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Friday, April 29, 2011

A huge thunderstorm system spawning massive tornadoes ripped through the south-eastern US Wednesday evening and early Thursday morning, killing at least 306 people in six states and causing wide spread property damage. Some 173 tornadoes have been reported from New York to Texas. In the worst hit state of Alabama, at least 210 are confirmed dead, including 36 in Tuscaloosa alone.

Deaths also were reported in Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Kentucky.

Up to one million people in Alabama were without power. A nuclear power plant was shut down in Alabama after it lost power to its three units, an operation of the plant’s safety systems.

Seven states have declared a state of emergency, and federal aid is being sent to Alabama. Governor Robert J. Bentley said he was activating 2,000 Alabama National Guard personell to aid in search and rescue. President Barack Obama, who plans to visit Alabama on Friday to view the destruction, sent a message of condolence to the governor:

“Michelle and I extend our deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives because of the tornadoes that have swept through Alabama and the southeastern United States. Our hearts go out to all those who have been affected by this devastation, and we commend the heroic efforts of those who have been working tirelessly to respond to this disaster. I just spoke to Governor Bentley and told him that I have ordered the Federal Government to move quickly in our response and informed him that I approved his request for emergency Federal assistance, including search and rescue assets. While we may not know the extent of the damage for days, we will continue to monitor these severe storms across the country and stand ready to continue to help the people of Alabama and all citizens affected by these storms.”

Preliminary estimates of the tornado hitting Tuscaloosa suggest it tore along the ground for 176 miles and contained winds up to 200 miles per hour. The devastation included residential and commercial areas, as well as the city’s infrastructure and civic buildings.

“I don’t know how anyone survived,” said Mayor Walter Maddox of Tuscaloosa. “We’re used to tornadoes here in Tuscaloosa. It’s part of growing up. But when you look at the path of destruction that’s likely 5 to 7 miles long in an area half a mile to a mile wide … it’s an amazing scene. There’s parts of the city I don’t recognize, and that’s someone that’s lived here his entire life.”

Officials did not want to give specific numbers for death toll and destruction in specific states, as the extent of the damage and human injury and death is not completely known. According the the Los Angeles Times, “Mississippi officials reported 32 dead, Tennessee raised its report to 29, Georgia reported 13, Virginia said it had eight deaths and Kentucky reported at least one death. The number of injured was in the hundreds, with that number also expected to rise.”

“In terms of the ground-up damage and quite possibly the insured damage, this event will be of historic proportions,” Jose Miranda, from EQECAT, a catastrophe risk modeling firm,

The severe weather warning has been continued through Thursday, and includes parts of New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

This outbreak of tornadoes is considered the deadliest since 1974 when more than 300 were killed in a tornado outbreak. On March 18, 1925, 695 people died in a storm.

Greg Carbin, meteorologist at the National Weather Service, said, “May is usually the most active tornado month. Will it maintain the activity of April, we just cannot say.”

Friday, May 6, 2005

On Thursday the 22nd of March, 2005, Anna Ayala, a woman from Las Vegas, claimed to have found a human finger in her bowl of chili at a Wendy’s restaurant located at 1405 Monterey Highway, just south of downtown San Jose, California, owned by Fresno-based Jern Management.. The finger, which probably belonged to a woman as it had a long and manicured fingernail, did not belong to any of the restaurant employees. The food supplies were seized by officials to be traced back to its manufacturers, while the restaurant was permitted to open again later with chili prepared from fresh ingredients.

Wikinews reporter David Vasquez drove his car up to the drive-thru menu and found that chili was still on the menu, at a price of US$1.19 for a small serving. He also witnessed workers unloading supplies from a semi-trailer truck in the restaurant’s parking lot, and carting them into the back door of the establishment.

