A TOYOTA RAV4 crashes into a store, killing an innocent victim.
Driver says at the scene 'The car just would not stop,' A TOYOTA RAV4
We've heard it all before.....
Insurance companies and the National Car Wash Association KNOW which vehicles are prone to SUDDEN UNINTENDED ACCELERATION......TOYOTA doesn't want you to know.....
Nassau County police investigate an accident in Great Neck, on March 30, 2015, after a car crashed into an AT&T store, injuring three people, one seriously. (Credit: News 12 Long Island)
An SUV barreled through the glass exterior of a Great Neck AT&T store Monday morning, hitting and fatally injuring a customer, Nassau police said.
The victim, Lizabeth Sbar, 66, from Great Neck, "was sitting down waiting to get taken as the next customer," said Insp. Kenneth Lack, a police spokesman. "She was struck from behind."
A group of bystanders -- about 10 people -- lifted the SUV to free Sbar, who was then taken to North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, where she was pronounced dead at 1:01 p.m
The bystanders, some of whom ran into the store, "literally pushed and lifted the car off of her," Lack said. Two other people -- a customer and a store employee -- suffered minor injuries, Lack said.
The accident occurred about 10:50 a.m. when the driver of a gold 2006 Toyota Rav 4, a woman, 65, and her daughter, 25, were attempting to buy a phone accessory from the AT&T store at 47 Northern Blvd.
"As they were pulling into the spot, the driver stated, 'The car just would not stop,' and she proceeded right through the store and the car wound up in the store," Lack said.
Lack said the driver, whom police did not identify, tested negative for driving while intoxicated and has a valid driver's license. He said he did not expect charges to be filed.
"It strictly appears to be an accident," Lack said. "It may be a malfunction with the car."
Lack said police have video of the crash, but are "not releasing it at this time."
Helayne Flint, who works in an adjacent dentist's office, said she saw the aftermath of the crash. She said she saw EMS workers bring out two injured people on stretchers.
"It was a strange sound; it just sounded like glass breaking," Flint said.
Toyota and lexus are known to suddenly accelerate. Defective cars need to be off the road. People are getting killed and injured and in some cases end up in prison. Auto defects is on the rise, Toyota/Lexus sudden unintended acceleration, GM Ignition switch, Honda and Takata airbags. It is all cover up and the blame falls on the drivers.
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A woman was killed Monday when a sport-utility vehicle crashed into an AT&T store in Great Neck trapping her underneath, Nassau County police said.
Around 11 a.m. the 65-year-old driver of a 2006 Toyota Rav4 pulled into the parking lot of the AT&T store on Northern Boulevard near Nassau Road. She told police she couldn’t stop and the car slammed into the store’s front window, 1010 WINS’ Carol D’Auria reported.
Toyota Rav4 being towed out of AT&T store in Great Neck following crash that killed woman (Credit: Alice Gainer/CBS2)
A 66-year-old woman sitting on a couch in front of the window inside was struck and became trapped under the SUV.
Police later identified the victim as Lizabeth Sbar, of Great Neck.
People at the scene surrounded the vehicle and lifted it off of Sbar, police said.
Angelo and other workers from Auto Expo across the street ran over to see what happened.
“There was a woman lying under the car,” he told D’Auria. “The tire was on her chest. So we all got together and we lifted the car and I pulled her out.”
Angelo said Sbar was still breathing when she was rescued. “She seemed to be conscious. She was breathing but she didn’t look good,” Angelo told CBS2’s Alice Gainer.
Sbar was pronounced dead around 1 p.m. at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset.
Police said two other people suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
The driver and her 25-year-old daughter were not injured.
The investigation continued late Monday, but police said it appeared to have been a terrible accident, WCBS 880 Long Island Bureau Chief Mike Xirinachs reported.
Andy Borowitz
| Indiana Governor Stunned By How Many People Seem to Have Gay
Friends
Andy Borowitz, The New
Yorker Borowitz writes: "Indiana
Governor Mike Pence is 'stunned and amazed' that so many people appear to have
gay friends, Pence has confirmed." READ
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Protesters stand behind Floyd Dent as he speaks to the media. (photo: Clarence Tabb Jr/AP)
A Brutal Rodney King Style Beating at a Traffic Stop in Michigan
By Ryan Felton, Guardian UK
30 March 15
A video with echoes of the Rodney King beating shows Floyd Dent pinned to the ground and punched 16 times by an officer with a history of citizen complaints
loyd Dent never felt pain like he did the night of 28 January.
