#service undercounter

[servicekulkassolo]

layanan reparasi kulkas, mesin cuci dan ac

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 Dead and wounded arrive at a hospital in Gaza after the Israeli occupation forces bombed a residential building in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in the central Gaza Strip on Monday. 📈 The current death toll in the Israeli genocide now exceeds 38'664 Palestinians killed, while another 89'097 others have been wounded since Oct. 7th. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

283 DAYS OF GENOCIDE IN THE GAZA STRIP: GAZANS IN ISRAELI DETENTION FACE TORTURE, RAPE AND DEATH, SMOTRICH REJECTS THE POSSIBLE RELEASE OF PALESTINIAN PRISONERS IN EXCHANGE DEAL, 15 YEARS NEEDED TO REMOVE THE RUBBLE OF GAZA, ISRAELI MASSACRES CONTINUE AS GENOCIDE ENTERS ITS 40TH WEEK

On 283rd day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 3 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 80 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 216 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or whose bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

Details have emerged about the severe abuse of Palestinian detainees while being held in Israeli prisons. This comes after journalist Mohammad Arab met with his lawyer who visited the Ofer Prison near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.

According to Khaled Mahajna, a lawyer with the Commission of Detainees' Affairs, who spoke at a press conference after he visited two clients from the Ofer Prison, detailed his clients' experiences under interrogation at the Sde Teiman Camp, a prison in the Negev desert of southern occupied Palestine.

Speaking of his visit to Ofer Prison, Mahajna says his client was questioned about a prior visit from his lawyer and threatened with punishment for disclosing his experiences.

Mahajna said Arab described witnessing the rape of Gazan detainees, telling his lawyer one was stripped naked during an assault, while another detainee was also stripped naked and electricuted, before being sexually assaulted.

Mahajna told reporters that Palestinian detainees were forced to lie on the ground with their hands bound behind their heads before police dogs were released, attacking the bound men.

Mahajna went on to add that more than 100 detainees were blindfolded before being transferred from the Sde Teiman Camp to the Ofer Prison, leading the prisoners to believe they were being taken to a camp near Gaza.

According to the Israeli Prison Services, more than 9'000 Palestinian detainees are currently being held in Israeli prisons.

In other news, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday, July 15th, that he opposes the release of Palestinian prisoners as part of a hostage exchange and ceasefire agreement with the Palestinian resistance factions.

Smotrich described the release of Palestinian prisoners as a "terrible and horrific event," going on to say that "I will not agree to it; a red line must be drawn."

“We saw what happened in the deal for Gilad Shalit (former Israeli soldier who was released by the Resistance in a 2011 hostage deal). We released Yahya Sinwar, and we see what we got in return,” Smotrich said, before asking “With what logic will we release the next Yahya Sinwar and endanger thousands more Israelis?”

In the 2011 hostage exchange, the Hamas Palestinian resistance movement released the soldier Shalit in exchange for the release of some 1'027 Palestinian prisoners, including the current Al-Qassam military leader, Yahya Sinwar, who remains at large and hunted by occupation forces.

Smotrich concluded his statement by saying that “I will oppose this, even if it ends my political career.”

“If there are no red lines, you have no right to practice politics,” he said.

In more news on Monday, the United Nations has estimated that it would take a fleet of 100 trucks more than 15 years to remove the mountain of rubble burying the Gaza Strip, while the removal is estimated to cost approximately US$600 million.

The UN also estimates that 137'297 buildings have been damaged or destroyed since the start of the Israeli occupation's genocidal war, equivalent to more than half of the enclave's buildings.

The UN says that, of the targeted buildings, around a quarter are completely destroyed, while a tenth are severely damaged.

In total, the UN stated that rubble covers as much as five square kilometers of Gaza, with the UN proposing that most of the rubble is not recoverable or recyclable, and will have to be disposed of.

Previously, the United Nations estimated that rebuilding the Gaza Strip, with all its destroyed homes and facilities, wouldn't be completed until at least 2040, and is expected to cost in excess of US$40 Billion, which the UN described as an "optimistic estimate".

The UN also pointed to the destruction of Gaza's schools, sewage and water lines, medical and other vital infrastructure, stating that the quality of healthcare, education and social services in Gaza has returned to levels unseen since 1980.

According to the United Nations, more than 44 years of development in Gaza has been completely erased.

“The damage to infrastructure is unbelievable, there is not a single building in Khan Younis that has not been damaged,” a UN official told the media

“The terrain has changed, new hills have appeared. The bombs dropped have changed the landscape."

It was also noted that piles of rubble across the Gaza Strip are filled with unexploded bombs and other explosive materials, which will make the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip an even more difficult task, the UN official concluded.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation's genocidal war goes on, with occupation bombing and shelling continuing to target civilian homes, infrastructure and other facilities.

On Sunday, occupation warplanes bombed the UNRWA-run Abu Oreiban School, which housed displaced Palestinian families in the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of 15 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, and wounding another 70 others.

The Zionist entity's atrocities continued when an Israeli drone targeted citizens in the Bir Abu Salah area in the town of Al-Zawaida, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the death of one Palestinian and injuring several others.

In another attack, the Israeli occupation forces bombed the Al-Mashrou area, east of the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing a Palestinian and wounding others, while at the same time, occupation fighter jets bombed civilian homes north of the New Camp area of the Nuseirat Camp, killing and wounding several citizens.

Zionist warplanes went on to bomb a residential home in Bani Suhaila, east of Khan Yunis, in the south of Gaza, and also targeting a civilian residence northeast of the Nuseirat Camp, while an occupation drone fired live bullets towards residents of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.

By dawn on Monday morning, the Israeli occupation army had fired several artillery shells towards the neighborhoods of Tal al-Hawa, Sheikh Ajlin, and al-Sabra in Gaza City, while Zionist helicopters fired rockets and bullets at civilians in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of the city.

Similarly, occupation artillery detatchments shelled in the vicinity of Street 8 in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.

The occupation's bombing also targeted a residential home belonging to the Al-Manaama family in the Al-Maghazi Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, after which, civil defense and rescue crews managed to recover the bodies of 5 martyrs, including 3 children.

Occupation artillery shelling and aircraft bombing also targeted the Al-Mughraqa area, along with the northern outskirts of the Nuseirat Camp, both in central Gaza, as well as in the Bureij Camp, while occupation forces also opened fire from helicopters northwest of Al-Zahra'a.

An occupation warplane also fired a missile into a residential apartment near the Al-Awda School in the town of Abasan Al-Kabira, east of Khan Yunis, with no injuries reported in the strike.

Israeli artillery shelling went on to target the western neighborhoods of Rafah City, south of Gaza, coinciding with gunfire from Zionist helicopters in the same area.

