____ (2022-05-14). Congressional report confirms meat processors made baseless claims of impending food shortage to keep plants open as pandemic spread. wsws.org While COVID-19 ripped through processing plants and communities, food executives stoked phony claims of a food shortage to justify keeping plants operating at full production.
Rafael Dall'Alba, Marco André Germanà≤, Cristianne Famer Rocha (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] Yes, democracy is good for our health—but which democracy? thelancet.com Richard Horton wrote a compelling inquiry on the complex scenario surrounding the challenges emerging from liberal democracies in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.1 We take his timely discussion one step further. To discuss the benefits and shortcomings of democracies, especially in a global context, we need to look in detail at the actors and politics that govern the design and implementation of health policies. As Horton argued, choosing between liberal democracies and autocracies is an overly simplistic decision.
Shawn Yuan (2022-05-14). [World Report] Zero COVID in China: what next? thelancet.com How China cornered itself into an unsustainable COVID-19 control strategy, and the slim prospects for change. Shawn Yuan reports.
Andrew Green (2022-05-14). [World Report] Calls to restart testing for parasitic disease at US CDC. thelancet.com Researchers and clinicians pressure the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to reintroduce parasitic disease testing amid concerns about patient care. Andrew Green reports.
Grainne M Murray, William D Renton (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] Tofacitinib for juvenile idiopathic arthritis. thelancet.com We welcome the trial data for tofacitinib1 as a drug that might provide benefit for children and young people with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. We are encouraged by the findings, particularly the safety data, but seek clarification on the clinical efficacy.
Staff (2022-05-14). The Shame of the Richest Country in the World Just Not Being the Richest Country in the World. davidswanson.org "In the richest country in the world, it's an injustice that millions of people lack basic health care," said Sen. Ed Markey. "[T]he richest country in the world [is] struggling to provide basic nutrition to many of its infants," according to Vox. Politico tells us that "the richest country in the world could find itself …
____ (2022-05-14). Newly appointed Sri Lankan PM pledges to implement brutal IMF program. wsws.org The IMF program will translate into deep cuts to state sector jobs, wages and pensions, further increased prices of essentials, the slashing of public services including education and health care.
____ (2022-05-14). 10,000 New Zealand healthcare workers prepare to strike. wsws.org Public healthcare workers are due to strike for 24 hours on Monday, over low wages and understaffing, after a previous strike scheduled for March was banned by the Employment Court.
Fight Back (2022-05-14). Anthony Gay: 97-year prison sentence for the theft of $1. fightbacknews.org Chicago, IL – Since 2018, Anthony Gay has become a symbol of the struggle against wrongful convictions in Illinois. | As a teen in 1994 in Rock Island, he was sentenced to seven years on a parole violation. He was driving his car without a license and was on parole for a robbery in which he stole a dollar and a hat. The system made him plead guilty for that charge which got him probation. | His mental health deteriorated in prison, and minor infractions got him repeated additional sentences totaling 90 years. He spent 22 of those 24 years in solitary confinement, including some time in Tamms supermax prison. Soli…
Darek Yach (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] Tobacco harm reduction matters. thelancet.com A recent Lancet Editorial1 about the slow pace of tobacco control around the world singled out the UK as a leader in reducing the number of smokers. It has accomplished this feat, the Editorial stated, through measures such as increased tobacco taxes, comprehensive smoke-free laws in public spaces, and health warnings on product packages.
Edward Christopher Dee, Gideon Lasco (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] Decolonising global health: a Philippine perspective. thelancet.com We read Richard Horton's Offline1 with interest. We agree that "Medicine and global health continue to be entangled with colonial attitudes, structures, and practices."1 That is, in systems of power. Horton concludes that "Decolonisation must mean much more." We present perspectives from the Philippines.
Juliet Iwelunmor (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] The truth about decolonising global health worth spreading. thelancet.com With any myth about decolonising global health (as Richard Horton1 describes it), always question intent, dissent, lament, and discontent. Then, remember the wise words of Frederick Douglass, "power concedes nothing without a demand, it never has and it never will".2…
Richard Horton (2022-05-14). [Comment] Offline: Bill Gates and the fate of WHO. thelancet.com Bill Gates was not shy about his disdain for WHO. Of its staff he said, "If you're not very good, you'll stay working there for a long time." Gates fired his broadside during the London launch of his book, How to Prevent the Next Pandemic. The audience laughed. But as someone who has been welcomed into the global health family, there was something cheap and unpleasant about his remark. It diminished him. Gates was there to promote the idea of GERM—a Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization team.