At about 10pm, the Detroit native says he went to visit a blind friend in the neighboring city of Inkster, to deliver a bottle of Rémy Martin and a 40oz of Bud Ice. He stayed for a few minutes, then left to drive home.
Moments later, a police cruiser behind him flipped on its overhead lights. According to a police report on the incident, Dent, 57, had failed to use a traffic signal and disregarded a stop sign. He continued to drive at roughly the same speed for about three-quarters of a mile, to a well-lit area where he says he felt comfortable. There, near an old police station, he pulled to the side of the road.
The police say Dent was driving with a suspended license. According to the office of Dent’s attorney, Greg Rohl, his driving record indicates the suspension was related to an unpaid driving ticket from several years ago.
Dent opened his door and put both his hands out of the window.
“I wanted to let them know I’m unarmed,” he told the Guardian.
But officer William Melendez – believing Dent was reaching for a gun – approached with firearm drawn. What happened next was captured on a patrol car camera.
No audio of the incident exists. According to Dent, one of the officers told him to “get out the car, before I blow your fucking head off”.
Dent opened his door and was dragged out of his Cadillac; almost immediately, Melendez put him in a chokehold. Melendez then proceeded to deliver 16 blows to Dent’s temple. This all took place in about 15 seconds. Another officer arrived moments later and proceeded to use a taser stun gun against Dent, three times. In the video, Dent, with blood dripping from his forehead and cheek, appears not to be resisting Melendez’s efforts to arrest him.
In the police report, Melendez contended that as he had approached Dent’s open car door, the 37-year veteran Ford employee, who had no criminal history, looked at him “with a blank stare as if on a form of narcotic” and plainly stated: “I’ll kill you.”
Dent says Melendez choked him so tightly he couldn’t breathe.
“At one point, I just gave up,” he said in an interview on Sunday at his attorney’s office. “I thought that was it for me.”
At a later hearing, Melendez testified that even before any traffic violation occurred, he planned to investigate Dent simply because he had stopped to visit someone in a part of Inkster known for problems with drugs.
Melendez, 46, claimed Dent was immediately combative and bit his forearm, though he would later testify there were no marks because he was wearing several layers of clothing. Dent denies the accusation. Melendez said the bite was enough reason to begin repeatedly punching Dent.
“I was afraid that I might contract something,” Melendez testified, earlier this month. “I needed to assure that Mr Dent would not do that again.”
For that, Dent says he spent two days in hospital for a fractured left orbital, blood on the brain and four broken ribs.
‘Not all cops are bad, just the ones I ran into’
Inkster, with a population of about 25,000, is 73% black. Melendez is Hispanic; the other eight officers who arrived to the scene on 28 January were white.
While Dent was sitting in the back seat of a cruiser, police say they found a small bag of cocaine underneath the passenger seat of his vehicle.
Dent, whose post-arrest drug test came up negative, says police planted that evidence. Rohl, Dent’s attorney, contends that a close review of a video released this week shows Melendez pulling a bag of drugs from his pocket.
“I saw [an officer] with drugs in his hand, and I thought, ‘Look at them dirty dogs,’” Dent said. “After that I just held my head down.”
Dent has two children, including a 30-year-old son who says he is now unsure if he wants to pursue his dream of being a Michigan state trooper.
“He told me, ‘If cops are like this, I don’t wanna be a state police officer’,” Dent said. “I told him not all cops are bad, just the ones I ran into.”
Hilton Napoleon, a former Inkster police chief, said the allegations levied by Dent came as no surprise.
Citizens told him during his three-year tenure that officers planted evidence at a crime scene, he said.
“I tried to get them to come forward and make an official complaint … but they’re scared,” said Napoleon, who resigned in 2014. “And rightfully so.”
Police departments across the US have “bad apples”, Napoleon said, but officers often fail to report their actions.
“People are up in arms, everywhere,” Napoleon, who is black, told the Guardian. “And they’re looking at the police with a jaundiced eye now.”
According to local activists, the incident involving Dent is just one among a number that have pointed to a larger problem of police brutality nationwide. Following the deaths last year of two unarmed African Americans, Eric Garner in New York and Michael Brown in Missouri, protests have spread across the US.