In another bombing, occupation fighter jets bombed a gathering of civilians on Al-Mansoura Street in the Al-Shujaiya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, killing 3 civilians and wounding several others.

Israeli war crimes continued into Monday evening, when occupation warplanes bombed a house in the Nuseirat Camp, resulting in the martyredom of 6 Palestinians and wounding a number of others.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, the endlessly rising death toll now exceeds 38'664 Palestinians killed, including at least 10'000 women and well over 15'000 children, while another 89'097 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

This brings the total number of casualties in the genocide to 127'761 or 5.55% of the 2.3 million Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip.

July 15th, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

The ADL is not a trusted source. Not on antisemitism. And not Palestine or Israel. An independent audit of the ADL’s antisemitism data, as well as the editors of Wikipedia, all agree.

The ADL mislabels antisemitism in service of the Israeli government’s hate campaign against Palestinians. It distorts its own data and manipulates its findings. In doing so, the ADL has caused incalculable harm to Palestinians and those who defend Palestinian rights. It has also chosen to minimize the terrifying growth of organized white supremacy, and ignored white nationalism’s increased threat to Jewish people. The ADL’s distorted data makes Jews less safe. We all deserve better.

On the same day that news broke that Wikipedia’s editors had declared the ADL unreliable on issues related to Palestine and Israel — and likely antisemitism as well — Jewish Currents published an investigation into the ADL’s data, pointing out that “serious statistical analysis [should be] done by an organization not beholden to Israel advocacy.”

The Jewish Currents’ audit of the ADL’s own data proves that, once the ADL’s anti-Palestinian and pro-Israeli government bias was removed, white nationalists are the driving force behind all forms of antisemitism. The audit also showed that the ADL’s reporting may “significantly undercount right-wing antisemitic incidents.” In short, the ADL’s attempts to smear the movement for Palestinian freedom not only provided cover for the real source of antisemitism (white supremacy), but actually minimized the “stunning growth of organized white nationalism.” None of this makes anyone safe.

On the same day, in a near unanimous vote, Wikipedia editors declared the ADL to be “generally unreliable” on Palestine and Israel, adding it to a list of sources of propaganda or misinformation that includes the National Inquirer and Newsmax. Wikipedia editors also said that ���the ADL should not be cited for factual information on antisemitism as well because it acts primarily as a pro-Israel organization and tends to label legitimate criticism of Israel as antisemitism.”

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

by Miles W. Griffis

Atinuki “Tinu” Abayomi-Paul, a prominent writer and disability advocate, died on September 26 at home in Texas. She was 52.

Abayomi-Paul was well known in the Long COVID and disability community for her writing, speaking, and mutual aid organizing. She was the founder of Everywhere Accessible, an advocacy organization which she launched in 2019 to educate the public about accessibility and center the experiences of Black disabled women.

In 2022, she was hospitalized with COVID-19, leading to COVID-induced pneumonia. She later developed chronic lymphocytic leukemia, as well as Long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), and other chronic illnesses.

She recently spoke with The Sick Times about her experience with extreme heat and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS).

“My fear for the future is that those of us who cannot tolerate the heat will die,” she said. “Another fear I have is that no one will listen.”

Abayomi-Paul frequently wrote about and helped break stigmas about immunocompromised people. She centered the experiences of the most marginalized, who were left behind in the government’s failed response to the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

“I hope my story humanizes the experience of having COVID for people,” she wrote in an essay following her hospitalization. “Those of us at high risk aren’t abstract people you’ve never met. We’re people you know and love, and we might die because you won’t wear a mask.”

Over the past week, friends, family, and members of the disability community have written tributes to Abayomi-Paul for her leadership, care, and community building.

“She had such giggly personality, but was often so tired from just trying to stay afloat,” disability advocate Imani Barbarin wrote on Twitter/X. “Still, she loved this community and consistently felt like she wasn’t doing enough. Tinu, you were enough.”

“She gave so much of herself and cared about the disability community deeply,” Alice Wong wrote. In another tribute, Sarah Reneé stated that she “advocated with spoons she didn’t have not just for herself, but the entire community.”

“Many of us owe our lives and the evolution of our politics to disabled Black women like [Tinu] and [Shafiqah Hudson],” writer Clarkisha Kent posted.

Like Abayomi-Paul, Hudson died while battling Long COVID and cancer. Hudson passed in February 2024 at an extended-stay hotel in Portland, Oregon; she stated before her death that if she died, Long COVID was the cause.

Abayomi-Paul’s cause of death has not been stated. She wrote on August 3, 2024: “People not masking is literally killing me… If I do die, this is what killed me, people not masking or believing Long COVID lowers your immunity…”

While research has extensively documented the disabling symptoms and scope of Long COVID, science and health institutions have paid less attention to the disease’s potentially deadly consequences.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in early 2024 that over 5,000 Americans have died with Long COVID since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, but experts say this number is likely a significant undercount. Along with improved reporting standards, people with Long COVID need immediate support to prevent further fatalities, experts and advocates say.

Abayomi-Paul’s family and friends are currently fundraising for her funeral, medical expenses, and other costs. They are also planning a service — the date has not yet been released.

[jewish-microwave-laser]

I eventually came to understand the profound insult inherent in the messages I was receiving, both directly and indirectly, from readers expecting uplifting Jewish literature full of moments of grace—not to me as a novelist, but to my ancestors who endured experiences like those I gave to my characters, and in a sense, to al those who have endured the most atrocious moments of Jewish history. Readers who demand "coherence" from literature about the modern Jewish experience were essentially insisting that Jewish suffering was only worth examining if it provided, in the words of my reader's memorable message, "a service to mankind." In retrospect I am stunned by how long it took me to understand just how hateful this was. Consider, as I only very slowly did, what this demand really entails. Dead Jews are supposed to teach us about the beauty of the world and the wonders of redemption—otherwise, what was the point of killing them in the first place? That's what dead Jews are for! If people were going to read about dead Jews, where was the service to mankind I owed them?

