The World Health Organisation has convened an emergency committee to discuss the “explosive” spread of the Zika virus, which is linked to thousands of birth defects in Latin America.
“Last year the disease was detected in the Americas, where it is spreading explosively,”
Margaret Chan, the WHO director general, said at a special briefing in Geneva. It was “deeply concerning” that the virus has now been detected in more than 20 countries in the Americas, she added.
The spread of the virus has prompted governments across the world to advise pregnant women against going to the areas where it has been detected.
Chan said: “The level of alarm is extremely high. Arrival of the virus in some cases has been associated with a steep increase in the birth of babies with abnormally small heads.”
Another epidemic the WHO has already lost control of, it seems. Time for another antismoking summit, obviously.
And I suppose that before and after the Zika virus has become a global pandemic, the WHO bosses will all look a bit like this:
Frank Davis 
O/T: It appears that actual scientists believe they have discovered a gene that is responsible for causing schizophrenia. If true, this completely debunks the “smoking causes schizophrenia” junk science “study” that was released last year.
Discovery one step closer to cause of schizophrenia
Sorry Joe, I wouldn’t call these people ‘actual’ scientists nor would I give any more credence to their highly speculative and unreliable theories based on animal experiments. After decoding the human genome, the next living creature chosen was the lab mouse (Black 6) thus expanding a huge money-making industry. Genetically modified/knock out mice are no more suitable proxies for humans than other strains, cruelty apart. http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/booklets/ScienceCorrupted.pdf
Cecily, I completely agree. I am highly skeptical of all modern scientific “breakthroughs” due to the amount of corruption present in the field. We have no idea whether there are alterior motives that fueled this discovery. However, I used the phrase “actual science” because these scientists have based their claim upon a tangible, testable hypothesis, rather than claiming proof of causation based upon manipulated statistics. At the very least, the results of this study can be supported or disputed through the scientific method, unlike the pseudoscience that we’ve become all too familiar with.
smoking causes schizophrenia” junk science “study” that was released last year
I’ve mentioned before, anti tobacco science seems to work in reverse.
“Cotinine was nearly as effective as a standard clinically used anti-schizophrenic drug in reversing this response,” says Buccafusco. “This finding holds tremendous promise for patients suffering from schizophrenia since the drugs currently being used to treat this illness are often associated with severe long-term neurological side effects, such as parkinsonian-like tremors and memory problems.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031112072839.htm
Nicotine Helps Schizophrenics With Attention And Memory
“Participants with and without schizophrenia were then asked to smoke while taking a drug called mecamylamine, which blocks nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain, preventing the nicotine from acting on those receptors. Mecamylamine blocked the ability of smoking to improve cognitive deficits in schizophrenia, but not in persons without mental illness.
The findings suggest that when people with schizophrenia smoke, they may in part be self–medicating with nicotine to remedy cognitive deficits.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/07/050710202418.htm
Breaking the cardinal rule – Thou shalt not self treat.
Render unto Pharma what is Pharma’s.
“Nicotinic Receptors, Dopaminergic and Serotonergic Neurotransmission and Schizophrenia:-
Schizophrenia is a common and complex disorder with a range of symptoms including auditory hallucinations, delusions and flattened affect. A substantial component of schizophrenic symptomatolgy appears to arise from deficiencies in an ability to automatically filter or “gate” irrelevant thoughts and sensory stimuli from intruding into conscious awareness.
In schizophrenic patients, there is a higher than normal prevalence of tobacco smoking (90%). Several studies have since demonstrated that nicotine, administered either through smoking or gum, transiently normalizes some of the symptoms of schizophrenia, including several sensory gating deficits.
Conversely, worsening of symptoms occurs following smoking cessation.”
http://www.med.monash.edu.au/pharmacology/research/groups/loiacono.html
It would have been a viper pit for Donald Trump — They had a Muslim & a Illegal Alien lined up to question him.
Trump Campaign Manager Reveals Fox News Debate Chief Has Daughter Working for Rubio
Redstate News
http://redstatewatcher.com/article.asp?id=4702
Trumps going to do a WOUNDED WARRIOR SHOW on CNN at the same time the fox debate is going on………….They were setting Trump up bigtime and he saw it coming.
Frank you forgot the Russian police armed wit automatic weapons and forced all the public out of the building before they got down to how to do the final solution to the smokers.