In the wake of the video showing Dent’s beating, demonstrations took place in Inkster – where the police force is estimated to be 80% to 90% white.
Bishop Walter Starghill, president of the Western Wayne office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said he immediately met officials in Inkster, seeking ways to engage the community and let residents know the incident involving Dent would not be “swept under a rug”.
“I was shocked,” Starghill told the Guardian, when asked what he thought of the video. “It wasn’t a pretty sight; it brought a lot of concern to see somebody to be actually treated that way.”
Starghill compared the clip to the infamous beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police in 1991, saying it afforded the public an opportunity to witness what took place. King’s beating, captured on camera, sparked serious riots.
“We realize there’s two different kinds of justice,” Starghill said. “There’s American justice and then there’s black justice. And America says that you are innocent until proven guilty; in black America we feel we are guilty until we are proven innocent.”
Inkster’s police chief, Vicki Yost, who is white and did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the Guardian, told other media outlets Melendez had been taken off street patrol. A criminal investigation by Michigan state police is under way, with no timeline for completion, said spokeswoman Shannon Banner.
“The investigation will include a review of all video evidence and interviews,” Banner told the Guardian. Its report will be forwarded to the county prosecutor’s office for review, she said.
The only person who has been prosecuted since the incident is Dent.
Initially, he faced charges of assault, resisting arrest and possession of cocaine. Upon viewing the patrol car video at a preliminary hearing earlier this month, a district court judge tossed out nearly all the charges. A court date on the drug charge is scheduled for Wednesday.
Regardless of this, said Rohl, the kind of treatment Dent received is unacceptable.
“I don’t care if he’s got a kilo of cocaine and two dead bodies in that car, I don’t give a shit,” he said.
“It’s never appropriate ever to see that kind of brutality visited upon someone being arrested.”
In the case of Inkster, the question of a financial settlement with Dent comes at a difficult time for the city. Since 2012, Inkster has been under a consent agreement with the state of Michigan to address its dire financial problems. During Napoleon’s short stint as police chief, the number of officers in the department dropped from 73 to 24.
“You have a city that can barely keep its doors open, and now they’re gonna have to come up with a bunch of money and throw it on the backs of taxpayers,” he said.
‘RoboCop’
Melendez’s record shows he has faced similar allegations before. At one point, he garnered more citizen complaints than any officer in Detroit, where he started his career in 1993 and served until his resignation in 2009. He entered Inkster’s police force a year later.
Over nearly two decades, Melendez has been named as a defendant in a dozen federal lawsuits, accused of planting evidence, wrongfully killing unarmed civilians, falsifying police reports and conducting illegal arrests. Some suits were settled out of court. Others were dismissed.
In 1996, Melendez, who was known in Detroit as “RoboCop”, and his partner shot and killed Lou Adkins. While Adkins was on the ground, several witnesses said the officers shot him 11 times, according to the Detroit Free Press. The case was settled for $1.05m, court records show.
Later, in 2002, Melendez and a group of officers arrested Detroit resident Darrell Chancellor, a convicted felon, for possession of a firearm. Chancellor testified that he was sitting in a car with a group of friends when Melendez drove by with his partner. Chancellor and his friends exited the vehicle quickly “because it was RoboCop”, Chancellor testified.
Accounts of the incident between Chancellor and Melendez vary wildly. The officer claimed Chancellor threw a gun; Chancellor denied he had one. About 15 minutes later, according to Chancellor’s testimony, Melendez put a gun on top of the vehicle and said: “Chancellor, this is your gun.” Chancellor denied the accusation.
While Chancellor was being transferred to the police precinct, an argument broke out. Melendez, Chancellor said, told him to “shut the F up” or he would also plant drugs on him.
Chancellor spent 213 days in jail. When federal prosecutors reviewed the case, the firearm possession charge against him was dismissed.
The US prosecutor’s office examined Chancellor’s case as part of an investigation into allegations against Melendez, who was cited as the ringleader of numerous officers indicted by a federal grand jury in 2003 on civil rights violations. The officers were acquitted in 2004; jurors who spoke with the Detroit News explained they didn’t believe the government’s witnesses, many of whom had criminal records.