This is far from a fringe attitude among contemporary readers, as just about every bestselling Holocaust novel of our current century makes fantastically clear. Holocaust novels that have sold millions of copies both in the United States and overseas in recent years are all "uplifting," even when they include the odd dead kid. The Tattooist of Auschwitz, a recent international mega-bestseller touted for its "true story," manages to present an Auschwitz that involves a heartwarming romance. Sarah's Key, The Book Thief, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, and many other bestsellers, some of which have even become required reading in schools, all involve non-Jewish rescuers who risk or sacrifice their own lives to save hapless Jews, thus inspiring us all. (For the record, the number of actual "righteous Gentiles" officially recognized by Yad Vashem, Israel's national Holocaust museum and research center, for their efforts in rescuing Jews from the Holocaust is under 30,000 people, out of a European population at the time of nearly 300 million—or 0.01 percent. Even if we were to assume that the official recognition is an undercount by the factor of a thousand, such people remain essentially a rounding error.) In addition to their wonderful non-Jewish characters, these books are almost invariably populated by the sort of relatable dead Jews whom readers can really get behind: the mostly non-religious, mostly non-Yiddish-speaking ones whom noble people tried to save, and whose deaths therefore teach us something beautiful about our shared and universal humanity, replete with epiphanies and moments of grace. Statistically speaking, this was not the experience of almost any Jews who endured the Holocaust. But for literature in non-Jewish languages, that grim reality is both inconvenient and irrelevant.

from "Fictional Dead Jews" in People Love Dead Jews by Dara Horn, pp 79–81

[jackoshadows]

Israel is demolishing northern Gaza and fortifying military positions, imagery shows

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/12/23/gaza-north-israel-jabalya-palestinians/

Israel is carrying out mass demolitions and erecting military fortifications in residential areas of northern Gaza where tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes, according to satellite imagery, verified videos and interviews.

As areas are emptied of Palestinians, Israeli forces have demolished entire neighborhoods, established military fortifications and built new roads, according to a Washington Post analysis of high-resolution satellite images. The visual evidence shows almost half of Jabalya refugee camp was demolished or cleared between Oct. 14 and Dec. 15, connecting a preexisting road in the west to an expanded vehicle track in the east — carving out a military axis that stretches from the sea to the border fence with Israel.

The establishment of this corridor, the clearing of tracts of land on either side of it and the construction of square-shaped protected outposts resemble the IDF's transformation of the Netzarim Corridor, a strategic Israeli military zone in the center of Gaza, analysts said. While Israeli forces cut the Netzarim Corridor through a lightly populated, largely agricultural area, Israel's operations in the north are centered in dense urban neighborhoods — effectively destroying northern Palestinian cities.

As of Dec. 1, a third of all buildings across the North Gaza governate had been destroyed since the beginning of the war — including more than 5,000 in Jabalya, more than 3,000 in Beit Lahia and more than 2,000 in Beit Hanoun, according to the latest data from the U.N. Satellite Center. Sixty percent of the destruction in the Jabalya refugee camp took place between Sept. 6 and Dec. 1, the data showed, and the demolitions and displacement have continued in the weeks since.

A satellite image taken Dec. 15 shows widespread devastation across Beit Lahia and Jabalya, with a market, mosque, shops and homes flattened into heaps of concrete and dust. On Dec. 4, the Israeli military forced 5,500 people sheltering in schools in Beit Lahia to flee south to Gaza City, according to the U.N. humanitarian affairs office.

Earlier this month, former Israeli defense minister Moshe Ya'alon told local media in a series of interviews that the IDF was carrying out "ethnic cleansing" in northern Gaza. "Beit Lahia no longer exists, Beit Hanoun no longer exists, and now they are working on Jabalya," he said.

In interviews conducted by phone and text message over multiple weeks, 10 northern Gaza residents described to The Post the widespread targeting of civilian neighborhoods by Israeli forces, dangerous mass evacuations where men and teenage boys were separated from women and children, as well as the abuse and arbitrary detention of some of those trying to flee. Their accounts were consistent with photos and videos verified by The Post of mass screenings and arrests, as well as attacks on civilians.

"In northern Gaza, there is nothing left that sustains life," said Beit Lahia resident Said Kilani, 41. "Everything has been destroyed to force people out."

In the first three weeks of the IDF's new offensive in the north, more than 1,000 people were killed, the health ministry estimated, adding it was probably an undercount with so many bodies still on the streets or buried under rubble. Gaza's civil defense service said on Oct. 23 it could no longer operate safely there, leaving the area without ambulances or rescue workers.

[silicacid]

No evidence of inflated mortality reporting from the Gaza Ministry of Health

Benjamin Q Huynh, Elizabeth T Chin, Paul B Spiegel

Published: December 06, 2023

Mortality reporting is a crucial indicator of the severity of a conflict setting, but it can also be inflated or under-reported for political purposes. Amidst the ongoing conflict in Gaza, some political parties have indicated scepticism about the reporting of fatalities by the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH).

The Gaza MoH has historically reported accurate mortality data, with discrepancies between MoH reporting and independent United Nations analyses ranging from 1·5% to 3·8% in previous conflicts. A comparison between the Gaza MoH and Israeli Foreign Ministry mortality figures for the 2014 war yielded an 8·0% discrepancy.2 Public scepticism of the current reports by the Gaza MoH might undermine the efforts to reduce civilian harm and provide life-saving assistance. Using publicly available information, we compared the Gaza MoH's mortality reports with a separate source of mortality reporting and found no evidence of inflated rates. We conducted a temporal analysis of cumulative-reported mortality within Gaza for deaths of Gazans as reported by the MoH and reported staff member deaths from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), from Oct 7 to Nov 10, 2023. These two data sources used independent methods of mortality verification, enabling assessment of reporting consistency.

We observed similar daily trends, indicating temporal consistency in response to bombing events until a spike of UNRWA staff deaths occurred on Oct 26, 2023, when 14 UNRWA staff members were killed, of whom 13 died in their homes due to bombings. Subsequent attacks raised the UNRWA death rate while MoH hospital services diminished until MoH communications and mortality reporting collapsed on Nov 10, 2023. During this period, mortality might have been under-reported by the Gaza MoH due to decreased capacity. Cumulative reported deaths were 101 UNRWA staff members and 11,078 Gazans over 35 days. By comparison, an average of 4884 registered deaths occurred per year in 2015–19 in Gaza.

Cumulative reported mortality rates (Oct 7–Nov 10, 2023)

Data are calculated by separate death reports from the Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH; red line) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA; blue line).

If MoH mortality figures were substantially inflated, the MoH mortality rates would be expected to be higher than the UNRWA mortality rates. Instead, the MoH mortality rates are lower than the rates reported for UNRWA staff (5.3 deaths per 1000 vs 7.8 deaths per 1000, as of Nov 10, 2023). Hypothetically, if MoH mortality data were inflated from, for example, an underlying value of 2–4 deaths per 1000, it would imply that UNRWA staff mortality risk is 2.0–3.9 times higher than that of the public. This scenario is unlikely as many UNRWA staff deaths occurred at home or in areas with high civilian populations, such as in schools or shelters.

Mortality reporting is difficult to conduct in ongoing conflicts. Initial news reports might be imprecise, and subsequent verified reports might undercount deaths that are not recorded by hospitals or morgues, such as persons buried under rubble. However, difficulties obtaining accurate mortality figures should not be interpreted as intentionally misreported data. Although valid mortality counts are important, the situation in Gaza is severe, with high levels of civilian harm and extremely restricted access to aid. Efforts to dispute mortality reporting should not distract from the humanitarian imperative to save civilian lives by ensuring appropriate medical supplies, food, water, and fuel are provided immediately.