Initially, county health officials said Ayala was fine and the finger had been cooked, which would have killed any bacteriae in the finger. However, on March 27, officials admitted they were not so sure anymore. Tests were done on the finger to determine this. Dr. Martin Fenstersheib, Santa Clara County’s health officer, said that even if the finger was still raw when Ayala bit into it, the risk was low that she would have become infected with anything. However, he advised that Ayala should undergo a series of precautionary follow-up tests.

Sales at Wendy’s went down because of the incident. Wendy’s International, Inc. (WEN) closed at US$39.43 on Thursday the 22nd, and as the stock exchange was closed for the Good Friday holiday, traders did not weigh in the stock until the next Monday.

By Tuesday the 5th of April, officials had still not succeeded in tracking down the owner of the finger. The fingerprint on the detached digit has been run through an FBI database as well as the local criminal database in Santa Clara County, but no matches were found. According to Rich Reneau, who was leading the investigation at the time, the fingerprint was marginal, and the likelihood of finding a match was slim.

Wendy’s stock did not go down significantly and was trading at US$39.37 that morning.

The next day, on Wednesday the 6th, Las Vegas police searched the home of Anna Ayala. About a dozen officers conducted the search at Ayala’s home at Maryland Parkway and Serene Street at about 4 p.m. local time (23:00 UTC), according to witnesses at the scene. Ayala and other residents were handcuffed and brought out of the house. Ayala said that her teenage daughter, Genesis Reyes, had torn shoulder ligaments as a result of the search. The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran a photo of Reyes wearing a sling in their Friday edition. In San Jose, police spokeswoman Gina Tepoorten confirmed to reporters that investigators had served the warrant in cooperation with Las Vegas police on Wednesday, but she refused to reveal specific details about the warrant. By that time, Wendy’s was offering a US$50,000 reward for information leading to the source of the finger.

Research by the Associated Press uncovered Ayala’s history of lawsuits. Ayala successfully won her suit for medical expenses against the national El Pollo Loco chicken-chain, a previous employer, after her daughter Genesis contracted salmonella poisoning, allegedly from eating at the restaurant. However, Ayala lost another suit against General Motors in 2000 claiming that a wheel fell off her car. She also started a sexual harassment suit against her former boss in 1998. A total of 13 lawsuits in California and Nevada had been filed. Ayala replied the focus should be on Wendy’s, and not her record of law suits. Nick Muyo, a spokesman for the San Jose Police department, said not to expect new information in the case for at least a week.

On Wednesday the 13th there was a potential new lead in the investigation. A spotted leopard had torn off part of a finger from an owner of exotic animals, Sandy Allman, in Pahrump, Nevada. The portion of Allman’s torn off finger was approximately the same size – 1 1/2-inches long. Pahrump is approximately 45 miles away from Las Vegas. Carol Asvestas, who owns an exotic animal sanctuary, told the San Jose Mercury News she witnessed the leopard tear off the finger. She reported the incident to a hotline run by Wendy’s offering the US$50,000 reward. Cindy Carroccio told the San Jose Mercury News that the finger was not reattached, and that the clinic “gave it back to her (Allman) in a little bag of ice.” On the same day the lead was announced, Ayala decided to drop her lawsuit against Wendy’s, due to emotional stress.

However, when Allman’s prints were sent to San Jose police, they didn’t match. Two days later, on Friday the 15th, Wendy’s doubled the reward to US$100,000. The company revealed that employees had passed polygraph tests. Wendy’s continues to claim that there is no evidence that the finger ever entered their supply chain, pointing to a lack of any accidents among the workers at their suppliers. Wendy’s tip line had received reports from across the United States, from “folks who either have lost a finger, or know somebody who lost a finger,” San Jose police Sgt. Nick Muyo told the Associated Press.