Around the time Chancellor’s case was concluded, in 2007, the city of Detroit settled another suit involving Melendez for $50,000. The lawsuit alleged Melendez and his partners knocked on Ernest Crutchfield III’s door in November 2003. When they received no response, they entered the premises without a search warrant and, in the kitchen, shot Crutchfield dead. According to the case, the officers planted a gun near his body before falsifying statements and lying under oath.
Between 1987 and 2004, more than 3,400 Detroit officers were named as defendants in a lawsuit, according to a 2005 city report on police settlements. By that time, court records indicate, Melendez had been sued nine times. Only 26 officers in Detroit had been involved in as many cases, the report stated.
Melendez, who could not be reached for comment, is currently named as a defendant in one case related to conduct in Inkster. In July 2011, he is alleged to have assaulted Deshawn Acklin, choking him until he lost consciousness. Acklin was using the bathroom at a friend’s house when Melendez and other officers arrived, on suspicion of an alleged shooter being inside.
Melendez – who would later contend Acklin resisted arrest – is alleged to have beaten Acklin until another officer said “that’s enough”. While being treated in hospital, Acklin testified that Melendez asked him how he liked his “wrestling moves” while he was choked. Melendez denies ever saying that.
Eventually, a court filing stated, Acklin “succumbed to the pain and lack of oxygen and passed out while defecating on himself”.
After he was treated at a hospital for a closed head injury, a left foot sprain and bleeding from his eyes, Acklin spent three days in custody, according to the case. He was never charged with a crime.
‘People can have a collective voice’
Dent says the video of his incident is a painful reminder of treatment he never expected to receive.
“My hope with him having the courage to step forward is that people who have not been heard can come and have a collective voice,” said Rohl.
A demonstration is scheduled for Wednesday – the day Dent will be back in court on the drug charge – at 4.30pm, outside Inkster police headquarters. Protesters also plan to convene on 3 April at the spot where Dent was pulled over, and then march to Inkster police headquarters.
Dent is a spiritual man. “Sometimes I just wanna be by myself and think, ‘Why did this have to happen to me?’” he said.
“But then again, I thought, the man upstairs wanted me to expose him.”
Jessica
Valenti | Social Media Is Protecting Men From Periods, Breast Milk and Body
Hair Jessica Valenti, The Guardian
UK Valenti writes: "Instagram took down
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When will society accept women's bodies?" READ
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Monday he was ready to invest $1 billion in Ukraine if the West promised to help
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AP President:
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The Big Lie
The Media Tells About Indiana's New 'Religious Freedom' Law Judd Legum, Think
Progress Legum writes: "On Friday, the
Washington Post published an article titled '19 states that have 'religious
freedom' laws like Indiana's that no one is boycotting." READ
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Ex-Climate
Diplomat: Oil and Gas Companies Are Narcissistic, Paranoid and
Psychopathic Damian Carrington, Guardian
UK Carrington writes: "Shell and its
oil and gas peers are narcissistic, paranoid and psychopathic, and engaged in a
cynical attempt to block action on global warming, according to the UK's former
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Al
Jazeera America Abdul-Jabbar writes:
"When you convert to an unfamiliar or unpopular religion, it invites criticism
of one's intelligence, patriotism and sanity. I should know. Even though I
became a Muslim more than 40 years ago, I'm still defending that choice." READ
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Woman Who Says
She Miscarried Gets 20 Years in Prison for Feticide Lisa De Bode, Al Jazeera
America De Bode writes: "Activists say
the case highlights the way that prosecutors across the U.S. are increasingly
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terminating a pregnancy or allegedly harming an unborn child." READ
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Bernie Sanders
Endorses Rahm Challenger Chuy Garcia for Chicago Mayor David McCabe, The Hill Excerpt: "'I support them because we need a
political revolution in this country and we need the kind of working-class
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Naomi Klein
and Bill McKibben Call on Paris to Divest in Le Monde Letter Emma Howard, Guardian
UK Howard writes: "The environmental
activists have written an open letter to the Mayor of Paris, asking her to make
it the first capital in the world to divest from fossil fuels." READ
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American
Pharmacists Association Votes Against Supply of Lethal Injection
Drugs Associated Press Excerpt: "A leading association for US pharmacists has
told its members they should not provide drugs for use in lethal injections - a
move that could make carrying out executions even harder for death penalty
states." READ
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Nashville
Prosecutors Made Sterilizations Part of Plea Deal Talks Sheila Burke, Associated
Press "Sterilization coerced by the
legal system evokes a dark time in America, when minorities, the poor and those
deemed mentally unfit or 'deficient' were forced to undergo medical procedures
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Deepwater Oil
Spill: BP Steps Up PR Effort to Insist All Is Well in the Gulf Peter Moskowitz, Guardian
UK Moskowitz writes: "But evidence is
mounting that five years after millions of gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf
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Methods Police
Use on the Mentally Ill Are Madness Conor Friedersdorf, The
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US Nerve Gas
Hit Our Own Troops in Iraq Barbara Koeppel, Newsweek Koeppel writes: "During and immediately after
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Kuwait in January 1991 were exposed to nerve gas and other chemical
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Antarctica Hit
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A couple living in Epsom in Surrey have had one of the harshest wake-ups imaginable, after a speeding car smashed through the wall of their first-floor bedroom as they slept and came to rest just inches away from them. Phil Bayles reports.