The WHO’s secret tobacco tax
“The U.N. health agency approves a new global levy after banning the press and public”
“Moscow — After booting the public from its meetings on Monday, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) tobacco control convention ramped up its assault on transparency on Tuesday when the press was also banned from the Moscow conference.”
“All indications were that the global tobacco tax would not pass until Thursday or Friday, if at all. Without the public and the media there to watch, delegates ratified the tax almost immediately.
When I and a handful of other accredited journalists, showed up for a Tuesday morning press briefing, we were told that the briefing was canceled and the press was no longer allowed to attend any convention events at all.
The rest of the convention, which cost world taxpayers nearly $20 million, will now take place in secret, behind closed doors. It’s a chilling and disturbing attack on the freedom of the press — especially given the impact decisions made at the convention will have on people throughout the world.”
“On Tuesday, when the journalists were banned, there was no meeting and no vote. Protocol was not followed — not that “properly” banning the media would be appropriate — it would just be a touch less despicable. The secretive nature of the press ban comes across as particularly sleazy and shocking.
A security thug representing the convention secretariat said the decision to prohibit the press was made overnight by the delegates and the secretariat. That same secretariat pockets $403,000 a year courtesy of world taxpayers for the task of overseeing a convention that meets every two years.
As I was escorted away from the convention area by two guards, I passed a German reporter being physically restrained from entering the room while being yelled at by WHO officials.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/14/johnson-whos-secret-tobacco-tax/
‘Broke’ WHO host £1.6million caviar-fuelled beano
Oct 26, 2014
“WITH two types of caviar, Champagne and an ocean of salmon, it’s a world away from Ebola ravaged West Africa”
“Delegates from 175 countries descended on the conference in Moscow as part of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The body, funded by the WHO, met to discuss tobacco control policies and the role of e-cigarettes.
Organisers of the Moscow conference spent more than £40,000 just to provide Wi-Fi access for attending journalists, wasted after a last-minute decision to ban all press from the event.
Of the five hotels assigned to delegates, two boast five-stars including the Government-owned Golden Ring Hotel, self-proclaimed as “one of the most luxurious” in Moscow, and the city’s Crowne Plaza which commands a majestic £1,169-a-day for a suite, though the WHO has secured a small corporate discount.
The Sunday Express can reveal the dinner gala, held last Monday, offered delegates Salmon carpaccio with cucumber tartar, Salmon as the main course, Vitello Tonnato beef with tuna fish sauce, Red caviar, Scallop with white wine sauce, a fish plate of smoked halibut, smoked sturgeon, eel mix; Smoked eel, and Salmon under white syrup with flying fish caviar.”
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/527493/Fury-after-WHO-1-6million-party-Ebola-crisis
Smoked halibut, smoked sturgeon, smoked eel… these fuckers love taking the piss.
About time they had a taste of some…
This year it’s being held in New Delhi, one of the most polluted cities on the planet and home of the infamous Delhi Belly
This gives an overview of the venue:
http://www.who.int/fctc/news/cop7tobehostedinindia/en/
and states:
“The meetings, jointly organised by the Government of India and the Convention Secretariat, will take place at the India Expo Centre & Mart in Noida, southeast of New Delhi. COP7 will be held from 7-12 November 2016, with the MOP1 scheduled from 14-16 November 2016.”
What that means is some extremely well paid flunkies from our DoH will arrive on the 6th of December and leave on the 17th and trust me when I say, it’s ALL expenses paid.
Canadian readers’ will be overjoyed to learn that their government, along with the European Union provided extra-budgetary support to the WHO in respect of this shower of hangers-on.
http://www.who.int/fctc/about/donorspartners/en/
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/26/could-epa-junk-science-shorten-obamas-life/
Steve Milloy
President Obama is spending three days in India this week. A UK statistician has estimated that India’s polluted air will shorten Obama life by six hours.
Is this true? Nope. It’s just another example of how stupid EPA air pollution science is.
And this gives current figures for pollution levels in New Delhi.
http://aqicn.org/city/india/new-delhi/us-embassy/
PM 2.5 at 428. (The WHO say it should never exceed an average of 25!)