On Thursday the 21st of April, Anna Ayala was arrested at or near her home in Las Vegas on Thursday evening, in connection with the case, shortly after Wendy’s finished its own internal investigation. According to court documents, she has been charged with one count of attempted grand larceny related to the chili case, and one count of grand larceny in an unrelated real estate deal, and is being held without bail in Clark County, Nevada, pending extradition. A press conference by the San Jose Police and Wendy’s was held on Friday, April 22, at 13:00 PDT. The charge related to the case states the finger could not have been prepared at Wendy’s, where the chili is heated to 170 degrees for 3 hours. There is also an inconsistency in Ayala’s account of finding the finger and claiming it caused her to vomit compared with police saying there was no vomit at the scene. The incident has caused Wendy’s 2.5 million dollars worth of damages, which Ayala could be criminally responsible for. Until recently, the San Jose police had not accused Ayala of planting the finger herself.

The unrelated charge stems from an incident, also in San Jose, when Ayala allegedly received an $11,000 down payment on a mobile home she did not own.

Ayala was incarcerated at the Clark County Detention Center, awaiting a fugitive review hearing on Tuesday, April 26, 2005, at 7:30 a.m. local time. She was processed and given inmate ID 01964047. Her case number was 05F07229X. Ayala waived extradition at the hearing, and her attorney said they were ready to come to San Jose to defend against the charges.

On Friday, May 6, 2005, Ayala was transported to San Jose, California. Ayala was booked into the main Santa Clara County jail, and is awaiting arraignment. Ayala will likely be arraigned on Monday or Tuesday at the Santa Clara County Superior Court, according to Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney David Boyd.

On September 9, 2005, Ayala plead guilty to conspiring to file a false claim and attempted grand theft, and will be sentenced on November 2, 2005. She faces up to ten years in prison, and her husband faces up to 13 years behind bars.

Until the middle of May, the owner of the finger still had not been found.

But on May 13, 2005, police announced that they had identified the finger tip as belonging to an associate of Ayala’s husband [1]. The associate had lost his finger tip in an industrial accident at an asphalt company[2] in December, 2004. Police had received the information from an undisclosed caller to Wendy’s hot-line.

Photos related to this incident:

• The Wendy’s location where the finger was discovered, shortly after closing time March 22

• Chili was still on the menu as the restaurant closed for the evening on March 22

• Workers unload fresh supplies after closing time on March 22

• The Wendy’s location on March 27

• Ayala residence in Las Vegas, Nevada, shot on April 22, 2005 by Wikinews contributor David Vasquez

• Note on Ayala residence door, photographed on April 22, 2005 by David Vasquez

Monday, December 3, 2007

At Thanksgiving dinner David Shankbone told his white middle class family that he was to interview Reverend Al Sharpton that Saturday. The announcement caused an impassioned discussion about the civil rights leader’s work, the problems facing the black community and whether Sharpton helps or hurts his cause. Opinion was divided. “He’s an opportunist.” “He only stirs things up.” “Why do I always see his face when there’s a problem?”

Shankbone went to the National Action Network’s headquarters in Harlem with this Thanksgiving discussion to inform the conversation. Below is his interview with Al Sharpton on everything from Tawana Brawley, his purported feud with Barack Obama, criticism by influential African Americans such as Clarence Page, his experience running for President, to how he never expected he would see fifty (he is now 53). “People would say to me, ‘Now that I hear you, even if I disagree with you I don’t think you’re as bad as I thought,'” said Sharpton. “I would say, ‘Let me ask you a question: what was “bad as you thought”?’ And they couldn’t say. They don’t know why they think you’re bad, they just know you’re supposed to be bad because the right wing tells them you’re bad.”

Sunday, July 24, 2005

The World Health Organization’s Beijing spokesman has said that the People’s Republic of China has withheld vital information regarding H5N1 outbreaks, a type of bird flu that is infecting animals throughout Asia. The animals most affected by the disease are those among waterfowl and poultry, however in recents months it has infected humans and has also been discovered in tigers as well as swine. The Nation magazine quotes WHO officials as saying that the strain has the potential of causing a human pandemic (global epidemic) resulting in tens of millions of deaths.