The silver Lexus came around a bend in Bridge Road, Epsom, mounted a parked Audi and flew into the side of the house, Surrey Police said. The incident happened at 3am on Sunday and punched a large hole in the brick house, causing considerable damage to the owner's bedroom and an en-suite bathroom.
The couple escaped unscathed, and three men who were travelling in the Lexus were taken to Epsom Hospital where they were treated for minor injuries.
Car crashes into house. Credit: Philippe Sibelly
A number of other cars were also damaged in the incident, and a postbox, road sign and fence were destroyed.
A structural engineer was called to assess the property as police investigated the cause of the accident.
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Warren | Wall Street Isn't Happy With Us
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Elizabeth Warren's Blog Warren writes:
"In 2008, the financial sector collapsed and nearly brought down our whole
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Oregon's Radical Innovation: Make Democracy Easy John Nichols, Moyers &
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UK Pilkington writes: "The last time
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Abortion Lies
Doctors Are Forced to Tell Brandy Zadrozny, The Daily
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Debunking the
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Harvey
Wasserman | 36 Years of Three Mile Island's Lethal Lies Harvey Wasserman, Reader
Supported News Wasserman writes: "The
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Reading the article at the bottom about the consequences of the overuse of ANTIBIOTICS, reminds one of the VACCINATION HYSTERIA that has reached a fever pitch of zealotry, ignoring FACTS, ignoring who's conducting the 'research' and tracking the statistics.
In the recent Disney Land Measles outbreak, it has been reported that some of those contracting measles had been vaccinated. Other reports indicate that the vaccine has caused infectious cases of measles.
Where is the crowd with pitchforks to get ANTIBIOTICS out of food?
If you're admitted to the hospital, a MRSA test is done.
What is the cost of testing and treating for SUPER BUGS adding to medical costs?
We've polluted our food with chemicals, growth hormones, antibiotics, pesticides, herbicides; we've filled our homes with hazardous chemicals untested on humans; we employ laundry chemicals, perfumes, nail finishes, soaps, flame-retardants, household cleaning products, pesticides, herbicides, tattoo inks....none of which have been tested for safety and wonder..... + 80,000 chemicals in use have never been tested....
Published on Feb 5, 2015
http://www.pbs.org/specials/depth-vac...
Examining the emotionally charged debate over medical risks versus benefits and a parent's right to make choices about her child versus a communities common good.
(Originally broadcast in April, 2010)
Vaccines have changed the world, largely eradicating a series of terrible diseases, from smallpox to polio to diphtheria, and likely adding decades to most of our life spans. But despite the gains -- and numerous scientific studies indicating vaccine safety -- a growing movement of parents remains fearful of vaccines. And in some American communities, significant numbers of parents have been rejecting vaccines altogether, raising new concerns about the return of vaccine-preventable diseases like measles and whooping cough.
In The Vaccine War (originally broadcast on PBS in April 2010) FRONTLINE lays bare the science of vaccine safety and examines the increasingly bitter debate between the public health establishment and a formidable populist coalition of parents, celebrities, politicians and activists who are armed with the latest social media tools -- including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter -- and are determined to resist pressure from the medical and public health establishments to vaccinate, despite established scientific consensus about vaccine safety.
Dairy cows. (photo: AP)
Rampant Use of Antibiotics Is Linked to 23,000 Deaths Annually in US
By Lorraine Chow, EcoWatch
28 March 15
resident Obama is waging war against the superbug crisis, one of the “most pressing public health issues facing the world today,” causing tens of thousands of deaths and millions of illnesses every year in just the U.S. alone, the President said.
