Six months into the COVID-19 pandemic, the disease is raging anew because corporate-serving public officials rushed to “open the economy,” causing more infections and deaths. Continue reading
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The GOP’s ‘moral insanity’ on health care
Republicans are trying to throw 23 million Americans off their health care—in a pandemic.
Three extinction-level viruses may be traced to glacier and permafrost melting
As the world contends with the deadly pandemic of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, the Chinese embassy in the Kazakhstan capital of Almaty has issued its citizens a warning about an unknown pneumonia that has seen a spike in infection cases since last month. The novel pneumonia spikes are in Atyrau and Aktobe provinces and the city of Shymken. Continue reading
Federal court strikes down Trump’s ACA rule amounting to ‘intentional, targeted attack on abortion access’
‘It would have created a logistical nightmare for health insurers and individual enrollees and pushed abortion even further out of reach in the midst of a global pandemic that has upended our economy.’
A federal court late Friday struck down the Trump administration’s attempt to erect new barriers to abortion care, this time using the for-profit insurance industry. Continue reading
Trump rushed to reopen America, now COVID is closing in on him
Donald Trump said last Thursday’s jobs report, which showed an uptick in June, proves the economy is “roaring back”. Continue reading
The far right’s absurd war on masks
Low-cost, low-tech masks save lives, but the nutball right has turned them into symbols of tyranny.
The chief cultural signifier of our times is this: Wearing a mask. Or not. Continue reading
COVID-19 and the Masque of the Red States
Now that the pandemic is raging in the South and West, Trump’s governors finally are face-to-face with reality. Wear your damn mask.
I’ve bored family and friends with this story for years. Now it’s your turn. Continue reading
Why COVID-19 racial disparities make the case for Medicare for All
Though it won't solve all our problems, expanding Medicare to all people is an essential demand if we want to advance health equity in the United States.
The racial disparities of COVID-19 have received much attention. Blacks are dying at a higher rate that is typically more than double the rate of whites. But we need to move beyond naming the problem to fighting for solutions. Medicare for All would go a long way to beginning to address racial disparities in health care in general and for COVID-19 in particular. Continue reading
When profits and politics drive science: Rushing a vaccine to market for a vanishing virus
More than 100 companies are competing to be first in the race to get a COVID-19 vaccine to market. It’s a race against time, not because the death rate is climbing but because it is falling—to the point where there will soon be too few subjects to prove the effectiveness of the drug. Continue reading
A tale of two pandemics
No description of the coronavirus is more misleading than calling it ‘the great equalizer.’
The horrific truth is that Native Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans are dying at much higher rates than white people – and we don’t know the half of it because the CDC hasn’t released any racial data about the virus; we don’t know if they’re even collecting it. Continue reading
Denial and selfishness fuel the spread of COVID-19
Deniers are hampering efforts to manage the scourge that could erupt into a second wave
A virulent virus has wrapped its tentacles around the planet with fatal consequences for hundreds of thousands and unless and until there is a vaccine or the majority of the world’s population has developed immunity, it will not be defeated. Until such time people everywhere have been ordered or advised to follow certain rules for their own protection designed to slow the spread. There is no mystery in the above realities which anyone with a modicum of common sense would judge indisputable. Unfortunately, in some countries plain old-fashioned common sense is at a premium. Continue reading
Trump regime refuses to provide PPE for healthcare workers
Indifference toward human health and welfare by Trump and hardliners infesting his regime has been shown repeatedly throughout their time in office. Continue reading
Trump’s vaccine deception
Trump is a congenital liar. Accept nothing he says at face value. Continue reading
Britons’ trust in Boris is wavering
Johnson’s decisions on lockdowns have been untimely and counterproductive
Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, is gifted with a likeability quotient that’s off the charts. He is witty, eccentric with a mind as sharp as a diamond-cutter, yet charmingly self-effacing. Continue reading
The privileged and powerful in the pandemic
As America reopens for business, you might expect Jeff Bezos, the richest man in America, and his Amazon corporation, one of the most profitable corporations in America, to set the corporate standard for how to protect the health of American workers. Continue reading
Indifference toward public health and welfare in America
The US is the only developed nation without some form of universal healthcare coverage. Continue reading
Trump’s 4-step plan for reopening the economy will be lethal
Donald Trump is getting nervous. Internal polls show him losing in November unless the economy comes roaring back. Continue reading
A death sentence for meatpackers
Meatpackers are contracting COVID-19 and dying. Trump is requiring them to work—and shielding their employers from liability.
Meat processing plants are high risk for spreading COVID-19, and many are shutting down. Animals due for processing have nowhere to go, and they are being culled. Continue reading
If we lose our focus on coronavirus it might bite us again
The discussion of coronavirus has taken some sharp turns. One such turn is the claim that the mortality rate is not high enough to justify shutdowns. But the mortality rate is not the reason for the shutdowns. The purpose of the closedowns is to reduce the exponential rate of infection. COVID-19 is much more contagious than flu, people can spread the virus for days and weeks prior to developing symptoms, the seriousness of each case is not predictable in advance, and it is a new virus about which little is known including treatment. Therefore, the highly infectious virus can easily overwhelm health care systems—just ask New York City and Italy. This is the reason for trying to reduce the rate of infection. There is no good information on mortality rates as there is no reliable or widespread testing, and the payment incentives result in hospitals reporting the virus as the cause of any deaths that can be associated with it. Continue reading
COVID-19: When to restart the economy?
