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flashback: boston launches flu shot tracking w/ rfid bracelets from boston globe: Using technology originally developed for mass disasters, Boston disease trackers are embarking on a novel experiment - one of the first in the country - aimed at eventually creating a citywide registry of everyone who has had a flu vaccination. The resulting vaccination map would allow swift intervention in neighborhoods left vulnerable to the fast-moving respiratory illness. The trial starts this afternoon, when several hundred people are expected to queue up for immunizations at the headquarters of the Boston Public Health Commission. Each of them will get a bracelet printed with a unique identifier code. Information about the vaccine's recipients, and the shot, will be entered into handheld devices similar to those used by delivery truck drivers.
girl faces deportation over refusal to take gardasil from upi: An adopted teen who has lived in Port St. Joe, Fla. since she was 3 faces possible deportation to England for refusing a vaccination, she and her mother say. Simone Davis, 17, said she has no need for the vaccine Gardasil, which guards against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus virus, because she is not sexually active, ABC News reported. But the U.S. government requires female immigrants between the ages of 11 and 26 to receive Gardasil shots before they can become citizens.
beaches pose super-bug risk: study from afp: The so-called superbug MRSA, a multiresistant strain of staphylococcus usually found in hospitals, has been discovered for the first time on US beaches, a study said. The antibiotic-resistant strain, which is increasingly found in prisons, gym locker rooms and homes, can cause skin conditions and organ ailments and serious and sometimes fatal cases of pneumonia. "This is the first report of MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) from marine water and inertial beach sand," said Marilyn Roberts, a microbiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and co-author of the study, during a press briefing Saturday. The study was presented on the first day of the 49th annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agency and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), which is being held in San Francisco this weekend.
US campers developed drug-resistant flu: report from reuters: Two girls given antiviral drugs in an effort to protect children at a summer camp from the new pandemic swine flu developed resistant virus, U.S. health officials reported on Thursday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the study supports its new recommendations that flu drugs not be given to prevent infection among people who are otherwise healthy. Both girls recovered without becoming seriously ill, but the incident shows that it is easy for the new pandemic H1N1 virus to develop resistance to flu drugs, officials said. "We are concerned about the appropriate use of antivirals," the CDC's Dr. Anne Schuchat said in an interview.
who says swine flu not an accident from a lab from nytimes: The swine flu virus did not result from a laboratory accident, the World Health Organization said Thursday, working to debunk rumors started by an Australian virologist and circulated by news outlets all over the world. “We took this very seriously,” Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the agency’s deputy director general, said of the virologist’s assertion. “But the evidence suggests that this is a naturally occurring virus, not a laboratory-derived virus.” ... The virus rumor was started by Adrian J. Gibbs, a retired plant virologist from the Australian National University, who previously published work in the journal Science questioning the idea, now accepted, that the 1918 pandemic started as a bird flu... His theory was reported by Bloomberg News on Tuesday. Even though scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were skeptical and some prominent virologists openly derisive, news outlets have repeated and magnified the theory, adding speculation about bioterrorism that even Dr. Gibbs repudiated. He was also interviewed Thursday on the ABC News program “Good Morning America.” Dr. Fukuda said a W.H.O. panel of experts had concluded that “the hypothesis does not really stand up to scrutiny... This is healthy... This is much better than dealing with rumors where you don’t know where the mistake comes from and can’t correct it.” Persistent false rumors, like those that AIDS is not caused by a virus or that polio vaccine sterilizes Muslim girls, have devastated efforts to control other diseases. Scientists have yet to pinpoint the origin of the swine flu virus, the earliest cases of which were found in Veracruz, Mexico. It contains genes from flu viruses that normally circulate in pigs in Europe and Asia, as well as avian and human genes.
fbi spied on tea party protesters nationwide from paul joseph watson: The FBI were spying on Tea Party protesters nationwide during last week’s demonstrations as part of a covert program conducted without the knowledge of local law enforcement, according to a source named as a current FBI agent. The Northeast Intelligence Network reports that a concerned unnamed FBI agent risked his career in blowing the whistle on the fact that Tea Party protesters were subject to covert surveillance.
the masonic boston tea party from copycat effect: Today is April 15th, and there will be "tea parties" throughout the USA. Few carrying out these 2009 symbolic acts understand the origins of the Boston Tea Party, which occurred on December 16, 1773. The Masonic background to the Boston Tea Party is part of the twilight history of the nation.