‘In recent Mercer’s 2015 annual quality-of-living survey, New Delhi ranks at number 154 out of 230 cities due to bad air quality and pollution.[36][37] The World Health Organization ranked New Delhi as the world’s worst polluted city in 2014 among about 1,600 cities the organization tracked around the world.[38][39][40][41]’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Delhi#Air_quality
Even the traffic trial (just finished) didn’t put a dint in the dreadful air quality:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-35320558
I’m glad that discovered what those hypocrites are dining on while they repress people all over the world. The International Federation of Medical Students had a big Cocktail bash at the Montréal Palais des Congrès last June, 2015. I would like to know what their menu was all about and how many highballs and other concoctions were consumed.
Obama cutoff legal low dose pain killers like loritab and others then the heroin market booms and now the pill makers are taking over after obamas DEA has threatened every doctor in the country over narcotics at all in prescribing them.
Heroin in disguise: The new threat hitting the streets
A new trend is leading down a dangerous path. People think they are buying prescription pills to get high, but they are given something even more addictive.
While they may look exactly like Oxycontin, Percocet or other addictive prescriptions, these new pills are heroin in disguise. If you were to take a close look at some of these pills, it would be difficult to know they’re fakes.
The heroin pills have already popped up in other states like Florida, Massachusetts and Ohio. Cases have been reported in Cincinnati and in Newport, Kentucky.
The pills can vary in potency.. Only one can kill.
A hit of heroin costs less than what prescriptions go for on the street. Dealers, are not blind to the opportunity.
Everytime government does something you get an equal and opposite reaction just like the illegal tobacco trade is today,the biggest in the world.
Time for Thomas Frieden of the CDC to drop the ball again.
For some reason Friedens been very very quiet and out of public site for nearly a year. Could be he is under investigation by the IG TEAM in Washington over illegal grants they made thru the last 7 years.
I am extremely anti-smoking for numerous reasons, but primarily because it is one of the most preventable causes of death and disease.
http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/smoking-some-good-and-bad-news/
what do you guys think about these ‘skeptics’ (there’s another one skeptical raptor that I debated about a year ago – waste of time) who’ve bought the anti-smoking story hook line and sinker. ?
primarily because it is one of the most preventable causes of death and disease.
I love it when Anti-smokers come out with sweeping statements like that. I then ask the question I was taught at school to ask about any statement of supposed fact or opinion: “Proof? And failing proof at least some Primary Evidence?”
“critical thinking” we used to call it.
Or more simply “thinking for yourself”
Dare say that idea went under along with the rest of education under Blair.
JOINT STATEMENT ON THE RE-ASSESSMENT OF THE TOXICOLOGICAL TESTING OF TOBACCO PRODUCTS”
7 October, the COT meeting on 26 October and the COC meeting on 18
November 2004.
“5. The Committees commented that tobacco smoke was a highly complex chemical mixture and that the causative agents for smoke induced diseases (such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, effects on reproduction and on offspring) was unknown. The mechanisms by which tobacco induced adverse effects were not established. The best information related to tobacco smoke – induced lung cancer, but even in this instance a detailed mechanism was not available. The Committees therefore agreed that on the basis of current knowledge it would be very difficult to identify a toxicological testing strategy or a biomonitoring approach for use in volunteer studies with smokers where the end-points determined or biomarkers measured were predictive of the overall burden of tobacco-induced adverse disease.”
In other words … our first hand smoke theory is so lame we can’t even design a bogus lab experiment to prove it. In fact … we don’t even know how tobacco does all of the magical things we claim it does.
The greatest threat to the second hand theory is the weakness of the first hand theory.
I imagine that many are genuine but I strongly suspect that many are actually paid to maintain the Overton window. In other words to ensure that some issues are seen as beyond dispute. Such as smoking causing preventable diseases.
Of course, studies such as MRFIT disproved such notions years ago but we’re not supposed to be aware of that.
The global warming alarmists seem to adopt the same methods eg ‘Sceptical Science’.
Slightly off topic perhaps:
UK Parliament May Become Sharia Compliant As Alcohol Ban Mooted
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/01/29/parliament-likely-to-become-sharia-compliant-all-alcohol-will-be-banned/
”The day after MPs agreed to move out of Parliament while much needed repairs are carried out, it has been revealed that the temporary venue being lined cannot be used for purposes not sanctioned by sharia law.
The Palace of Westminster is in a considerable state of disrepair, and requires a £4 billion overhaul to preserve it for future use. The parliamentary committee tasked with find a new home for the Commons has identified Richmond House, home to the Department of Health, as the favoured option.
