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Author: Leslie Eastman

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Leslie Eastman

I am an Environmental Health and Safety Professional, as well as a science/technical writer for a variety of news and professional publications. I have been a citizen activist since 2009, and am one of the co-founders of the San Diego-based group, Southern California Tax Revolt Coalition.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 26, 2014 9 Comments
I got the gift of karma last night, after returning home from a wonderful Christmas dinner with the in-laws. Why karma?  Because  one of the articles about infectious diseases I missed covering noted that this year's flu shot was ineffective against the most dominant strain of the virus:
The flu vaccine may not be very effective this winter, according to U.S. health officials who worry this may lead to more serious illnesses and deaths. Flu season has begun to ramp up, and officials say the vaccine does not protect well against the dominant strain seen most commonly so far this year. That strain tends to cause more deaths and hospitalizations, especially in the elderly. Though we cannot predict what will happen the rest of this flu season, it's possible we may have a season that's more severe than most," said Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, at a news conference Thursday. CDC officials think the vaccine should provide some protection and still are urging people to get vaccinated. But it probably won't be as good as if the vaccine strain was a match.
So I came down with a case of that dominant strain last night, as I had received the 2014 vaccine in September. The nausea is so awful that it cannot be described with words -- it must be experienced. We spend millions of our taxpayer dollars for professionals to asses which strains to feature in the annual vaccine mixture. Yet, once again, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fail at its primary job task.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 22, 2014 16 Comments
Although the media has recently been less focused on Ebola, the disease is still impacting Africa and the death count now tops 7000. Meanwhile, a new epidemic of a disease that was once thought well-contained by vaccinations may be occurring in my home state of California. The number of cases of whooping cough (pertussis) has skyrocketed this year.
Nearly 10,000 cases have been reported in the state so far this year, and babies are especially prone to hospitalization or even death. ...Whooping cough is cyclical in nature and tends to peak every three to five years. The last outbreak of the disease in California was in 2010. But doctors are discovering that immunity from the current vaccine may be wearing off on a similar timeline. Medical recommendations suggest booster shots after eight years, but doctors are seeing kids who received a booster three years ago getting sick. Public health officials are considering an update to the recommendations to account for the dip in immunity seen after three years. Plus, many kids in some areas aren't getting vaccinated at all. The highest rates of whooping cough are found in the Bay Area counties of Sonoma, Napa and Marin, which also have some of the highest rates of parents who opt out of vaccinating their children. Doctors believe these kids are the root of the current and recent epidemics.
Whooping cough feels like a cold at first, but an intense cough that develops later can produce a "whooping" sound. The disease is caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. It can be treated with antibiotics, but the drugs may not be effective when the illness is in the severe coughing stages. Whooping cough can last for weeks and is especially dangerous to infants under 1 year. California isn't the only state seeing jumps in pertussis infections.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 17, 2014 6 Comments
Last week, traffic on two Los Angeles freeways came to a halt as fire crews responded to a massive inferno that incinerated a downtown luxury apartment complex under construction. There is currently no cause that has been officially determined by arson investigators. The best lead in this case may be two men who were captured on video near the scene, in recordings taken shortly after the fire ignited.
Investigators asked for the public’s help Monday to identify two men seen on surveillance video taken the day of the massive apartment fire in downtown L.A. last week. Two men authorities say are potential witnesses are seen in surveillance video walking in the area of the fire, which caused tens of millions of dollars in damage Dec. 8 to the seven-story Da Vinci Complex, 906 N. Fremont Ave.. The two individuals are not considered suspects or persons of interest, and investigators would like to interview them because they were in the area of the fire, officials said. One edited video apparently shows a man in a black jacket, black pants and a black and white baseball cap grabbing at the fence around the apartment complex as it burned before firefighters pull him away from the fence, KNX 1070’s Claudia Peschiutta reports. ...A second video shows a different man, wearing a football jersey with the number 21, a backpack and a baseball cap walking by the area.
A CBS Local video reviews the details as they are known:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 16, 2014 16 Comments
It looks like a mumps outbreak has body-checked the National Hockey League!