The first appearance of this type of flu was in Hong Kong during 1997. As of July 21, 2005, one hundred and nine cases of human infection have been confirmed resulting in fifty five deaths outside of China reports the Centers for Disease Control. China has reported no deaths in the recent outbreaks, leading to speculation of a cover up. The Economist says eleven countries across Asia have been affected, and more than one hundred and twenty million birds have died from infection or been culled. Although this week a case was found in Russia making it the first European country with an infection and twelfth in the world.

Usually these flu viruses are carried worldwide by wild bird populations in their intestines and are non-lethal. However this variant has mutated into the most lethal strain of influenza ever recorded says Mike Davis, author of The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu. Such occurrences are natural and have happened in the past as in the 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic.

The current virus is morphing into a type that is spread among humans with the first human-to-human cases found in Vietnam during 2005. When avian influenza subtypes adapt for this mode of transmission the effect is deadly for humans as the immune system has no natural immunities for it and the production of appropriate antibodies to fight the infection takes some time.

Further complicating the effort to combat H5N1, it was reported in the Washington Post that the People’s Republic of China has been administering the medication Amantadine to poultry in violation of international livestock regulations that state it is for human use only since the late-1990s (all the time officially denying any cases of bird flu among its poultry); the result has been that the virus is now largely immune to the medication and is significantly deadlier. World Health Organization officials had been preparing to use the drug to fight a future pandemic and now it has been rendered useless.

Chinese government officials have said more than 1,000 migratory birds have been found dead during 2005 and there have been unofficial Internet reports of one hundred and twenty related human fatalities that are strongly denied by Beijing.

China has previously irked international agencies for its handling of public and agricultural health crises, notably the SARS epidemic that began in 2002. China’s health minister was fired after the government acknowledged it had covered up the extent of the SARS outbreak by preventing reports about the illness for months and by minimizing its seriousness says the Washgington Post.

Margaret Chan, WHO director of pandemic influenza preparedness is pressing China to allow laboratories to examine specimens from birds in Qinghai, where the H5N1 virus has killed more than 5,000 birds from five species. Recombinomics has found Chinese message boards indicating part of Qinghai province may be under martial law and quarantine.

Three outbreaks of H5N1 have affected China in recent months but the World Health Organization has not received the information or the virus samples from infected birds that they requested. “It is a matter of urgency,” said Roy Wadia, the WHO’s speaker in China. “We stress that this virus is highly unpredictable and versatile and can change any time. It is highly dangerous.”

Friday, March 23, 2007

In a press release earlier today, New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker, along with Dean of Cornell University’s College of Veterinary Medicine Donald F. Smith, confirmed that scientists at the New York State Food Laboratory identified Aminopterin as a toxin present in cat food samples from Menu Foods.

Menu Foods is the manufacturer of several brands of cat and dog food subject to a March 16, 2007 recall.

Aminopterin is a drug used in chemotherapy for its immunosuppressive properties and, in some areas outside the US, as a rat poison. Earlier reports stated that wheat gluten was a factor being investigated, and officials now state that the toxin would have come from Chinese wheat used in the pet food, where it is used for pest control. Investigators will not say that this is the only contaminant found in the recalled food, but knowing the identity of the toxin should assist veterinarians treating affected animals.

The Food Laboratory tested samples of cat food received from a toxicologist at the New York State Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell University. The samples were found to contain the rodenticide at levels of at least 40 parts per million.

Commissioner Hooker stated, “We are pleased that the expertise of our New York State Food Laboratory was able to contribute to identifying the agent that caused numerous illnesses and deaths in dogs and cats across the nation.”

The press release suggests Aminopterin, a derivative of folic acid, can cause cancer and birth defects in humans and can cause kidney damage in dogs and cats. Aminopterin is not permitted for use in the United States.