Richmond House, however, was quietly transferred to finance one of the government’s new Islamic bond schemes two years ago. Accordingly, a condition of its lease is that it cannot be used for purposes not sanctioned by Sharia.
If the move went ahead Parliament’s many bars would become history and it is unlikely that pork would be served to any of the MPs or guests, for as long as six years.”
If true I think it would be of great concern but what I want to highlight is:
“Richmond House, home to the Department of Health”. So is the department of Health already Sharia compliant? Does anyone have any ideas?
BTW,I know some people feel that banning alcohol in Westminster would give them a taste of their own medicine but I think there are plenty of prohibitionists there who would cheer the idea and get Medical charlatans and the media to support therm. So I’d be opposed.
Theyre just trying to get us all worked up so we will start killing arabs everywhere or at least that’s the way it seems they are pushing us all.
Richmond House, home to the Department of Health….
Does seem some strange coincidence. Of course, it’s well known that Islam is anti-smoking. I read about it in the press and sniggered, thought the word ‘karma’ for our politicians, but it didn’t occur to me that something else was going on. Hmm, think you may have hit on something here.
LMAO sure better than the medical porn out there ehh!
H/T Simon Cooke @SimonMagus (http://theviewfromcullingworth.blogspot.com/) on Twitter:
http://vtdigger.org/2016/01/27/tobacco-ban-at-residential-treatment-centers-deters-some-clients/
During the first two weeks of the year, fewer than half of the 41 beds at Maple Leaf Farm, a residential opiate treatment facility in Underhill, were full.
For a facility that usually has a waiting list of 34 and a wait of two weeks to get a bed, that’s unusual.
The sudden drop in clients at Maple Leaf Farm coincided with the implementation of a Vermont Health Department policy requiring residential drug treatment centers to be tobacco-free. Intended as a step toward improving public health and the well-being of clients, the anti-smoking policy instead deterred patients from receiving treatment for opiate addiction at the center.
They relaxed the ban and the customers came back,sorta like the pub trade relax the ban and the pubs will open back up again hell everything will open back up again.
Pestilence, the Great Plague and the Tobacco Cure
http://www.sott.net/article/234667-Pestilence-the-Great-Plague-and-the-Tobacco-Cure
Did Brazil, global health agencies fumble Zika response?
Last January, long lines formed outside health clinics in Recife, a city in Brazil’s northeast hit hard in recent years by outbreaks of dengue, a painful tropical disease.
Doctors were on guard because federal health officials and the World Health Organization (WHO) had warned 2015 would be a bad year for dengue and possibly another viral disease, chikungunya, both spread by the same type of mosquito.
But the symptoms of the hundreds of people seeking treatment did not fit dengue. Instead of high fevers and intense muscular aches that dengue is known to cause, patients were running only slight temperatures and complaining of joint pain. Many had rashes sooner than with dengue and chikungunya.
“We knew this was something else,” says Carlos Brito, a doctor from Recife who told state and federal health authorities in January-February last year that they were wrong to classify all the cases as dengue. “But the authorities were slow to believe,” he said.
Kleber Luz, a physician in Natal, a city 300 km up the Atlantic coast, says he gave similar feedback but got the same response. The two – who were part of a group of doctors discussing the odd symptoms in text messages – grew frustrated with the authorities’ narrow focus. They asked the federal health ministry to broaden its search beyond viruses known in the area.
It took until early May for the health ministry to recognize that the Zika virus had arrived in Brazil and to alert the WHO’s regional arm, the Washington-based Pan American Health Organization. And it wasn’t until November that a Rio de Janeiro laboratory made a link between the virus and microcephaly, which can lead to abnormally small brains in developing babies.
The WHO has been lambasted in the past couple of years by scientists, aid organizations, and public health experts for the slow way in which it initially reacted to the Ebola epidemic as it spread across West Africa in 2014. And so far, the hesitant response to the Zika outbreak, which has created the worst global health scare since Ebola, says much about the difficulties that the WHO and other health authorities face in combating unexpected public health threats.
If the WHO would get it’s head out of TC backsides, it would have time to use public monies for REAL threats to peoples’ lives.
If Big Pharma would get it’s head out of TC backsides and invest into REAL research (microbes do adapt to what’s been thrown at them) we all would live a worthwhile life MUCH longer.
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