[mariacallous]

The deadly New Year’s Day terrorist attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas have brought renewed attention to the scourge of extremism in the US military, but efforts to tackle it wilted in the later years of the Biden administration, and are unlikely to be revived once Donald Trump begins his second term this month.

Both the New Orleans vehicle attack that killed 14, and the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas in which the driver died, were perpetrated by discharged or serving members of the armed forces.

Though investigators have yet to officially link the events, they follow a pattern of active or veteran military personnel involvement in acts of domestic terrorism, including the 6 January 2021 Capitol riot; a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017; and the 2009 mass shooting at the former Fort Hood army base in Texas that killed 13.

In response to the series of deadly events, defense secretary Lloyd Austin promised to tackle longstanding failures by the US military to address the problem. In 2021 he announced a series of initiatives, including a working group to study white nationalism and other extremist behavior within the defense department, and the commissioning of an independent report to review the issue and make recommendations.

The efforts, however, fizzled. Congressional Republicans effectively killed the Countering Extremism Working Group in December 2023, starving it of funds in the annual defense authorization bill, months after CNN reported the Pentagon group had “vanished virtually without a trace” because of what analysts said was a concerted Republican “war on woke”.

Its demise, which was never publicly announced, came just weeks after the publication of a report to Congress by the inspector general of the US defense department that detailed 183 investigations of alleged extremism within military ranks.

Dozens of the investigations involved allegations of military members advocating, engaging in or supporting terrorism in the US or overseas, while 14 army investigations related to “advocating or engaging in unlawful force or violence to achieve goals that are political, religious, discriminatory, or ideological in nature”.

The independent report that Austin commissioned, by the Virginia-based Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), was eventually published in December 2023, 18 months behind schedule, and quickly became the subject of controversy.

It found “no evidence that the number of violent extremists in the military is disproportionate to the number of violent extremists in the US as a whole”, and “no evidence of violent extremist behavior by department of defense civilians”.

Republicans seized on the report as “proof” that the media had colluded with Democrats to create a false narrative about the existence of extremism in the military, while the Republican bloc of the House armed services committee posted to X, then known as Twitter, that Joe Biden had “wrongly targeted our servicemembers with a divisive and political witchhunt”.

But in a November 2024 investigation, the Associated Press found that the IDA report included data two years out of date, “grossly undercounted” the number of serving military and veterans arrested for the 6 January attack, and “provided a misleading picture of the severity of the growing problem” of military extremism, the AP said.

An IDA spokesperson said its report was delivered to the defense department in June 2022. “IDA stands behind the rigor of the analysis and remains confident that the findings, including with regard to the prevalence of violent extremism in the DoD, were solidly based on the best data available at the time the work was conducted,” the group said in a statement.

The defense department did not respond to a request for comment.

Heidi Beirich, chief strategy officer and co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, said the Biden administration began with good intentions to tackle extremism in US military ranks, and made progress in several areas, but was ultimately unable to deliver verifiable progress.

“There were positives, introducing a tattoo database to screen recruits, and tightening up the security clearance process. They created a definition for extremism, and regulations in the army, marines and navy to ban fundraising for, or liking extremist groups on social media,” she said.

“But the issue is enforcement. We have no idea if these things are getting done, how many people have been sanctioned for these things? We don’t have good data from inside the DoD, we have no good information, really, about levels of extremism within the military.”

Beirich said the issue became “a political football” for Republicans, and that she feared the situation would become worse if Pete Hegseth, Trump’s controversial nominee for defense secretary, was confirmed.

“They started having conversations about how you’re smearing the military when you even talk about extremism, which is most evident with Hegseth saying that rooting out extremists is essentially a scam, or some kind of woke,” she said.

“It’s depressing that this problem looks like it’s not going to be taken seriously, and we’re probably going to have more incidents of terrorism from veterans or active duty. The American public is going to be more at risk.”

Other analysts say that tackling the issue is not just the responsibility of the defense department.

“A lot of the individuals who commit these acts are primarily veterans, and often honorably discharged,” said Matt Dallek, a political history professor at George Washington University and author of Birchers: How the John Birch Society Radicalized the American Right.

“The question is how does the government, particularly the Department of Veterans Affairs, try to prevent this sort of radicalization? How do they address the wider problems and challenges that veterans face, access to healthcare, mental health care, readjusting to civilian society and finding gainful employment?

“Although many of these cases may be different, it’s perhaps not all that surprising that a couple of decades post 9/11, a couple of decades of US war in Afghanistan and Iraq, we’re seeing at least some of these incidents of radical association, maybe anger at the US government and military, anger at the way the wars were conducted.”

[mightyflamethrower]

Oct092024

Sex Change Procedures Inflicted on 14,000 Children

Everyone agrees that Josef Mengele was a villain. But his crimes are dwarfed by the scale of evil currently taking place in the USA, as revealed by Do No Harm:

From January 2019 to December 2023, 13,994 minor patients received gender-transition treatments, with 5,747 undergoing sex-change surgeries and 8,579 getting hormones and puberty blockers, according to Do No Harm’s database. A majority of the body-modification procedures were conducted on minors around the age of 15.

No child can meaningfully consent to being deformed for social engineering purposes.

The database lines up with anecdotal accounts of teenagers being rushed into surgical operations and hormone procedures that permanently alter their bodies. A number of medical patients who later came to regret these procedures, known as “detransitioners,” have publicly spoken about their experiences being pushed to undergo gender-transition operations while they struggled with mental-health issues and sought guidance.

The figures given are lower limits:

The database likely undercounts the true number of trans medical interventions because it excludes “gray area” cases and lacks data from certain health-care providers. … Do No Harm’s figures are based on publicly available insurance claim data the organization obtained from clearinghouses, data aggregators, payers, health systems, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and open sources.

The crimes against humanity are inflicted to advance the LGBT agenda. Unsurprisingly, they mainly occur where Democrats have established hegemony:

The facilities Do No Harm spotlights are almost entirely concentrated in blue states where transgender procedures are entirely legal and gender-transition activists have political support from elected officials.

In addition to the public funding is involved, we are forced to finance these atrocities through higher insurance rates:

Over the relevant time frame, patients submitted close to $120 million in charges to insurers, Do No Harm found.

The real bill has yet to come due. A Thomas Jefferson quote comes to mind:

“I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice will not sleep forever.”

Virtually all of this surgical re-gendering is the work of man hating Progressive (regressive?) and Entitled White women. It's nothing more than legalized Munchausen by proxy.