Susan Jaffe (2022-05-14). [Perspectives] Raj Panjabi: bringing a global outlook to the US pandemic response. thelancet.com In February, 2022, US President Joe Biden appointed global health physician and epidemiologist Raj Panjabi as a Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense at the White House National Security Council in Washington, DC, which advises Biden on foreign policy and security issues. In this position, Panjabi's presence ensures that global health threats "are considered in discussions of national security and foreign policy, and are not an afterthought", said Jennifer Kates, Senior Vice President and Director of Global Health and HIV Policy at the Kaiser Family Found…
Susan Jaffe (2022-05-14). [World Report] Health organizations fear effects of US abortion ruling. thelancet.com Health and human rights groups are concerned about women's health and rights as many states would outlaw abortion if the Supreme Court topples Roe v Wade. Susan Jaffe reports.
Ayesha Ahmad (2022-05-14). [Perspectives] Researcher trauma: when our stories collide. thelancet.com I was mesmerised as I knelt on a grainy floor beneath the storyteller, my village neighbour. Her name is long gone, buried in the crevices of her husband's name on her tombstone, erased beyond the dust that she became within the soil. I do not think I ever learnt her name, she was simply Bibi, Bibi who carried the village stories. Bibi shone in her language, but she was without a pen, or Qalam, which was a dangerous instrument for a woman to wield. Like Bibi, my grandmother also captivated me with the stories she shared.
Delan Devakumar, Rita Issa (2022-05-14). [Perspectives] Migrant traumas heard. thelancet.com Silence Heard Loud by Anna Konik offers snapshots of traumatised lives through the stories of migrants who have fled persecution and settled in the UK. The film gives the viewer a chance to hear people whose stories remain trapped within them. People who are usually ignored, cast aside, or, sometimes, demonised. As one person in the film remarks, "it is hurtful to dream when you know that your dreams are controlled, your destiny, my very destiny, is controlled by someone else".
Geoff Watts (2022-05-14). [Obituary] Luc Antoine Montagnier. thelancet.com Nobel Prize winning co-discoverer of HIV. He was born in Chabris, France, on March 18, 1932 and died in Paris, France, on Feb 8, 2022 aged 89 years.
Nicolino Ruperto, Hermine I Brunner, Holly B Posner, Irina Lazariciu, Alberto Martini, Daniel J Lovell, Paediatric Rheumatology International Trials Organisation, Pediatric Rheumatology Collaborative Study Group (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] Tofacitinib for juvenile idiopathic arthritis — Authors' reply. thelancet.com We thank Grainne Murray and William Renton for their response to our work1 and take this opportunity to specify the outcome of the trial on tofacitinib in polyarticular course juvenile idiopathic arthritis.
Robert Beaglehole, Ruth Bonita (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] Tobacco control: getting to the finish line. thelancet.com Tobacco control is not working for most of the world.1 Four out of five of the world's smokers are in low-income and middle-income countries. In these countries where most of the eight million deaths caused by tobacco occur each year, rates of tobacco use are falling only slowly. Globally, the overall number of tobacco users has barely changed. Only 30% of countries are on track to achieve the WHO adult tobacco use target of a 30% reduction in prevalence by 20302 and most countries are not on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 for non-communicable diseases; its achievement will require a much m…
Roger L Albin (2022-05-14). [Correspondence] Capitalism, not racism. thelancet.com Richard Horton1 correctly states that, in efforts to construct a fairer world, "we need to undertake a more realistic and rigorous analysis of where power lies". However, Horton's Comment does not exhibit the required rigorous analysis. Citing the dubious work of Cheikh Anta Diop and Martin Bernal as authoritative commentary is precisely the type of shallow gesture that he correctly criticises as inadequate. Contrary to what Horton and Kehinde Andrews describe, the primary logic underpinning the western world order is not "that Black and Brown life is worth less".
The Lancet (2022-05-14). [Editorial] Why Roe v. Wade must be defended. thelancet.com "Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views." So begins a draft opinion by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, leaked from the US Supreme Court on May 2, 2022. If confirmed, this judgement would overrule the Court's past decisions to establish the right to access abortion. In Alito's words, "the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives". The Court's opinion rests on a strictly historical interpretation of the US Constitution: "The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected…
____ (2022-05-13). Biden marks 1 million US COVID deaths by preparing for the next million. wsws.org US President Joe Biden finally acknowledged Thursday that over 1 million Americans have now died from COVID-19, issuing a perfunctory written statement and a pre-recorded video characterized by indifference to the lives of those lost and their loved ones still mourning.