The rampant use of antibiotics is linked to 23,000 human deaths and 2 million illnesses annually in the U.S. (photo: Shutterstock)
slow the emergence of resistant bacteria and prevent the spread of resistant infections;
strengthen national surveillance efforts;
advance development and use of rapid and innovative diagnostic tests;
accelerate basic and applied research and development;
and improve international collaboration and capacities.
According to estimates from the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than half the antibiotics used in the U.S. are prescribed unnecessarily or used improperly. For example, reducing the use of high-risk antibiotics by 30 percent can lower deadly diarrhea infections by 26 percent, the agency said.
The Obama administration is also tackling the rampant use of antibiotics in livestock. “We can help slow the emergence of resistant bacteria by being smarter about prescribing practices across all human and animal health care settings, and by continuing to eliminate the use of medically-important antibiotics for growth promotion in animals,” the White House said.
We’ve mentioned previously that 80 percent of antibiotics purchased in the U.S. are fed to livestock to accelerate growth and prevent disease in healthy animals. Yet this seemingly harmless practice also breeds superbugs, which can spread in the environment, contaminate food supplies and undermine the effectiveness of antibiotics. In fact, superbugs have been linked to 23,000 human deaths and 2 million illnesses annually in the U.S., costing the American health care system $20 billion in direct costs, according to CDC.
Concerns about superbugs led McDonald’s to announce that within two years, the fast food giant will only buy and sell “chicken raised without antibiotics that are important to human medicine.”
The new plan calls for the “elimination of the use of medically-important antibiotics for growth promotion in food-producing animals,” and gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the powers to force meat producers to acquire a veterinarian’s prescription before buying drugs for animals being raised for food, WebMD reported.
Environmental advocates, however, have pointed out that such an approach is unlikely to lead to a significant reduction in antibiotic overuse on animal farms.
“Farmers already purchase a majority of antibiotics under FDA rules that allow them to feed drugs to their healthy livestock to prevent diseases, rather than to treat existing infections,” said Dev Gowda, an advocate with Illinois PIRG. “And all classes of antibiotics that can be used to promote growth can also be used to prevent diseases. Therefore, these voluntary guidelines may do nothing more than simply require factory farms to claim that these drugs are being used for disease prevention, rather than actually address their overuse.”
Others say that the President’s plan does not go far enough. “Unfortunately, the plan falls short of protecting the public from this looming public health crisis in that it fails to adequately address the misuse of antibiotics on factory farms, relying on FDA’s limited efforts to change practices through voluntary guidance,” said Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter.
“Ultimately the National Action Plan is a missed opportunity to take more aggressive action. That is why we need federal legislation like the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act that would end the overuse of medically important antibiotics in livestock production. This is what it will take to combat this public health crisis.”
The administration’s plan to combat antibiotic resistance would require $1.2 billion from Congress in its first year, nearly double the amount the country’s currently spending. The Hill noted that the President’s request was not included in the recently passed Republican budgets in the House and Senate, but the two bodies will now head to a conference committee to make possible changes.
President Obama told WebMD that fighting antibiotic resistance is vital to national security. “They [antibiotics] save the lives of service members wounded in battle. They prevent infections in one community from spreading far and wide. They’re also a critical defense against bio-terrorism. They are, quite simply, essential to the health of our people and people everywhere,” he said.
“We can better protect our children and grandchildren from the reemergence of diseases and infections that the world conquered decades ago,” President Obama added.
Robert Parry, Consortium
News Parry writes: "These inflammatory
articles - these incitements to murder and violation of international law - are
considered just normal discussion in the Land of Exceptionalism." READ
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Thousands
March in Indiana to Protest New 'Anti-Gay' Law teleSUR Excerpt: "Thousands of people gathered in Indiana
Saturday to protest the state's recent passing of the Religious Freedom law that
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Gillcrist | Bergdahl Was Punished Enough James Gillcrist, The Daily
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The Silver
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Teen Kept in
Solitary Confinement for 143 Days Before Even Facing Trial Kay Steiger,
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The Village
That Beat Ebola: How One Liberian Community Avoided the Outbreak Kayla Ruble, VICE
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worked: The borders opened in March just as new transmissions of the virus in
Liberia hovered near zero. From March 5 to March 20, the country enjoyed a three
week period without any confirmed cases." READ
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Dirty Power:
Sweden Wants Your Garbage for Energy Elisabeth Braw, Al Jazeera
America Braw writes: "Here's the
problem: Swedes (as well as Germans, Danes, the Dutch and Belgians) have become
so good at recycling that there's no longer enough garbage to meet the heating
plants' needs." READ
MORE
Saudi
Arabia and its allies have launched airstrikes in Yemen against rebel Shiite
Houthi forces gaining more ground. The mainly Gulf coalition, which also
includes the US, is trying to help embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.