goldman sachs tries to shut down financial blogger from global research: Mike Morgan is a registered investment adviser and a scrappy shoot-from-the-hip guy who doesn't mince his words. Recently Morgan has come under fire from investment giant Goldman Sachs for his hard-hitting web site "Facts about Goldman Sachs". According to the U.K. Telegraph: "Goldman Sachs is attempting to shut down a dissident blogger who is extremely critical of the investment bank, its board members and its practices. The bank has instructed Wall Street law firm Chadbourne & Parke to pursue blogger Mike Morgan, warning him in a recent cease-and-desist letter that he may face legal action if he does not close down his website. According to Chadbourne & Parke's letter, dated April 8, the bank is rattled because the site "violates several of Goldman Sachs' intellectual property rights" and also "implies a relationship" with the bank itself. Unsurprisingly for a man who has conjoined the bank's name with the Number of the Beast – although he jokingly points out that 666 was also the S&P500's bear-market bottom – Mr Morgan is unlikely to go down without a fight. He claims he has followed all legal requirements to own and operate the website – and that the header of the site clearly states that the content has not been approved by the bank. On a special section of his blog entitled "Goldman Sachs vs Mike Morgan" he predicts that the fight will probably end up in court. "It's just another example of how a bully like Goldman Sachs tries to throw their weight around," he writes."
lehman sits on bomb of uranium cake as prices slump from bloomberg: Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound, according to traders and nuclear experts. The bankrupt bank, in the throes of paying off creditors, acquired uranium cake “under a matured commodities contract” and plans to sell it when the market improves “to realize the best prices,” Chief Executive Officer Bryan Marsal said. Lehman, once the fourth-largest investment bank, has an estimated $200 billion in unsecured liabilities left to pay. The uranium, which may be as much as 500,000 pounds, might fetch $20 million at today’s prices of about $40.50 per pound, said traders who asked not to be named because of the confidential nature of the data. Marsal said the traders’ estimate of Lehman’s uranium holding is “reasonable,” while declining to be more specific. Uranium has dropped for five straight months from $55 a pound on Dec. 1 on concerns that countries including China and India would delay nuclear power projects because of the global economic crisis, and because Lehman might dump its radioactive material on the market, the traders said. More than 43 million pounds of uranium-oxide concentrate, or yellowcake equivalent sold on the spot market last year, more than doubling the 2007 trading volume, according to Roswell, Georgia-based Ux Consulting Co.
from boston herald: Three families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 terrorist attacks head to court today to plead with a federal judge to release a million pages of documents detailing the mass murder of nearly 3,000 Americans. Those secret papers, one Bay State family member told the Herald, are “so bad you won’t believe it... It was out control,” Paul Keating, 45, said of security on Sept. 11, 2001, including at Logan International Airport in Boston where two ill-fated jets left on a collision course with infamy. “My mother went through the most public murder you could imagine... and I’ve been putting up with this crap for seven years,” Keating said of his refusal to settle his case out of court. Keating’s 72-year-old mother, Barbara, a Framingham native, died aboard American Airlines Flight 11. Keating is making legal history today, along with the families of Mark Bavis, 31, and Sara Low, 28, by asking Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in Federal District Court in Manhattan to lift the order keeping all the evidence hidden. Low was a Boston-based flight attendant on Flight 11; Bavis of West Newton, a passenger on United Airlines Flight 175. Both jets left Logan with hijackers on board and were slammed into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. “Sept. 11 should not have happened,” said attorney Donald A. Migliori, whose firm represents all three families. He said the secret papers include depositions of former Massport Executive Director Virginia Buckingham and former Logan security chief Joe Lawless. If the documents are released, plans are in the works to make a public archive. As for the three families, they vow to hold out for public trials next year - refusing any share of $7 billion in secret settlements to expose how 19 terrorists brought a nation to its knees.
kin lose bid for release of 9/11 info from nydailynews: A Manhattan judge on Wednesday dealt a blow to families of 9/11 victims seeking the release of documents they say will reveal how the 19 terrorists slipped past airport security. Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected three families' request to create a public trove of documents turned over by airlines and security companies during the course of litigation. Hellerstein said forcing the turnover of the documents would bog down efforts to bring to trial suits filed by the families who've refused to accept a monetary settlement of their claims. "Right now, I want to move these cases to trial," Hellerstein said. "That's my goal." There remain just three holdout families out of nearly 100 who chose to pursue litigation rather than accept a settlement from the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund. Hellerstein did not issue a ruling but indicated to the families' lawyer Donald Migliori that he likely would rule against them. Hellerstein's decision stung Mike Low, 66, whose flight attendant daughter Sara died aboard American Airlines Flight 11. He hopes the documents will help others learn more about their loved ones' final moments. Two months ago, Low learned that his daughter relayed the seat numbers of the hijackers to the ground so that federal agents could identify them.
in more public places, cameras are on watch from boston globe: Over the past few years, some patrons of Lexington's Cary Memorial Library have had the misfortune of encountering a person exposing himself. Five such incidents, along with vandalism that destroyed about $13,000 worth of property, prompted library officials and police to consider installing surveillance cameras, which increasingly are being used by local authorities to help maintain law and order and to keep property losses to a minimum, they said.