Internationalist 360 ∞ (2022-05-13). Is It Coincidence That Some CIA Torture Techniques are so Popular With Ukrainian Neo-Nazis? libya360.wordpress.com Ekaterina Blinova Dutch journalist Sonja van den Ende in Donbass © Photo : Sonja van den Ende While the US rushed to vilify Russia's latest UN Security Council Arria-Formula summit on Kiev's human rights violations, one might wonder as to why Ukrainian neo-Nazi torture sites have so much in common with CIA secret prisons, says…
Editor (2022-05-13). Great Disorder and Extravagant Lies. scheerpost.com 
Francisca Lita Sáez, Spain, "An Unequal Fight," 2020. | By Vijay Prashad / These are deeply upsetting times. The Covid-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and to galvanize new faith in public action. | Our vast social wealth could have been pledged to improve public health systems, including both the surveillance of outbreaks of illness and the development of medical systems to…
Vijay Prashad (2022-05-13). In a world of great disorder and extravagant lies, we look for compassion: The Nineteenth Newsletter (2022). mronline.org 
These are deeply upsetting times. The COVID-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), and to galvanise new faith in public action.
_____ (2022-05-13). In A World Of Great Disorder And Extravagant Lies. popularresistance.org These are deeply upsetting times. The COVID-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO), and to galvanize new faith in public action. Our vast social wealth could have been pledged to improve public health systems, including both the surveillance of outbreaks of illness and the development of medical systems to treat people during these outbreaks. Not so. | Studies by the WHO have shown us that health care spending by governments in poorer nations has been relatively flat during the pandemic, while out-of-pocket priva…
____ (2022-05-13). China's dynamic zero-COVID policy saves lives, recovers economy: Pakistani FM. ecns.cn Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Thursday that China's dynamic zero-COVID approach is particularly successful in eliminating the virus, saving countless lives and swiftly recovering its economy.
____ (2022-05-13). Shanghai to ease COVID-19 restrictions in mid-May. ecns.cn Shanghai is expected to achieve zero-COVID beyond areas under closed-loop management in mid-May, and will by then ease COVID-19 restrictions while implementing a tiered management system for communities based on their risk levels, local authorities said on Friday.
____ (2022-05-13). Beijing reports 51 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases. ecns.cn Beijing reported 51 locally transmitted confirmed COVID-19 cases and 18 asymptomatic cases between 3 p.m. Thursday and 3 p.m. Friday, said Pang Xinghuo, deputy director of the Beijing Center for Disease Prevention and Control, at a press conference by the Beijing Municipal Health Commission.
____ (2022-05-13). Flags ordered at half staff as U.S. nears 1 mln COVID-19 deaths. ecns.cn U.S. President Joe Biden ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff to mark the "tragic milestone" of 1 million COVID-19 deaths for five days.
____ (2022-05-13). Delivery services normal in Beijing amid COVID-19 resurgence. ecns.cn Delivery services would not suspend amid the COVID-19 resurgence in Beijing.
____ (2022-05-13). Fact Sheet: China's dynamic zero-COVID policy. ecns.cn
Our Reporter (2022-05-13). Parliament summons Aceng over contracts for Covid-19 health workers. plusnews.ug 
Thomas Tayebwa, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament has directed the Minister of Health to explain to the House why contracts of health workers under the Covid-19 emergency services category were terminated contrary to a presidential directive. In his communication to the Thursday plenary sitting, Tayebwa required Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng to present the statement …
Staff (2022-05-13). Cuba reporta 77 nuevos casos de COVID-19 y 98 altas médicas. cubadebate.cu Al cierre del día de ayer, 12 de mayo, Cuba reportó 77 nuevos casos de COVID-19, ningún fallecido y 98 altas médicas, según indicó el parte oficial del Ministerio de Salud Pública (Minsap). Además, se encuentran ingresados un total de 2 048 pacientes, sospechosos 1 601, en vigilancia 11 y confirmados activos 436.
teleSUR-mcs -HIM (2022-05-13). Europa supera los 2 millones de decesos por Covid-19. telesurtv.net De acuerdo con las autoridades sanitarias, la inmunización de la población contra la pandemia es la mejor manera de salvar vidas, proteger a las comunidades y a los sistemas de salud.
____ (2022-05-13). Macron to dismantle last remaining anti-COVID health measures in France. wsws.org Macron, like his counterparts in other European countries, has decided to allow an avoidable disease to become a constant feature of daily life.