Twenty-four people were killed and 43 injured as a result of Saudi-led
airstrikes over the last 24 hours, Yemen’s Saba state news agency reported the
Interior Ministry saying in a statement
Nuclear Threat Escalating
Beyond Political Rhetoric By Thalif Deen
As a new
cold war between the United States and Russia picks up steam, the nuclear threat
is in danger of escalating – perhaps far beyond political
rhetoric
The Social Costs Of Capitalism Are Destroying Earth’s
Ability To Support Life By Paul Craig Roberts
David
Ray Griffin has taken on global warming and the CO2 crisis. His book has just
been published by Clarity Press, a publisher that seeks out truth-telling
authors. Griffin’s book is a hefty 424 pages plus 77 pages of footnotes
documenting the information that he presents. Unprecedented: Can Civilization
Survive The CO2 Crisis? The book is a carefully researched
document
No Ban On Coal Finance As Green Climate Fund Eyes First
Projects By Megan Darby
The
Green Climate Fund has not ruled out backing coal plants after a protracted
three-day board meeting in Songdo, South Korea. Tense negotiations ended at 04
20 on Thursday with agreement on seven intermediaries to disburse funds for low
carbon development and climate adaptation in poor countries
Two
Degree Celsius Climate Change Target 'Utterly Inadequate By
Countercurrents.org
The
official global target of a 2°C temperature rise is 'utterly inadequate' for
protecting those at most risk from climate change, says a lead author on the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), writing a commentary in the
open access journal Climate Change Responses. The commentary presents a rare
inside-view of a two-day discussion at the Lima Conference of the Parties (COP)
on the likely consequences of accepting an average global warming target of 2°C
versus 1.5°C
The Czech Republic And The Fine Art Of Collaboration
By Andre Vltchek
The US
military convoy will soon be passing through the Czech territory, from the
Baltics and Poland, to its permanent base in Bavaria, Germany. That is bad
enough. The Czechs should not have allowed the convoy to pass. Provoking Russia
and moving closer and closer to the fascist Empire is a shameless and cowardly
act
From
the Book RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War. RADICAL PEACE is a collection of
reports from antiwar activists, the true stories of their efforts to change our
warrior culture. In this chapter a mother tells of her son's return from combat.
She wishes to remain anonymous
Cultural Hegemony And Social Change:
2015 By Jon Kofas
There
are conservative analysts who assume that more than anything people crave safety
and security. Cultural hegemony rests on the fears of the people who have been
conditioned to accept the status quo and avert risk when it comes to securing a
new social contract that would represent all people. Some advocates of democracy
argue that actualizing their potential is just as important for human beings,
but this entails having an institutional structure that permits and promotes
those possibilities. I have argued in the past that uprisings are very possible
in the 21st century, especially after the next inevitable deep recession, but
systemic change is highly unlikely
Damage Limitation Time For
Monsanto: Time To Wheel Out Patrick Moore Again... Or Maybe Not! By Colin
Todhunter
It’s
been a bad couple of weeks for Monsanto. The company agreed to pay $600,000 in
fines for not reporting hundreds of uncontrolled releases of toxic chemicals at
its eastern Idaho phosphate plant. It also paid out a string of lawsuit
settlements totaling $350,000 as a result of its GMOs tainting wheat in seven US
states. Such amounts represent little more than a tap on the wrist for a company
that rakes in sales of almost $16 billion dollars annually
Obama And
The Palestinian-Israeli Conflict By William James Martin
The
Palestinians have little to offer Obama. Do not expect any significant progress
engendered by the Obama administration for the rest of his term. If there is to
be any change in the configuration between the Palestinians and the Israelis, it
will emanated from the International Court of Justice
Brutal Lathi
Charge On Workers Outside Delhi Secretariat By Abhinav Sinha