Social Science is not a REAL science. It is a demonic cult released on mankind for the gathering of souls.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from The American Prospect:

The Clean Air Act (CAA) has been fiercely opposed by polluters and their allies since its passage in 1970. Industry has never quite stopped fighting to prevent the government from protecting American lives and communities at the expense of even a bit of their profits. But over the past few years, opposition to the law has reached new feverish heights. Multiple cases seeking to gut the CAA have been filed by (or with the support of) oil and gas organizations, their dark-money front groups, and their political allies since 2022.

The ringleaders of this effort are the usual trade groups driving climate apocalypse, including the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM) and the American Petroleum Institute (API), as well as oil giants themselves, like ExxonMobil.

Yet the coordinated attacks on this lifesaving, popular, and historically successful regulation go beyond the singularly destructive interests of the oil industry alone. And they go beyond the federal rule too, and are working their way into litigation against state enactments of the CAA.

Of course, many of the companies driving these suits are some of the biggest names in corporate greenwashing, like Amazon, FedEx, SoCalGas, and more.

These companies have continuously insisted that they are committed to leading the clean-energy transition, even while they fight for the right to poison the general public for profit, and have endeavored—at every turn—to destroy any opportunity the public may have to pursue recourse for it.

Last year, the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association (EMA) threatened a lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board (CARB) over the state regulator’s Advanced Clean Fleets (ACF) rule.

The rule, which would mandate a “phased-in transition toward zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty vehicles,” threatens the transportation sector’s historically noxious way of doing business; the sector accounts for more than 35 percent of California’s nitrogen oxide emissions and nearly a quarter of California’s on-road greenhouse gas emissions. CARB’s rule could go a long way toward actualizing rapid reductions in the state’s annually generated emissions.

However, later that year EMA and some major truck manufacturers reached an agreement with CARB not to sue over the rules, in exchange for the state’s loosening of some near-term emissions reductions standards.

EMA has by and large kept its promise to not intervene with the regulation in courts, but litigation challenging CARB’s rule would soon be picked up by the California Trucking Association (CTA). Enforcement of the rule has since been on hold, as CARB waits to be issued an ACF-related waiver from the EPA in return for CTA not filing for preliminary injunction against the law.

Even despite these agreements, some of EMA’s own members—and even some of those specifically signed on to the CARB deal—pop up on CTA’s member rolls, as per CTA’s own 2023 membership directory. Daimler Trucks North America and Navistar, Inc., are specifically listed as Allied Members of CTA for 2023.

Amazon is listed among CTA’s Carrier Members, while separately making routine promises to be a partner in the fight against climate change. While Amazon announced its “Climate Pledge” in 2019 of reaching net-zero emissions by 2040 to great fanfare, and has since branded itself a climate leader, the Center for Investigative Reporting has detailed how the e-commerce giant is overselling its green credentials by drastically undercounting its carbon emissions.

In truth, Amazon’s emissions have increased more than 40 percent in the time since it issued the pledge. Amazon also remains the largest emitter of the “Big Five” tech companies, producing no less than 16.2 million metric tons of CO2 every year. Without question, the corporation should be regarded as an industry leader in greenwashing, rather than in actual climate action.

FedEx is also a CTA Carrier-level member. Like Amazon, the company has also made promises “to achieve carbon neutral operations by 2040,” an initiative FedEx has labeled “Priority Earth.” In the years since, FedEx has funneled intensive time and resources into lobbying directly against climate action while pushing its net-zero greenwashing narrative.

UPS is another CTA Carrier-level member. UPS has historically been less effusive in its climate promises than have other corporations on this list, but the delivery giant has continuously reinforced its stance that “everyone shares responsibility to improve energy efficiency and to reduce GHG emissions in the atmosphere.”

[dykegeology]

We already have opt-in surveys that count us. But none of them are ever going to be on the same level as the census. Be somewhere else for census night if you don't wanna out yourself. But just because you can't understand the importance for it to be asked on an official government document, doesn't mean it's less important.

Also like, census data is way less identifiable than the data that Facebook and Google collect on you, and they absolutely know gender and sexuality stuff lmao

Bold of you to assume I use facebook and google lmao, I am a linux and duckduckgo user and am not touching facebook with a 20 foot pole

My concern in not primarily for myself, there are many people who live with homophobic and transphobic family or housemates, and if they request a private survey for the first time that year or are absent on census night (assuming they are able to be absent if they are living with family!), do you think that would possibly be a bit suspicious?

Do you have any evidence that the opt in surveys would be less accurate? as I said, a lot of people are going to lie on that census question if it exists. I would rather have a privacy preserving, opt in survey that may overcount lgbtq people than a compulsary one that is certain to undercount

'But just because you can't understand the importance for it to be asked on an official government document, doesn't mean it's less important.' That's really specific. The main arguments I've seen are: - 'right to be counted' <- the right to privacy is vastly more important for me. - 'we need to know how many people could be using lgbtq health services' wow have you considered like, calling those places and asking how many appointments they get? 'we need to know what resources these places need' idk you could always try like, directly asking them what resources they need or something - 'it is important to know for knowing about lgbtq people who might live in remote areas and consequently wouldn't be picked up by things like seeing how many appointments lgbtq health centres in the city have' <- ok this argument does make a lot more sense, but this could also be accomplished through a widely advertised opt in survey - 'we need to know exactly how many lgbtq people live in Australia extremely precisely' <- not really. and the census will not do that, because lots of people will lie and say they're cishet

[tieflingkisser]

Study Finds Gaza Death Toll Likely 40 Percent Higher Than Official Count

In the first eight months of Israel’s slaughter, the official toll underreported deaths by 41 percent, the group of London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine researchers estimated. The peer-reviewed article was published in The Lancet, one of the world’s leading scientific journals and the top journal for medical research. As of June 30, 2024, the Gaza Ministry of Health reported 37,877 deaths from Israel’s slaughter, primarily deaths due to traumatic injury — meaning killings from direct attacks like bombings or shootings. The study found, however, that there were likely 64,260 deaths from traumatic injury in that time, meaning that over 26,000 weren’t reflected in the official count.

[...]

The study also acknowledged that this death toll does not fully account for the impact of Israel’s violence in Gaza. “Our findings underestimate the full impact of the military operation in Gaza, as they do not account for non-trauma-related deaths resulting from health service disruption, food insecurity, and inadequate water and sanitation,” the study said.