____ (2022-05-13). Fluctuations observed in wind, solar resources. ecns.cn China's wind and solar resources fluctuated mildly last year, with wind resources slightly above the previous 10-year average and solar slightly below, according to the national meteorological administration.
newsnetwork.mayoclinic (2022-05-13). 5-05-2022 Media Only News Briefing: Hepatitis in children: What parents need to know. newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org A sudden increase in the number of children experiencing severe hepatitis has caught the attention of national health experts. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued an alert to healthcare providers about pediatric patients suffering from significant liver injury who also tested positive for adenovirus. What are the symptoms? What can cause hepatitis? And when should parents be concerned? Two Mayo Clinic experts, Dr. Sara Hassan, a pediatric transplant hepatologist with the Mayo Clinic Children's Center and Dr….
newsnetwork.mayoclinic (2022-05-13). Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast: What parents should know about the new hepatitis outbreak in children. newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org At least 20 countries and 10 U.S. states have identified unusual hepatitis cases in children. Experts advise that cases are extremely rare, with just under 300 children affected worldwide. Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver. It is most commonly caused by a viral infection, although there are other potential causes. A common adenovirus is being investigated as a potential cause for this hepatitis outbreak. Adenoviruses are a group of viruses that typically cause respiratory and…
newsnetwork.mayoclinic (2022-05-13). Tips on preventing falls at home. newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org Each year, millions of people are treated in emergency departments across the country for fall injuries. In fact, falling accounts for the most trauma center visits in all ages. A fall can put you at risk of serious injury and can be a sign of another health issue. There are some simple tips to prevent falls, especially in your home. Watch: Tips on preventing falls at home youtu.be/LU5yEEWc5zc Journalists: Broadcast-quality video pkg (1: 39) is in…
newsnetwork.mayoclinic (2022-05-13). What may be behind the unexplained cases of hepatitis in kids. newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org Several countries, including the U.S., have identified or are investigating unexplained hepatitis cases in children. While the reported cases are appearing in clusters, they remain rare. About 200 children are affected worldwide."What we're hearing from the places that are reporting these cases is that there are some children — usually previously healthy kids without underlying medical conditions — who have been admitted to hospital with severe hepatitis or severe inflammation of their liver," says Dr….
x____ (2022-05-13). Saudi aggressor coalition brutally tortures, kills Yemenis. en.mehrnews.com TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) — Saudi-led coalition forces brutally tortured 25 Yemeni civilians which resulted in the killing of seven of them, Yemeni Ministry of Health announced on Friday.
Mike Ludwig (2022-05-13). Overdose Deaths Are Higher Than Ever, and the GOP Is Exploiting the Crisis. truthout.org As the projected number of fatal drug overdoses in 2021 breaks another devastating record, Republicans are threatening to undermine public health efforts and inflame the failed war on drugs if they win control of Congress. | Provisional
Peoples Health Dispatch (2022-05-13). What does the Marcos-Duterte government mean for access to health in the Philippines? peoplesdispatch.org The election of Bongbong Marcos and Sara Duterte is cause for concern for health justice activists in the Philippines as they expect increased persecution and insufficient budget for health…
Peoples Health Dispatch (2022-05-13). Healthcare in Kenya remains elusive due to commercialization. peoplesdispatch.org 
A report by the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights shines light on harmful effects of commercialization of health in Kenya among communities living in informal urban settlements…
Peoples Health Dispatch (2022-05-13). Israel sentences Palestinian nurse and health activist Shatha Odeh to 16 months in prison. peoplesdispatch.org On International Nurses Day, an Israeli military tribunal gave nurse and health activist Shatha Odeh a 16-month prison sentence. was given a 5 year suspended sentence on the condition that she does not provide health servicesfeat…
Michael Berkowitz (2022-05-13). 'Severance': Alienation and its discontents. peoplesworld.org 
Have you ever thought your job was meaningless, mind-numbing, even harmful to your mental health? Have you ever noticed how people so often separate their work from their non-work lives? What could possibly be the actual harm? It's only a job, not something that affects one's actual self-worth or shapes their entire lives. Or is …
____ (2022-05-13). Live updates: Thousands of nurses protest in DC; nurses prepare for sentencing of RaDonda Vaught on Friday. wsws.org Nearly 10,000 nurses and other health care workers from throughout the US participated in the "DC Nurses March" on Thursday, while thousands are converging on Tennessee Friday, the day that nurse RaDonda Vaught will be sentenced.
____ (2022-05-13). Senate Democrats hold phony vote on abortion rights legislation. wsws.org The Senate consideration of the Women's Health Protection Act was entirely for show, with its failure known in advance to all participants.
