reversal from recent years when fatal overdoses regularly increased by double-digit percentages.

Some researchers believe the data will show an even larger decline in drug deaths when federal surveys are updated to reflect improvements being seen at the state level, especially in the eastern U.S.

"In the states that have the most rapid data collection systems, we’re seeing declines of twenty percent, thirty percent," said Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta, an expert on street drugs at the University of North Carolina.

According to Dasgupta's analysis, which has sparked discussion among addiction and drug policy experts, the drop in state-level mortality numbers corresponds with similar steep declines in emergency room visits linked to overdoses.

Dasgupta was one of the first researchers to detect the trend. He believes the national decline in street drug deaths is now at least 15 percent and could mean as many as 20,000 fewer fatalities per year.

"Today, I have so much hope"

After years of wrenching drug deaths that seemed all but unstoppable, some researchers, front-line addiction workers, members of law enforcement, and people using street drugs voiced caution about the apparent trend.

Roughly 100,000 deaths are still occurring per year. Street drug cocktails including fentanyl, methamphetamines, xylazine and other synthetic chemicals are more poisonous than ever.

"I think we have to be careful when we get optimistic and see a slight drop in overdose deaths," said Dan Salter, who heads a federal drug interdiction program in the Atlanta-Carolinas region. "The last thing we want to do is spike the ball."

But most public health experts and some people living with addiction told NPR they believe catastrophic increases in drug deaths, which began in 2019, have ended, at least for now. Many said a widespread, meaningful shift appears underway.

"Some of us have learned to deal with the overdoses a lot better," said Kevin Donaldson, who uses fentanyl and xylazine on the street in Burlington, Vermont.

According to Donaldson, many people using fentanyl now carry naloxone, a medication that reverses most opioid overdoses. He said his friends also use street drugs with others nearby, ready to offer aid and support when overdoses occur.

He believes these changes - a response to the increasingly toxic street drug supply - mean more people like himself are surviving.

"For a while we were hearing about [drug deaths] every other day. When was the last one we heard about? Maybe two weeks ago? That's pretty few and far between," he said.

His experience is reflected in data from the Vermont Department of Health, which shows a 22 percent decline in drug deaths in 2024.

"The trends are definitely positive," said Dr. Keith Humphreys, a nationally respected drug policy researcher at Stanford University. "This is going to be the best year we've had since all of this started."

"A year ago when overdose deaths continued to rise, I was really struggling with hope," said Brad Finegood, who directs the overdose crisis response in Seattle.

Deaths in King County, Washington, linked to all drugs have dropped by 15 percent in the first half of 2024. Fatal overdoses caused by street fentanyl have dropped by 20 percent.

"Today, I have so much hope," Finegood said.

-via NPR, September 18, 2024. Article continues below with an exploration of the whys (mostly unknown) and some absolutely fucking incredible statistics.

Why the sudden and hopeful shift? Most experts say it's a mystery

While many people offered theories about why the drop in deaths is happening at unprecedented speed, most experts agreed that the data doesn't yet provide clear answers.

Some pointed to rapid improvements in the availability and affordability of medical treatments for fentanyl addiction. "Expansion of naloxone and medications for opioid use disorder — these strategies worked," said Dr. Volkow at NIDA.

"We've almost tripled the amount of naloxone out in the community," said Finegood. He noted that one survey in the Seattle area found 85 percent of high-risk drug users now carry the overdose-reversal medication.

Dr. Rahul Gupta, the White House drug czar, said the drop in drug deaths shows a path forward.

"This is the largest decrease on record and the fifth consecutive month of recorded decreases," he said.

Gupta called for more funding for addiction treatment and healthcare services, especially in Black and Native American communities where overdose deaths remain catastrophically high.

"There is no way we're going to beat this epidemic by not focusing on communities that are often marginalized, underserved and communities of color," Gupta said.

"Overdose deaths in Ohio are down 31 percent"

Indeed, in many states in the eastern and central U.S. where improvements are largest, the sudden drop in drug deaths stunned some observers who lived through the darkest days of the fentanyl overdose crisis.

"This year overdose deaths [in Ohio] are down 31 percent," said Dennis Couchon, a harm reduction activist. "The deaths were just plummeting. The data has never moved like this."

"While the mortality data for 2024 is incomplete and subject to change, Ohio is now in the ninth consecutive month of a historic and unexpected drop in overdose deaths," said the organization Harm Reduction Ohio in a statement.