[workersolidarity]

[ 📹 A number of children are brought in to a hospital in Gaza after an Israeli drone bombed the children on the roof of their home in the Al-Bureij Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday. 📈 The current death toll in the Gaza genocide now exceeds 38'919 Palestinians killed, while another 89'622 others have been wounded since October 7th. ]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏘️💥🚑 🚨

GAZA GENOCIDE DAY 288: ISRAELI OCCUPATION PRIME MINISTER BLOCKING NEGOTIATIONS WITH HAMAS, WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERING SANCTIONS AGAINST BEN-GVIR AND SMOTRICH AS ICJ ACCUSES ISRAELI OCCUPATION OF VIOLATING INTERNATIONAL LAW, GENOCIDE CONTINUES UNABATED AS MASSACRES OF CIVILIANS ESCALATE

On 288th day of the Israeli occupation's ongoing special genocide operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 37 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 54 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

It should be noted that as a result of the constant Israeli bombardment of Gaza's healthcare system, infrastructure, residential and commercial buildings, local paramedic and civil defense crews are unable to recover countless hundreds, even thousands of victims who remain trapped under the rubble, or whose bodies remain strewn across the streets of Gaza.

This leaves the official death toll vastly undercounted as Gaza's healthcare officials are unable to accurately tally those killed and maimed in this genocide, which must be kept in mind when considering the scale of the mass murder.

The Zionist Prime Minister of the Israeli occupation, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to authorize his negotiating team's return to Doha, Qatar, to resume negotiations with the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, in order to finalize a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal that could lead to an end to the genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Reporting also stated that Netanyahu is hesitant to ratify any deal prior to his planned trip to the United States, where the Prime Minister is scheduled to give a speech on July 24th to the American Congress, and will meet with US President Joe Biden.

This comes as pressure builds on Netanyahu to sign a deal with the Hamas resistance movement, which has resulted from increasing diplomatic isolation for the Zionist entity, while dozens of families of Israeli hostages being held in Gaza continue to demand the Prime Minister ink a deal to return their family members as quickly as possible.

The families, along with other groups of Israeli activists, have organized regular popular protests in Tel Aviv and elsewhere, demanding the Netanyahu regime reach an agreement for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal, while Netanyahu has accused the Israeli security establishment of imposing the US President's proposal on his government.

In a meeting Netanyahu called on Friday, the IOF Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, demanded that he sign an agreement for a hostage exchange deal, after which, the Prime Minister ended the meeting.

Earlier last week, the Israeli Prime Minister said in a press conference that "for months there has been no progress (in hammering out an agreement in Gaza), because the military pressure was not strong enough."

In response, Halevi demanded Netanyahu apologize for his comments during a security conference attended by the heads of the Shin Bet security services and the Mossad intelligence agency, telling the Prime Minister that "These statements are serious. I demand that the prime minister issue an apology."

In other news on Saturday, US President Joe Biden's White House are considering issueing sanctions against National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, two openly fascist Israeli cabinet ministers, during a meeting of the National Security Council on Wednesday covering how to respond to Israeli attacks on the occupied West Bank of Palestine, and the deteriorating situation there.

Israeli colonial settlers have regularly attacked Palestinian communities in the West Bank, largely sanctioned by the Israeli government and backed by the Israeli occupation army, while the government has continued a policy of expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, while holding up the tax revenues belonging to the Palestinian Authority.

According to reporting in the American media outlet Axios, the Biden administration is "deeply frustrated" with the Netanyahu regime's continued policy of settlement expansion and the weakening of the Palestinian Authority, noting that the more extremist members of Netanyahu's coalition have openly allied themselves with fascist colonial settler groups and militias.

Axios says the meeting was called after yet another surge in violence by Zionist colonial settlers against Palestinian communities, while the Netanyahu government has announced plans to build another 5'000 housing units for Zionist settlers and to legalize five illegal outposts.

On Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague determined the Israeli occupation's practices and policies "violate International law" and that the occupation is violating Palestinians right to self-determination in the occupied West Bank, and further accused the occupation of violating the Geneva Conventions.

Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation has continued its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, while decimating the few remaining housing units, facilities and infrastructure of Gaza.

On Saturday, sources with Al-Awda Hospital in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, reported that doctors with the facility succeeded in saving the fetus of a pregnant woman who was killed after the Israeli occupation forces bombed her home in the camp during the early morning hours.

The woman was immediately transferred to the hospital, where doctors in the Operating room managed to remove the fetus, which was born alive, before being transported to the Nursery at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the city of Deir al-Balah.

According to Palestinian sources, Zionist warplanes bombed several residential homes and a gathering of civilians in the Nuseirat Camp, killing at least 6 Palestinians and wounding several others.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said it's rescue crews recovered the bodies of 4 Palestinians killed in the occupation's strikes, after Israeli warplanes bombed the home of the Al-Tawil family in the Nuseirat Camp, before recovering two more dead bodies after a bombing that targeted a group of civilians on Al-Rashid Street, a coastal road west of the camp, transferring the dead and wounded to Al-Awda Hospital.

In another atrocity, occupation artillery detatchments shelled the vicinity of the community college in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City, after which, PRCS paramedic crews transported the bodies of 6 martyrs to Al-Ahili Baptist Hospital in the city.

The war crimes of the Israeli occupation continued when Israeli fighter jets bombed a residential apartment belonging to the Ayyad family in the Mari' Abu al-Amin area of the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, north of Gaza City, killing 6 Palestinians and wounding more than 10 others.

Zionist warplanes also bombed the Al-Sharahi family home in the New Camp area of the Nuseirat Camp, killing 4 civilians, including citizen Yassin Al-Sharahi, his wife and his children, and wounding a number of others.

The Israeli occupation army then went on to bomb a residential house belonging to the Abu Sidra family in Camp-2 of the Nuseirat Camp, near the Al-Talaa Mosque in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding several Palestinians.

The occupation's atrocities and war crimes continued when Zionist fighter jets bombed the Abu Jasser family home in the Al-Alami area of the Jabalia Refugee Camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, resulting in the martyredom of 4 Palestinians and wounding a number of others who were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in the camp.

Occupation warplanes later bombed a residential home belonging to the Al-Batran family in the Al-Bureij Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, resulting in the deaths of 3 civilians and wounding several others, while another bombing destroyed a populated house near the Martyr's roundabout in the camp.

The crimes of the Zionist Army continued with an occupation drone strike that targeted a civilian riding a bicycle on Street-5, north of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing the Palestinian resident who was taken to Nasser Hospital in the city.

Reports also state that the occupation army continues to bomb and shell neighborhoods west of the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, in conjunction with artillery shelling of residential neighborhoods east of Khan Yunis.

In yet another violation of International humanitarian law, IOF fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to journalist Mohammad Jasser, killing the journalist, his wife and two children, all of whom were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The Israeli occupation army followed up their horrific crimes by bombing the home of the Al-Sabbagh family in the Al-Zarqa area, north of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of two Palestinians and wounding several others.

Occupation artillery and airstrikes also continue pummeling the Al-Da'wa neighborhood, north of the Nuseirat Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, while near non-stop airstrikes and shelling have also been targeting various neighborhoods of Gaza City, as well as northern and southern Gaza, killing more than 25 civilians since dawn on Saturday, with the majority of victims being children.