Global leaderships are being tested by an unseen enemy. Decisions affecting the lives and livelihoods of millions are being made based on flimsy expert projections as to the behaviour of a virus that so far remains unknowable. Continue reading
Washington’s Dr. Strangelove
There are lots of choices for this dubious distinction from elements of both right wings of Washington’s one-party state. Continue reading
Closedown vs. no closedown
Every country, with the exception of Sweden, found it necessary to close down at least part of the economy in order to prevent the highly infectious virus from overwhelming their medical care systems. The exponential rate of infection together with a lack of sufficient health resources obviously meant an overwhelmed system that would be unable to provide care for those suffering from other illnesses and deadly conditions, such as heart attacks. Continue reading
Herd immunity or lockdown: Which works better against coronavirus
Cases of re-infections cast doubts on the prospects of a viable vaccine
The Swedish government has gone out on a limb with its implementation of a strategy known as ‘herd immunity’ to beat back the most aggressive pandemic since the 1918 Spanish flu that killed over 50 million worldwide. Continue reading
As slaughterhouses close, a new novel coronavirus from pigs looms
Smithfield Foods, the nation’s largest pork producer has closed its Sioux Falls, SD, slaughterhouse after 238 Smithfield employees grew sick, according to South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Continue reading
ICE is deporting COVID-19 positive detainees from private immigration prisons
By continuing deportations of quarantined detainees during a pandemic, ICE is greatly increasing the risk of spreading the deadly virus to other countries officials and activists warn.
Woken in the middle of the night and marched out of a crowded, quarantined group cell by prison guards to be deported. That is the story of one D.C.-area man on Wednesday, inside of an ICA Farmville for-profit prison full of hundreds of undocumented immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The unit is in the middle of a two-week lockdown due to a number of inmates showing symptoms of COVID-19, yet that did not stop guards bursting in and taking the man, who has not been named due to fears about retaliation, out to process his deportation, recklessly endangering others in the facility. Continue reading
I take hydroxychloroquine. Please don’t hoard it.
To prevent hoarding and protect public health, we need to move towards universal care and lower-cost drugs.
The best birthday present I got this year was a refill of my medication. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be much to celebrate, but the coronavirus has upended the ordinary. Continue reading
Freedom Rider: COVID-19 and deadly health care for black people
Even if the United States had a strong public health system, black and brown people would be plagued by racist medical practices. Continue reading
Healthcare know-nothings running Trump regime’s COVID-19 crisis response
In late February, Trump bungled by putting evangelical Christian fascist/science denier Pence in charge of one of two COVID-19 task forces. Continue reading
Medicare for each of us in the age of the coronavirus
The U.S. public—and increasingly the business community—are becoming acutely aware of the rising costs and inadequacies of our current for-profit system, particularly as the current epidemic unfolds. There is no other choice but Medicare for All.
Over the past two weeks, the explosive growth of the coronavirus pandemic has forced nearly 10 million Americans to file for unemployment benefits. Along with their jobs, many have lost their health insurance, if they had any to begin with. Aside from possibly spelling disaster for these newly unemployed workers and their families, this situation puts both the public health and economic wellbeing of our country at great risk. A clearer rationale for universal, affordable, lifetime health coverage as exemplified under a Medicare For All framework would be hard to find. Continue reading
Coronavirus failures show Trump is a clear and present danger to the United States
Seven ‘pro-contagion activities’ by Trump increased the coronavirus death toll in the United States.
Trump ridiculed, then minimized, then delayed the federal government’s response to the coronavirus for weeks. Then finally he wrapped his boastful, confused ego around reality. But Trump is actively pushing programs that will endanger more Americans. Continue reading
Medicare for All support surges to 9-month high in new poll after coronavirus exposes horrors of private insurance
‘How can it be that we spend 18% of our GDP on healthcare but still lack the beds, masks, ventilators, gowns, gloves, and test kits we need to adequately respond to this crisis?’ asked Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Support for Medicare for All among U.S. voters has reached a nine-month high in a Morning Consult/Politico tracking poll as the deadly and ongoing coronavirus pandemic lays bare the horrors and systemic inefficiencies of America’s profit-driven healthcare system. Continue reading
Lack of affordable healthcare puts millions of Americans at risk
The US is the world’s only developed country without some form of universal healthcare. Continue reading
Donald Trump’s genocidal acts against humanity
Posted on July 16, 2020 by Wayne Madsen
In 1979, United Nations Committee on Human Rights rapporteur Abdelwahab Bouhdiba cited the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia as an example of “autogenocide,” the carrying out or enabling of mass deaths among one’s own nation. Previously cited examples of genocide at the time Bouhdiba coined the word autogenocide, were Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. The former’s genocide of Eastern European Jews, Romani, Slavs, and other non-Germans also included German Jewish and other citizens, making it a practitioner of both genocide and autogenocide. The genocide of Chinese by Japanese military occupiers fit the broader definition of genocide. Continue reading →