This is the most baffling sports medicine story of the year: Thirteen NHL players and two referees have been diagnosed with mumps—a potentially severe and exceedingly viral infection that classically causes fever, body aches, malaise, and in about half of cases, parotitis (a painful swelling of the salivary glands). It's gotten so bad in the NHL that Sidney Crosby set off a mumps alert last week when he spoke to reporters with a welt on his face. (On Sunday, the Penguins confirmed Crosby does indeed have the disease.) So what's going on? The story of this outbreak appears to have begun in early November, when Anaheim Ducks defenseman Francois Beauchemin noticed a swelling in his jaw after a game against the Arizona Coyotes on November 7th. A few hours later, he developed a fever, chills, muscle aches, and lost his appetite. Four days later, he was ten pounds lighter. By then, the virus was spreading around the Ducks locker room. Three of his teammates would catch the disease before it leapt to other teams: the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, and the Minnesota Wild, where five players came down with mumps, including all-star defenseman Ryan Suter. "Ten percent of our team population contracted it," Minnesota Wild general manager Chuck Fletcher recently said. "As far as I know, everybody received the immunization when they were young." If that's true, what's the explanation? We know that the mumps vaccine unquestionably works—cases in the United States declined by 99 percent following its introduction in 1967—so why is an outbreak in hockey happening now?
CBS This Morning reviews the story:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 09, 2014 10 Comments
We Californians were happy to see the months of October and November pass without a significant wildfire, especially since there was an unusually early start to the fire season in May. However, December opened up with an intense conflagration that may be a real "man-caused disaster".
A large fire in downtown Los Angeles destroyed an apartment tower that was under construction and forced the closure of parts of two major freeways, snarling rush-hour traffic Monday morning. More than 250 firefighters were battling the blaze at 909 West Temple Street early Monday, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman David Ortiz told the Los Angeles Times. Fire officials also said that two other buildings nearby suffered damage. One building suffered "radiant heat damage" on three floors, while the second suffered fire damage on three floors and water damage on the remaining 14 floors. Officials are inclined to believe it may have been intentionally set, The Times reports. Fires of this magnitude are treated as criminal fires. However, Capt. James Moore said it is "very rare the whole building is engulfed."
Twitter lit up with video from "citizen reporters" via Instagram, and one Los Angelino post this item to YouTube.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 07, 2014 13 Comments
Professor Jacobson may be taking a much needed sanity break from the Saturday Night Card game, but the social justice warriors continue to draw from the bottom of the deck. The most shocking aspect of one of the race-based demonstrations that occurred Saturday: It was in the heart of one of the most elite, "culturally sensitive" centers of the country -- Hollywood.
Hundreds of people taking part in a nationwide protest against police brutality staged a die-in Saturday in the same busy Hollywood intersection where a man allegedly armed with a knife was shot and killed by Los Angeles police officers the previous night. As they marched through the streets of Hollywood during the afternoon hours, demonstrators chanted “Hands up, don’t shoot” and “I can’t breathe,” refrains heard around the nation in protest following the fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and the choke hold death of Eric Garner in New York. Both men died at the hands of police. Protesters also staged a “die-in” at the intersection of Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue, where less than 24 hours earlier, police fatally shot a man after law enforcement officials said he did not comply with officer orders. The demonstrators blocked traffic in the area and essentially shut the busy intersection down for a time.
A photo spread via Twitter will give you a sense of the scene. LI #34b

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 06, 2014 10 Comments
Ridiculous may indeed be an apt description of the Obama administration's foreign policy platform. However, that probably was not US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki wanted to convey when she commented on Egypt's former president's being cleared of murder charges that we covered earlier this week. Via Washington Free Beacon:
State Department spokesperson and perennial question dodger Jen Psaki was caught admitting that her prepared ‘line’ on Egypt was “ridiculous” after a press briefing Monday. After Associated Press reporter Matt Lee pressed her to comment on Egypt’s decision to clear former President Hosni Mubarak of murder.... Lee was astonished at the response, and took the opportunity to point out that the answer was meaningless. “Wow, I don’t understand that at all,” Lee said. “What you said says nothing. It’s like saying, ‘We support the right of people to breathe.’” Psaki declined to give any further comment to reporters during the briefing. However, as the lights dimmed, Psaki was exasperated and told Lee how she really felt, not realizing her microphone was still on. “That Egypt line is ridiculous,” Psaki said.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 03, 2014 5 Comments
Has anyone else noticed that since Ferguson hit the news, there has been a lot less press attention paid to America's favorite virus? When checking the status of the epidemic, I discovered that there is another potential Ebola patient in this country.
Massachusetts General Hospital is treating a patient suspected of having contracted the Ebola virus, Public Affairs Officer Noah Brown has confirmed to Boston.com. Dr. Paul Biddinger, Director Of Emergency Preparedness at MGH, said the patient involved in the suspected Ebola case meets the CDC definition of a “person under investigation” to possibly have the ebola virus. “This definition involves the possibility of travel to where Ebola is present, the possibility of exposure to that virus, and symptoms that are consistent with that virus,” Biddinger said at a press conference Tuesday evening. The patient is in stable condition and good spirits, according to Biddinger. He declined to answer specific questions about the patient—including travel history, potential exposure to others, and location in the hospital—citing an inability to comment on individual patient details. Biddiger did say, though, that there is not a reason for panic.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on December 01, 2014 3 Comments
It looks like Ferguson isn't the only place experiencing violent protests in the wake of a controversial legal decision. In Cairo, crowds erupted when Egypt's former President Hosni Mubarak was cleared of murder charges.