The attacks continued into the evening, when Zionist army fighter jets bombed a residential house belonging to the Siam family, west of the Yassin station, in the Saftawi area north of Gaza City, while victims of the bombing were transported to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the city.

Another occupation bombing targeted a residential building in the Nuseirat Camp, resulting in the martyredom of 3 civilians and wounding a number of others who were transferred to Al-Awda Hospital in the camp.

Later on Saturday evening, an Israeli occupation drone targeted the Araba area, north of Rafah City, in the southern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinians and wounding others, while four Palestinian children were wounded by an occupation drone strike that targeted the children on the roof of their home in the Al-Bureij Camp, in the central Gaza Strip.

As a result of the Israeli occupation's ongoing war of extermination in the Gaza Strip, the death toll now exceeds 38'919 Palestinians killed, including more than 10'000 women and well over 15'000 children, while another 89'622 others have been wounded since the start of the current round of Zionist aggression, beginning with the events of October 7th, 2023.

This brings the official total number of casualties to 128'541, or the equivalent of 5.58% of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinian residents.

July 20th, 2024.

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@WorkerSolidarityNews

[estera-shirin]

The death toll in Gaza, explained

There are a lot of different numbers being used to count the number of Palestinians in Gaza that Israel has killed since 10/7/2023. I'm going to delve into the figures and explain what we know about them.

The Ministry of Health death count

The most common figure used is from the Gaza Ministry of Health, which currently lists over 45,000 people who were killed directly in hostilities, this means only those killed by bombing, shooting, and other direct military action. Crucially, it does not include deaths from malnutrition, disease, dehydration, and exposure that are indirectly caused by Israel's military activity.

A common argument used to undermine this figure is alleging that it is made up, or that the number of dead are inflated by Hamas (who controls the Gaza Ministry of Health as the governing body in Gaza), but the reality is that this count is generally considered trustworthy, even by Israel's own intelligence services. This is because Israel controls the Palestinian Population Registry, which is what the MoH uses as the basis for its count of the dead. So it is unlikely that the people listed as dead on this list are made up, as they have to be cross-listed on the registry. It is possible for the MoH to exclude members of Hamas and other armed groups from this list, which means we cannot not know how many combatants have been killed, and thus cannot really ascertain a civilian to combatant death ratio. It is also possible that the MoH could include members of armed groups in this list, but this would be easily identifiable if the persons were known to be members of militant groups. There have also been concerns about men being listed as women (to inflate the number of women and children killed), however this has thus far only occurred in 103 cases (0.3% of the data), which is a negligible amount that is almost certainly input error, especially given the conditions under which people are entering this data.

If anything, the data from the MoH is likely far undercounting the dead, even those killed by direct hostilities. It does not include the over 10,000 people still missing under the rubble. In their recent report "Extermination and Acts of Genocide: Israel Deliberately Depriving Palestinians in Gaza of Water," Human Rights Watch stated that their research indicates the death toll is much higher than the MoH figure. They also interviewed "Dr. Midhat Abbas, an official spokesperson for Gaza’s Ministry of Health, [who] explained to Human Rights Watch that the deaths recorded by the ministry are only of those whose bodies arrive at governmental, private, society, or field hospitals, as a result of direct Israeli attacks" (119). This means that those who died in attacks but were not brought to one of those sites go uncounted.

The Ministry of Health also lost most of its ability to count the dead in November 2023, when the Israeli military destroyed the main data center in al-Shifa Medical Complex. As a result, hospitals started using "paper registration" (120) to keep track of the dead, which introduced logistical challenges that also likely contribute to an undercount. As Israel has systemically attacked hospitals in Gaza, these challenges in recording deaths have worsened. HRW also interviewed healthcare workers who volunteered in Gaza, several of whom said they witnessed deaths go unrecorded due to a lack of medical staff, doctors being stretched too thin, and lack of paper.

The Lancet estimate

Another commonly cited figure is from a study published in the Lancet, which estimated that 186,000 Palestinians in Gaza had died of indirect causes (starvation, disease, dehydration, exposure, etc) as of July 2024. They derived this figure by multiplying the number of direct deaths (37,396) by four, estimating a 4:1 ratio of indirect to direct deaths. If we were to apply this figure today, multiplying 55,000 (the current MoH number plus those missing under rubble and presumably dead), it would yield 220,000 dead by indirect causes.

The Lancet authors state that indirect deaths during conflict range from 3 to 15 times as many as direct deaths, which is based on estimates in a Geneva Declaration report. These ratios are disputed as it is difficult to measure the number of indirect deaths in any conflict, let alone in Gaza where the system for counting the dead has essentially collapsed. So the Lancet figure should be taken as a rough estimate, not as a definitive count of the dead in Gaza. That being said, it is an important number because it, unlike the MoH count, highlights deaths caused by indirect causes. And if—as many human rights organizations allege—Israel is intentionally creating conditions where Palestinians in Gaza are dying from dehydration, starvation, disease, and exposure, then these deaths must also be attributed to Israel.

IDF figures

Finally, let's discuss Israel's count of the number of militants it has killed. As of December 2023, an IDF spokesman claimed Israel had killed 8,000 Hamas fighters. As of March 2024, this number had increased to 9,000.

The figure of 9,000 fighters must be treated with appropriate scrutiny, however. Multiple Ha'aretz reports interviewed IDF soldiers who said that any Palestinian killed in certain "kill zones" were counted as combatants, regardless of if they were children, had weapons, or raised a white flag. One officer was quoted as saying "Every woman is a scout, or a man in disguise. [Brigadier General] Vach even decided anyone on a bicycle could be killed, claiming cyclists were terrorists' collaborators." Another reserve officer said, "In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate."(The Ha'aretz articles are paywalled so feel free to message me if you want a PDF of either).

Tl;dr is that the Ministry of Health number is probably an undercount, the Lancet number is a rough estimate but does consider indirect deaths, and the IDF numbers are unreliable as civilians are routinely counted as combatants.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

By Adam Piore

A new study from researchers at Mass General Brigham suggests racial disparities and the difficulty in diagnosing the condition may be leading to a massive undercount.

Almost one in four Americans may be suffering from long COVID, a rate more than three times higher than the most common number cited by federal officials, a team led by Boston area researchers suggests in a new scientific paper.

The peer-reviewed study, led by scientists and clinicians from Mass General Brigham, drew immediate skepticism from some long COVID researchers, who suggested their numbers were “unrealistically high.” But the study authors noted that the condition is notoriously difficult to diagnose and official counts also likely exclude populations who were hit hardest by the pandemic but face barriers in accessing healthcare.