The New York State Food Laboratory is part of the Federal Food Emergency Response Network (FERN) and as such, is capable of running a number of unique poison/toxin tests on food, including the test that identified Aminopterin.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Possible under reporting of bird flu infections in China and other Southeast Asian countries may be promoting an illusory sense that human infections are very limited. Common press reports only describe fewer than 130 people as infected with H5N1 avian flu and that fewer than 70 have died worldwide. Yet, there are enormous problems getting accurate data, especially in a country like China with a population of more than a billion.

“Reporting a suspected bird flu infection in bird or humans is a very unlikely event,” said Dr. Shoshana Zimmerman of the eHealth Institute. She is also a founder of www.birdflubeacon.com, a site dedicated to bird flu issues. “There are very few incentives to report, and lots of reasons to refrain from reporting. From the viewpoint of local rural small farmers, there is little to be gained and much to be lost by reporting an infection. The worse threat is that their flocks could be killed, leaving them destitute.”

There are many factors which mitigate against reporting bird or human infections of bird flu.

• The deaths of chickens, ducks, and birds are common events for farmer. Even when a large number die at one time they may see no purpose in reporting the deaths.

• When a human dies in locations with little or no medical services, the rural farmer’s priority for discerning the cause of death may be low.

• In rural areas most people are not taken to hospitals when they are sick.

• Bird flu symptoms are not widely known. If the symptoms are not known, they will not be recognized and reports of possible bird or human infections can not be made.

• The expenses required for detection are those of proper collection and shipment of samples to one of approximately 200 laboratories worldwide, as well as the testing procedure that requires a two week period of waiting before results are obtained.

• The lack of incentive for countries to report large scale outbreaks as it may lead to widespread panic and economic loss, as occurred with SARS. These factors can be seen at work in the way that the first bird flu death was reported in China,” Dr. Zimmerman stated.

A young woman, Zhou Maoya, died after returning home to the village of Yantan in Annui province to prepare for her wedding. Her family has stated that they did not take her to the hospital because they thought it would not do any good. Officials also note rural Chinese also often cite relatively expensive medical costs as a reason for not seeking treatment when sick.

Although initially authorities attributed her death to pneumonia the resulting political pressure prompted China to invite the World Health Organization to send experts to investigate. The authorities then rescinded the previous position and attributed her death to bird flu based on the similarity of the symptoms that she was reported to exhibit with those of bird flu. The village was quarantined and journalists were denied access. It is not known how many others might be infected in the village. Official announcements were made of plans to vaccinate and cull birds.

A local government official, Fan Qian, told AFP that it was believed Zhou was infected while she was outside of the province.

Fan Tan, a local official, told AFP news that 1,000 birds in Yantan had been culled (killed). Plans were announced to vaccinate 2 million poultry in the area, a huge and difficult task.

Zhang, another official, said authorities had met with all villagers to give them flu vaccinations and to tell them how to protect themselves against the bird flu virus, including not consuming poultry products. It is known that flu vaccinations do not protect against bird flu.

Villagers and local officials minimized the threat. In outlying areas of Yantan, residents said that they did not know of any new outbreaks. Other possible infections have been attributed to similar common causes but there have not been any tests performed validating those attributions.

Fan Litan, a peasant woman from Fantu village, about 2 miles from Yantan, lost many of her ducks, and chickens and also a dog; she has attributed these deaths to the acts of hooligans. She said her family had been extremely frightened when her animals suddenly died. “We were scared to death,” said Fan, standing next to a red sign posted on the outside wall of her home that said: “Prevention and control by the masses is basic for people.” Fan said ducks and chickens are all healthy but she admitted that she had stopped eating poultry. No testing of these birds has been reported yet.

According to a recent AFP report from Liuchang, 59 miles south of Yantan, the obstacles to identifying infections are enormous.

Like many, one Liuchang villager named Wang Hemin said he was concerned and would keep a closer eye on his ducks and chickens, but felt no immediacy since the infection was not in his province. He learned about bird flu on TV, and is aware that officials have come to his village of 2,700 people to warn residents about the virus. They offered guidelines: they told people that poultry which die suddenly could have contracted bird flu and should not be eaten or sold and that such an incident should also immediately be reported. However, the symptoms of H5N1 bird flu were not directly described.