Egyptian police have used tear gas to disperse protesters angry that charges against ex-President Hosni Mubarak over killings during the uprising three years ago have been dropped. About 2,000 people massed in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the birthplace of the 2011 revolution. At least one person was reported killed in the clashes. Mubarak was originally sentenced to life in jail then cleared in a retrial. In a TV interview after the ruling, Mubarak said he did "nothing wrong". The former president, 86, is serving a separate three-year sentence for embezzlement of public funds.
A video report shows the scale of the demonstrations, and indicates Mubarak may be released early, after serving two-thirds of his corruption sentence. Egypt's current leader is trying to calm the storm.
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi stressed on Sunday that "the new Egypt, born after the January 25 and the June 30 revolutions … cannot move backwards," in a statement issued in reaction to the acquittal of former President Hosni Mubarak.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 29, 2014 9 Comments
One of my favorite Christmas moments is when I watch "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" with my son. This year, I didn't have to pull out the DVD to review the story. Ferguson protesters captured its essence by surrounding  some children caroling for a Christmas tree lighting in Seattle and making them cry.
Demonstrators marched through holiday traffic, blocked intersections and shut down light rail service to Westlake station. Some protesters moved the demonstration to the edge of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, where they clashed with police officers. Both officers and demonstrators used pepper spray, police said. Some protesters wore gas masks. Later, the city's traditional Christmas lighting ceremony at Westlake started early after protesters surrounded the area and began rallying. Police turned out in force, arresting five people and prompting the mall to close several hours early.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 27, 2014 13 Comments
While Ebola continues to rage in West Africa, an outbreak of another deadly disease is occurring in the African island nation of Madagascar.
An outbreak of bubonic plague in Madagascar has now claimed almost 50 victims and is spreading to the island's capital, officials warned today. There have been 138 suspected cases of the disease - similar to the Black Death in medieval Europe - since the start of the year, with the death toll of 47 expected to rise in the coming months. Two people have been infected in the capital of Antananarivo, one of them dying, and health workers have mounted a pest control campaign through slum areas around the city. The health ministry said 200 households had been ‘disinfected’ this month, adding that those who had contact with the infected had been given antibiotics in a bid to arrest the spread the disease.
A video glimpse of the situation comes via the UK Daily Mail:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 26, 2014 53 Comments
A lot of San Diegans were caught in gridlock when a group of student protesters from my alma mater, University of California - San Diego, blocked Interstate 5 just in time for morning rush hour.
Dozens of UCSD students brought traffic to a halt on northbound Interstate 5 Wednesday morning to protest the decision of a grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., not to indict a white policeman for killing an unarmed black teenager. A crowd of an estimated 50 to 70 protesters marched onto the freeway at Nobel Drive at about 6:49 a.m., blocking the northbound lanes. They remained in the roadway for about 40 minutes until San Diego police arrived and removed them. The protesters left the freeway peacefully and began marching on surface streets. There were no immediate reports of arrests. The demonstrators, led by an unidentified man with a bullhorn, held signs objecting to the Missouri grand jury’s decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was unarmed but allegedly came at the officer and, at one point, tried to take his service weapon from him.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 26, 2014 2 Comments
Some good news from the frontlines related to our battle with Ebola: The outbreak is now "stable" in Guinea, according to the World Health Organization.
There were still some flare ups in the south-east, but things were improving in other prefectures, WHO co-ordinator Dr Guenael Rodier told the BBC. More than 5,400 people have died in the latest outbreak, with Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia the worst hit. The outbreak can be ended by mid-2015 if the world speeds up its response, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has said.
Although the rate of new cases shows signs of decreasing in parts of West Africa, Mali - where six people have died and a seventh case has been reported - is now of concern. Additionally, the United Nations Ebola Emergency Response Mission has formally announced that it will not meet its self-imposed December 1st deadline of containment.