Missouri is seeing a similar trend that appears to be accelerating. After dropping by 10 percent last year, preliminary data shows drug deaths in the state have now fallen roughly 34 percent in the second quarter of 2024.

"It absolutely seems things are going in the right direction, and it's something we should feel pleased about," said Dr. Rachel Winograd, director of addiction science at the University of Missouri St. Louis, who also noted that drug deaths remain too high.

"It feels wonderful and great," said Dr. Mark Levine, head of the Vermont Health Department. "We need encouraging data like this and it will help sustain all of us who are actively involved in trying to have an impact here."

Levine, too, said there's still "plenty of work left to do."" ...

Dasgupta, the researcher at the University of North Carolina, agreed more needs to be done to help people in addiction recover when they're ready.

But he said keeping more people alive is a crucial first step that seemed impossible only a year ago.

"A fifteen or twenty percent [drop in deaths] is a really big number, an enormous impact," he said, calling for more research to determine how to keep the trend going.

"If interventions are what's driving this decline, then let's double down on those interventions."

-article via NPR, September 18, 2024

[plethoraworldatlas]

The Bureau of Land Management recently announced that it will no longer allow the use of “cyanide bombs” on its lands. The M-44 devices are often used to protect livestock from animals like foxes or coyotes.

Several environmental groups lauded the decision, saying it makes public spaces safer for people and animals.

“Cyanide bombs” are baited, spring-loaded traps that release deadly poison into the air when triggered. Wildlife agents – often from the U.S. Department of Agriculture – usually set them to control predators, especially in remote areas.

M-44s killed more than 5,000 animals last year, according to the USDA, and were deployed in 10 states, including Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada.

Colette Adkins, Carnivore Conservation program director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the devices are dangerous because of their indiscriminate nature.

“Anything that tugs on the spring-loaded device will be sprayed with this deadly poison, whether it's a kid, an endangered species or a target animal like a coyote. They really are just too dangerous to be used in public places,” she said.

This issue made national headlines in 2017 when a “cyanide bomb” killed a family pet and injured a boy in Idaho. Since then, several groups have been petitioning to end the use of M-44s on public lands.

With the BLM’s move, the devices are now banned from all lands administered by the U.S. Interior Department. Still, M-44s are allowed on U.S. Forest Service lands and in some states.

[killed-by-choice]

Barbara Lerner, 30 (USA 1980)

Today marks the anniversary of a horrifying discovery that led to a CDC investigation.

In the early morning of April 18, 1981, the body of a 30-year-old woman was found. She was identified as Barbara Susan Druckman Lerner, who had been living in Florida for 7 years and was married to Dr. Michael Lerner. The couple had a son named David.

An investigation done by the Center for Disease Control identified Barbara’s cause of death as blood poisoning caused by a legal abortion. Despite the horrifying way that her body was discovered and the CDC investigation, there was surprisingly little news coverage of Barbara’s death.

The Miami Herald printed an obituary stating that the funeral was held at Gordon Funeral Home 3 days after her body was discovered. Barbara’s son David was now an only child and her husband was a widower. Two of their family members were killed by a single abortion.

Florida Certificate of Death 81-034752

Dade County (FL) Medical Examiner’s Report 81-1220

Florida Death Index, 1877-1998 database, from "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," index; citing vol. , certificate number 34752, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.

United States Social Security Death Index database, Barbara Lerner, Apr 1981; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).

[freehawaii]

IN MEMORY OF EMMETT ALULI, SHUT DOWN RED HILL

Counterpunch.org - December 15, 2022 - By Seiji Yamada

In November 2021, 20,000 gallons of jet fuel spewed from the U.S. Navy’s Red Hill Bulk Fuel Storage Facility into the drinking water well serving 93,000 mostly military personnel and their dependents on Oʻahu. Initially claiming that all the fuel had been recovered, the Navy defied the State of Hawaiʻi’s order to stop utilizing the facility for months. Hundreds of families were sickened, and those served by the Navy well had to live in hotels.

The Red Hill Facility consists of 20 underground tanks constructed in the 1940s, each of the 20 tanks holds 12.5 million gallons of fuel. Over a hundred million gallons of fuel remains in the tanks, located only 100 feet above the aquifer that supplies all of urban Honolulu. Having previously claimed before that the system was sound, the Navy now says that it could take one or two years to repair the pipelines in order to drain the tanks safely.

Most recently, on November 29, 2022, 1,300 gallons of fire-fighting aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) containing perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) were spilled at the Red Hill Facility. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, PFAS are known carcinogens and can cause decreased fertility, developmental delays in children, hormonal dysfunction, obesity, and immunosuppression. The strength of the carbon-fluorine bond in PFAS resist breakdown, even by incineration. They are “forever chemicals,” persistent in water and biologically concentrated in foods such as fish.