massachusetts cops get black uniforms to instill sense of 'fear' from fox news: Springfield's men in black are returning. The city's new police commissioner, William Fitchet, says members of the department's Street Crime Unit will again don black, military-style uniforms as part of his strategy to deal with youth violence... Sgt. John Delaney told a city council hearing Wednesday that the stark uniforms send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests. Delaney said a sense of 'fear' has been missing for the past few years.
knock, knock, it's the fbi from computerworld: Just imagine if one day in the near future the FBI comes to your enterprise with warrants that allow them to seize and remove any computer-related equipment, utility bills, telephone bills, any addressed correspondence sent through the U.S. mail, video gear, camera equipment, checkbooks, bank statements and credit card statements. The first question you'd ask is, "Who has done what?"
maryland loses track of state id cards from washington times: Maryland has lost track of an unknown number of identification cards granting bearers unrestricted access to secure government buildings and courthouses across the state... The ID cards, issued to state employees, lobbyists, contractors and others, have also been issued without appropriate efforts to verify the identities of the applicants, according to a report by the Office of Legislative Audits. "As a result, there was a lack of assurance that all state ID cards issued were proper," the audit found.
US & russian citizens want weapons-free outer space from afp: Most Americans and Russians want their governments to ensure a weapons-free outer space and would back a treaty underpinning the move, a poll showed Thursday. Seventy-eight percent of Americans and 67 percent of Russians said their leaderships should refrain from deploying any weapons in space as long as no other country does so, according to the poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org.
future combat system plagued by problems from ee times: Congressional auditors are reportedly questioning the exploding scale of software development required to field the U.S. Army's Future Combat System. In a report in Thursday's (Jan. 24) edition, the Washington Post quoted officials with the congressional Government Accountability Office (GAO) as saying the Army underestimated the size of the software effort... The next largest DoD software development project is the Joint Strike Fighter, at about 23 million lines of code. According to the Post story, investigators said the software portion of the Future Combat System was "started prematurely" and that the Army and prime contractor Boeing Co. "didn't really understand the requirements."
US hires 'fake' soviet weapons experts from presstv: A plan drawn by Washington to divert Soviet Union weapons technology away from other countries has proven to be no more than a US scam. The US Department of Energy had set up a program after the fall of the USSR to keep newly impoverished Soviet scientists from immigrating to wealthy countries hostile to the United States.
homeland security collecting fingerprints at logan airport from dhs.gov: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today that it has begun collecting additional fingerprints from international visitors arriving at Boston Logan International Airport (Logan)... "Biometrics have revolutionized our ability to prevent dangerous people from entering the United States since 2004. Our upgrade to 10 fingerprint collection builds on our success, enabling us to focus more attention on stopping potential security risks," US VISIT Director Robert Mocny said.
the pentagon's new lethal weapon from presstv: The US Department of Defense's wide-ranging 'warfighter enhancement program' is preparing grounds for the most lethal weapon ever. Pentagon's 'the Psychological Kevlar Act of 2007' puts forward the idea of using different drugs to insulate combat soldiers from the stressful psychological element of killing. The move not only desensitizes them to the horrendous aspect of war, but also maximizes soldiers' lethality by bypassing their moral autonomy.
city testing way to quickly distribute antibiotics
from wcvb: About 23,000 Boston residents are weeks away from taking part in a bioterror drill, and many probably don't even know it.
Health officials plan to have mail carriers deliver tiny white cardboard boxes to the doorsteps and mailboxes of thousands of residents in the city's West Roxbury and South End neighborhoods on Sunday, Sept. 23.
"Anytime you are talking about a release of anthrax in the city, you are talking about pretty much a worst case scenario where you need to get medications to people as quickly as possible," said John Jacob of the Boston Public Health Commission.
The empty boxes will be used to simulate how quickly antibiotics could be delivered to residents in the event of a bioterror attack.
"No one knows the streets, knows the deliveries, knows where the houses are and the sequence they are set up in better than letter carriers do," said Bob Cannon of the U.S. Postal Service.
In the event of a real emergency when the antibiotics are highly coveted, the mail carriers will have a police escort.
"There is no emergency whatsoever. This is just a test, and this is a way for us to figure out if this particular delivery option is a good fit for Boston," Jacob said.
If it were a real emergency, each box would hold 20 pills.
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Welcome to New World Next Week - the video series from Corbett Report and Media Monarchy that covers some of the most important developments in open source intelligence news. This week:
Visit NewWorldNextWeek.com to get previous episodes in various formats to download, burn and share. And as always, stay up-to-date by subscribing to the feeds from Corbett Report here and Media Monarchy here. Thank you.