Residents have not yet been fully informed of what symptoms to look for in ill poultry–they are fever, diarrhea, teary eyes and swelling in the legs of the birds. Though a pledge was made earlier in the week to vaccinate 2 million birds immediately, no bird vaccinations in this area have been reported yet.

In another nearby village, Nazahuang, chickens scuttle in and out of houses. One resident, Fan Jiexu, 73, said no officials had yet warned her village to take precautions. Throughout rural areas, it is customary for chickens to scuttle in and out of homes. Ducks and bird often die and are eaten by villagers when it is believed safe to do so.

China has reported 17 avian flu outbreaks as of this week. Despite the Chinese government issued high alerts, critical information is not being adequately communicated to some rural villages. The size of the poultry population, the common and normal occurrence of poultry death on farms, and status of roughly 70% of the poultry population as being kept in backyards are factors complicating infection control.

The head of World Health Organization’s China office, Henk Bekedam, is aware that slow reaction to bird flu threats and difficulty monitoring poultry in the world’s most populous country makes control of its spread challenging.

Testing is required to confirm H5N1 virus, and positive test results lead to the killing of nearby flocks. The incentive for many villagers, officials, and governments to minimize reports of H5N1 virus infections and severe medical and economic complications for making confirmations of infection are obstacles opposing complete and full reporting of the spread and infection rates of the virus.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

A woman, one of three people who recently died of flu like symptoms, in Lagos, Nigeria, has tested positive for the H5N1 strain of Avian influenza.

It is the first bird flu in Nigeria since the strain arrived in Nigeria a year ago. H5N1 was confirmed in blood samples tested in Rome and London from the three recent deaths.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations stated that while the threat from avian flu has decreased from last year, there still remains flare-ups around the world, urging countries to “remain vigilant and fully cooperate with international organizations”.

Bird flu is spread by wild birds for whom the virus is a stomach disease and, generally, not fatal.

Although the disease has killed 164 people, it has only been out of 269 cases, this gives the disease around a 60% fatality rate compared to the 1918 ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic which had a mortality rate of around 5%.

The outer coat of the virus particle is characterised by two types of glyco-proteins, neurominidase and haemagglutinin, both of which interact with sialic acid.

Haemagglutinin has sixteen forms, H1 to H16, and binds to sialic acid on the target cell, facilitating the entry of the virus.

Neurominidase is found in nine forms, N1 to N9, this protein allows the progeny viri to escape the infected cell by cleaving sialic acid.

The two main drugs against bird flu currently on the market, Tamiflu^® and Relenza^®, both target the sialic acid binding pocket of neurominidase. Neither of these drugs will cure the disease, but will stop its spread through the body. As such they have to be administered within 48 hours of symptoms appearing. In all 9 sub types of neurominidase, the structure of the target area for the drugs is the same. There is also a flu vaccine but the current flu vaccine does not protect against H5N1.

Human to human transmission is very rare, at the moment bird flu can only be caught from prolonged exposure to infected birds, specifically their droppings from which the bird flu virus has been crystallized and parts of the structure solved.

Unlike diseases such as smallpox and measles, for which their are effectively protecting vaccines, the flu virus constantly mutates. Each year the virus is slightly different from the last, this is the genetic drift of the virus – small point mutations on the surface, causing an evasion of our immune system. Many of the problems arise when there is a major shift of the surface proteins, for instance when a different subtype appears, such as H5.

There are three strains of human influenza circulating around the globe; H1N1 first isolated in 1933, H2N2 first isolated in 1957 and H3N2 first isolated in 1968. Other than humans; pigs, seals and horses have various strains of influenza, however only wild birds have all the known subtypes of haemagglutinin and neurominidase. Of the 144 combinations of N(1-9) and H(1-16) we have had three.