They are toxic in concentrations measured in parts per quadrillion (a million billion). One teaspoon can destroy the water supply of a city. In Hawaiʻi only the U.S. military utilizes AFFF containing PFAS. Civilian firefighters in Hawaiʻi do not use it.

The revelation of the most recent spill prompted community organizations, including Oʻahu Water Protectors, the Hawaiʻi People’s Fund, the Hawaiʻi Youth Climate Coalition, Queen’s Court, and the Sierra Club of Hawai‘i, to organize a “Walk for Wai”  (wai = water) rally and march on December 10, 2022. What follows are my remarks at the rally.

Remarks for Walk for Wai

Today I am speaking on behalf of the Hawaii Committee for Human Rights in the Philippines or HiCHRP. I would like to reflect on the passing just last month of Dr. “Kauka” Noa Emmett Auwae Aluli. Dr. Aluli taught us that the health of the people depends on the health of the ‘āina. Dr. Aluli found it intolerable that the U.S. Navy used the island of Kahoʻolawe for target practice, making it unsuitable for human habitation, and finally cracking its water table. In 1976, as one of the Kahoʻolawe Nine, he risked arrest, his medical career, and his life by occupying and re-claiming Kahoʻolawe. It took another 14 years before the U.S. Navy finally stopped bombing Kahoʻolawe, but the bold action of the Kahoʻolawe Nine was the beginning of the struggle.

Even today, we see how the U.S. military utterly disregards the health of the people and the health of the ‘āina by their occupation of Red Hill. Global domination by the U.S. military is the overarching goal. If the land is poisoned or the people are poisoned along the way, so what? Sacrifices have to be made, and Hawaiʻi is a sacrifice zone. The role that the U.S. military assigns to Hawaiʻi is to be the command and control center for the coming war with China. As Kyle Kajihiro teaches us, Oʻahu is the head of the heʻe or the octopus. Therefore the placement of the Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaiʻi. Therefore the RIMPAC Naval Exercises, in the waters around Hawaiʻi. Since World War II, the Red Hill tanks have been used to store fuel for military ships and aircraft across the Pacific.

In order to contain China, the U.S. military seeks allies in nations surrounding China. Among them is the Philippines – which together with Taiwan, South Korea, Okinawa, Japan, and Guam – will play a crucial role as a staging area from where the U.S. will launch offensives. In November, Kamala Harris was in the Philippines to strengthen ties between the U.S. and Philippine militaries and between the U.S. and Philippine governments. Her visit gives legitimacy to Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., the son of the dictator who imposed martial law on the Philippines in 1972 and who oversaw the use of US bases in Clark and Subic Bay as staging areas during the Vietnam War.

In the Philippines, the Marcos government continues to red-tag activists, and perpetrate extra-judicial killings. Today, on international Human Rights Day, we must recognize that the human rights situation has not improved since Marcos took over from Duterte. This, too, is the price that the people pay for global domination by the U.S. military.

Dr. Emmett Aluli said, “We commit for generations, not just for careers. We set things up now so that they’ll be carried on.” It is up to us to carry on the commitment that Dr. Aluli showed by occupying Kahoʻolawe. We must not stop until we get the U.S. military out of the Philippines and out of the ‘āina.

Water is a human right!

Health is a human right!

[msilverstar]

I believe you for Reasons, including years of reading your posts.

That said, those idiots are not citing sources, so I'm going to do that

"Borax is a chemical that contains the element boron. Borax and boric acid are used in disinfectants, and ant and roach killers," Dr. Kelly Johnson-Arbor, a medical toxicology physician and co-medical director at the National Capital Poison Center, told Yahoo's In The Know. "Borax consumption has been recently popularized on TikTok as a way to treat inflammation, but borax is actually a poisonous compound and should never be eaten." 

Healthline: The National Institutes of Health has found that borax has been associated with several adverse health effects in humans. These include irritation, hormone issues, toxicity, death WebMD: Borax can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea if you ingest it by itself, and large amounts can lead to shock and kidney failure. It's banned in U.S. food products. It also can irritate your skin and eyes, and it can hurt your nose, throat, and lungs if you breathe it in. If you're around it often, it can cause rashes and might affect male reproductive organs. The US Poison Control Center:

Everyone who reads this, please tell your friends!

watching people on tiktok consume borax is uh. something.