The mission set the goal in September, seeking to have 70 percent of Ebola patients under treatment and 70 percent of Ebola victims safely buried. That target will be achieved in some areas, head of UNMEER Anthony Banbury told Reuters news agency, citing progress in Liberia. "We are going to exceed the December 1 targets in some areas. But we are almost certainly going to fall short in others. In both those cases, we will adjust to what the circumstances are on the ground," he said in an interview.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 26, 2014 19 Comments
One of my most haunting memories from childhood involves a group of teens from a local Michigan high school; they pounded on our front door and begged my mom to call the police. This was during the 1967 Detroit Riots, when several groups of hostile students decided to take the conflict into our small suburb. My father was away, working as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press, and his team's coverage of this event lead to a Pulitzer Prize. My mom took the students in, made the call, and comforted everyone until parents arrived to pick up the group who fled to our doorstep. A short summary of this event via PBS shows seems similar to what unfolded yesterday:
For five days in July, Detroit, Michigan descends into chaos. An economic boom has created jobs, and urban renewal projects have built new infrastructure, but blacks have been left behind. New expressways destroy black neighborhoods, and economic opportunities are scarce for black residents. The 95% white police force, notorious for brutal and arbitrary treatment of black citizens, raids an illegal after hours club and draws an angry, frustrated crowd that quickly turns hostile. As Sunday July 23rd dawns, the growing crowd is looting and burning the city. Twelve hours into the frenzy, Governor George Romney calls in the Michigan National Guard; unprepared troops make mistakes like shooting out the street lights. Nearly 4000 people will be arrested in the first two days, and over 7000 by the third. Most are young and black. Police and guardsmen shoot at will, with some later insisting that all of their victims were armed.
Some footage from the station, WXYZ, and covered by two of the areas best-known reporters of that era:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 23, 2014 21 Comments
A settlement reached in early November between the EPA and two car manufacturers may have as much impact on the economic health of the country as the recent wave election that ushered in a Republican Senate. Essentially, the result of this legal case means that rules to prevent "global warming" will be implemented by the use of "lawfare" instead of science and technology. On November 3rd it was reported that Hyundai and Kia will pay a record combined $100 million penalty for overstating fuel economy estimates for many of their vehicles.
The South Korean automakers had already agreed to pay consumers for the difference in estimated fuel costs, when the discrepancy was discovered by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2012. The civil fine and other penalties announced Monday are in addition to those direct payments to vehicle owners. The vehicles involved were the Hyundai Accent, Elantra, Veloster and Santa Fe and the Kia Rio and Soul. The automakers overstated fuel economy figures for their vehicles by an average of six miles per gallon, the EPA said.
And while the mainstream media was reporting this as a big win for the environment against an evil big business, a closer look at the origin of the problem points to vague regulatory language -- a hallmark of bureaucrats who want to promote an agenda than actually address valid technical concerns. :

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 18, 2014 15 Comments
As Ebola continues to rage in Africa, one key person seems to be missing in action: Ron Klain, Ebola Czar.
Ebola was on the top of everyone’s minds five weeks ago, but now that it’s largely disappeared from the mainstream media, it continues to fade into the background in this country. But the fact remains: Ebola continues to kill hundreds of people in Africa. Ebola continues to destroy families and leave many children without parents. It was sad for me to hear about the passing of a surgeon – who was a citizen of Sierra Leone and a permanent resident of the U.S. – on Monday. From what I know, he was a dedicated health care professional who did his best to keep his patients safe and alive. But what is sadder to me is that our Ebola czar, Ron Klain, did not have the courage to publicly come out and offer a statement in regards to the death of this physician, and also has failed in keeping the American public informed about the progress in this Ebola war.
I would have expected a political operative such as Klain to at least try to "message" us. Hopefully, we won't discover videos of him calling Americans stupid for being concerned about a potential pandemic..after being paid millions in taxpayer dollars for questionably professional services. However, at least Ebola did attract some mainstream media coverage. That differs from Enterovirus-D68, which has swept through the country and has sent hundreds of American children into emergency rooms with respiratory distress. There has been very limited, local coverage. One of the few who took up the story is Sharryl Attkisson, who now reports that 12 deaths have now been linked to this pathogen.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on November 12, 2014 16 Comments
Just as the last remaining US patient with Ebola, Dr. Craig Spencer, is released from New York's Bellevue Hospital, comes a report that another tropical disease, deemed "the new AIDS," has already infected 300,000 people and is poised to strike more.
Over 300,000 Americans have already been infected with the potentially fatal 'kissing bug disease' called Chagas but U.S. healthcare workers lack of knowledge about the illness is letting many cases of the parasite unnoticed. Some doctors are calling it the 'new AIDS' because of the way it develops. Researchers who gathered on Tuesday at the annual American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene meeting in New Orleans said that if caught early the disease can be cured however sometimes the disease can be asymptomatic and there is a dearth in medication for the condition. The CDC reports that the initial symptoms of the disease caused by a parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, which is spread through the feces of kissing bugs includes fever, fatigue, body aches, rash, diarrhea and vomiting. One of the first visual signs can be a skin lesion or a purplish swelling of the lid of one eye.
More details are offered in an IN News Report:
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