“Long COVID is destined to be underrepresented, and patients are overlooked because it sits exactly under the health system’s blind spot,” said Hossein Estiri, head of AI Research at the Center for AI and Biomedical Informatics at Mass General Brigham and the paper’s senior author.

Though the pandemic hit hardest in communities of color where residents had high rates of preexisting conditions and many held service industry jobs that placed them at high risk of contracting the virus, the vast majority of those diagnosed with long COVID are white, non-Hispanic females who live in affluent communities and have greater access to healthcare, he said.

Moreover, many of the patients who receive a long COVID diagnosis concluded on their own that they have the condition and then persuaded their doctors to look into it, he said. As a result, the available statistics we have both underestimate the true number of patients suffering from the condition and skew it to a specific demographic.

“Not all people even know that their condition might be caused or exacerbated by COVID,” Estiri said. “So those who go and get a diagnosis represent a small proportion of the population.”

Diagnosis is complicated by the fact that long COVID can cause hundreds of different symptoms, many of which are difficult to describe or are easily dismissed, such as sleep problems, headaches or generalized pain, Estiri said. According to its formal definition, long COVID occurs after a COVID-19 infection, lasts for at least three months, affects one or more organ systems, and includes a broad range of symptoms such as crushing fatigue, pain, and a racing heart rate.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested that in 2022 roughly 6.9 percent of Americans had long COVID. But the algorithm developed by Estiri’s team estimated that 22.8 percent of those who’d tested positive for COVID-19 met the diagnostic criteria for long COVID in the 12 months that followed, even though the vast majority had not received an official diagnosis.

To calculate their number, Estiri’s team built a custom artificial intelligence tool to analyze data from the electronic health records of more than 295,000 patients served at four hospitals and 20 community health centers in Massachusetts. The AI program pulled out 85,000 people who had been diagnosed with COVID through June 2022, and then applied a pattern recognition algorithm to identify those that matched the criteria for long COVID in the 12 months that followed.

Some researchers questioned the paper’s conclusions. Dr. Eric Topol, author of the 2019 book “Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again,” said the medical field is still divided over precisely what constitutes long COVID, and that complicates efforts to program an accurate AI algorithm.

“Since we have difficulties with defining long Covid, using AI on electronic health records may not be a way to make the diagnosis accurately,” said Topol, who is executive vice president of Scripps Research in San Diego. “I’m uncertain about this report.”

Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, and an expert on long COVID, called the 22.8 percent figure unrealistically high and said the paper “grossly inflates” its prevalence.

“Their approach does not account for the fact that things happen without COVID (not everything that happens after COVID is attributable to COVID)— resulting in significant over-inflation of prevalence estimate,” he wrote via email.

Estiri said the research team took several measures to validate its AI algorithm, retroactively applying it to the charts of 800 people who had received a confirmed long COVID diagnosis from their doctor to see if it could predict the condition. The algorithm accurately diagnosed them more than three quarters of the time.

The algorithm scanned the records for patients who had a COVID diagnosis prior to July 2022, then looked for a constellation of symptoms that could not be explained by other conditions and lasted longer than two months. To refine the program, they conferred with clinicians and assigned different weights to different symptoms and conditions based on how often they are associated with long COVID, which made them more likely to be identified as potential sufferers.

Now that the initial paper has been published, the team is building a new algorithm that can be trained to detect the presence of long COVID in the medical records of patients without a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis so the condition can be confirmed by clinicians and they can get the care they need, Estiri said.

But the most exciting part of the new research, Estiri said, is its potential to facilitate follow-up research and help refine and individualize treatment plans. In the months ahead, Estiri and his co-principal investigator Shawn Murphy, chief research information officer at Mass General Brigham, plan to ask a wide variety of questions by querying the medical records in their sample. Does vaccination make a patient more or less likely to develop the condition? How about treatment with Paxlovid? Do the symptoms patients develop differ based on those factors? What are the genomic characteristics of patients who are suffering from cardiovascular symptoms as opposed to those whose symptoms are associated with lung function or those who crash after exercising? Can they identify biomarkers in the bloodstream that could be used for diagnosis?

They have already prepared studies on vaccine efficacy, the effect of age as a risk factor, and whether the risk of long COVID increases with the fourth and fifth infection, Estiri said. “We were waiting for this paper to come out,” he said. “So now we can actually go ahead with the follow-up studies. With this cohort we can do things that no other study has been able to do, and I’m hoping it can really help people.”

Study link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666634024004070

[infrared135-36]

holy shit they were so fucking lucky the NA server shut down before this absolute shitshow of a character was released there. The white girl at 2010 Coachella “warbonnet”. The boomerang weapon which is used by Aboriginal Australians. The “Witch Form” named after a town in Mexico. I wonder if they’ll put her in the new madoka magica gacha. tbh I find putting any female character with this very shallow “aesthetic” in a gambling game that banks on sex appeal inherently disgusting in and of itself due to the overwhelming amount of specifically sexual violence committed upon the women of these communities. this is a very condensed set of facts

text:

Rape and violence are committed against Indigenous women with almost total impunity in the United States. Native women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped than non-Native women in the United States.: 1 in 3 Native women will be raped during her lifetime. At least 86% of perpetrators of these crimes are non-Native men. Native women face significant barriers to securing justice following rape or sexual violence, including inadequate police response, inadequate health and forensic services, and a lack of prosecutions.

Many survivors struggle to get even the most basic post-rape care, including access to a rape kit, which can provide crucial evidence for a successful prosecution if they are collected and stored properly. The quality of provision of such services to Native American and Alaska Native women varies considerably from place to place. Indian Health Service centers are severely underfunded and lack resources and trained staff, including sexual assault nurse examiners or even rape kits themselves. Survivors may have to travel over 150 miles to reach a facility where a forensic examination can be performed. Without a rape kit, there is almost no chance a trial will move forward, meaning perpetrators enjoy total impunity and Native women receive no justice.

Indigenous women and girls are disappeared or murdered each year at alarming rates. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has reported that murder is the third-leading cause of death among Native American and Alaska Native women. Rates of violence on reservations can be up to ten times higher than the national average. No government research has been done on the rates of violence against Indigenous women living in urban areas-despite the fact that approximately 71% of Native American and Alaska Native women lives in urban areas. According to a 2018 report by the Urban Indian Health Institute, there were 506 current cases of missing and murdered American Indian and Alaska Native women across 71 cities, though this is likely an undercount due to the lack of data collection by cities, states, and the federal government.

The U.S. federal government has failed to keep data rates of violence and disappearances of Native American and Alaska Native women and girls. States and U.S. cities are also not adequately tracking this data, sometimes lacking basic classification options in their databases for Native American and Alaska Native women. The lack of data on this issue impedes the ability of communities, tribal nations, and policy makers to make informed decisions on how best to address this violence.