Image 01 Image 03
Sign In or RegisterLogout

Author: Leslie Eastman

Profile photo

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 October 30, 2014 25 Comments
Are Democrats at risk of losing the most reliable voting base, Blacks? Or, just as bad for Democrats, having low turnout? This video may just be an anecdote, or it may be the sign of something larger happening. An 82-year old Black woman named Joyce explains why she voted Republican for the first time in her life (via Tammy Bruce via Right Scoop). Joyce's rant is pure gold, and hits on the several points:
  • The economic devastation Democratic policies have wrought on the black community.
  • Abortion and its prevalence among African Americans.
  • The foolishness of calling people "racist" because they disagree with President Obama.
Black disappointment with President Obama himself is hurting Democrats in this election cycle.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 28, 2014 23 Comments
I am going to go out on a limb and project that there are going to be historic election results on November 4th that would have been unimaginable until this August, when reports on Ebola coming to this country began filling the news. This has transformed the women that Democrats have historically relied on, "soccer moms", into "health and safety moms". Because I am both a mother and an environmental health and safety professional, other mothers question me on the latest news related to both Ebola and the potentially deadly Enterovirus D-68. Every last one of those women say that we should have had travel bans, mandatory quarantines, and that the administration isn't being completely candid in its reports related to these pathogens. For example, there is news that the New Jersey nurse quarantined after returning from work with Ebola patients in Africa was just released:
A nurse who was quarantined at a hospital in New Jersey after returning from West Africa was released Monday, her attorney said. Kaci Hickox, who told CNN the quarantine was violating her rights, was discharged after testing negative for Ebola. Hickox was put in isolation Friday after returning to New Jersey from a month in Sierra Leone. Her quarantine, part of a days-old policy the governors of New York and New Jersey instituted for all health care workers who've had contact with Ebola patients in West Africa, has been criticized widely by health care experts. On Sunday, she spoke by phone with CNN's Candy Crowley and Elizabeth Cohen. "This is an extreme that is really unacceptable, and I feel like my basic human rights have been violated," Hickox said. She said she was flummoxed as to how New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who has no medical training, could describe her as "obviously ill."
This video summarizes the story from CNN:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 25, 2014 4 Comments
While all the Ebola-stricken patients in America seem to be on the road to recovery, with the tragic exception of patient zero Thomas Duncan, Enterovirus-D68 is reported to have claimed its 8th victim:
The U.S. death toll from the mysterious Enterovirus D-68 continues to rise. The latest CDC update on the current outbreak of the polio-like Enterovirus D-68 states that it has now been detected “in specimens from eight patients who died and had samples submitted for testing.” That’s one more death than was disclosed in last week’s update. The CDC account does not provide any information as to where the patient died and does not disclose his/her name, age or other details. According to the latest weekly update from CDC, 167 more people have been sickened with EV-D68 in the past week: a total of 973 patients in 47 states and the District of Columbia. That’s up from last week’s total of 796 people in 46 states.
Two new cases have just been reported in North Florida.
Unlike the popular saying, if it quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Health department workers tell us Enterovirus D-68 is a lot like having the common cold, except it isn't. ...Elmira Warren a Gainesville resident said, "I am concerned, I think it's important for us to be in touch with our bodies and if we have any type of symptoms that may be similar to that we should see our physicians."
And Arizona reports its first confirmed case, but many other cases are awaiting the results of testing to determine of they are related to infection with this pathogen.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 23, 2014 7 Comments
Some good news related to Ebola: The nurse who flew to Ohio while ill with an Ebola infection has been declared free of the virus.
Dallas nurse Amber Vinson is free of the Ebola virus and will be transferred from isolation at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, her family said Wednesday. The family also said that the 29-year-old nurse, who contracted the virus from Liberian Thomas Eric Duncan, was regaining strength and that her spirits were high. "We are overjoyed to announce that, as of yesterday evening, officials at Emory University Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control (and Prevention) are no longer able to detect virus in her body," the family said in a statement hours after Vinson spoke with her mother, Debra Berry.
And as the 21-day quarantine ends for the family of the late Thomas Duncan and the healthcare professionals who cared for him during his fatal bout, new questions are being asked about the time period of isolation itself.
As the 48 patients exposed to the first U.S. Ebola patient near the end of their 21-day incubation period on Sunday, Oct. 19, a new study is questioning whether that period is sufficient to keep the public safe. "Twenty-one days has been regarded as the appropriate quarantine period for holding individuals potentially exposed to Ebola Virus to reduce risk of contagion, but there does not appear to be a systemic discussion of the basis for this period," lead researcher Charles Haas, an environmental engineering professor at Drexel University, wrote in the study paper.
In the meantime, it is heartening to learn that nobody else has succumbed to hemorrhagic fever as a result of Duncan's actions.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 23, 2014 0 Comments
My husband and step-daughter are touring Asia, so I asked them what the coverage of the Hong Kong protests has been like. Instead of sending out officials and experts to offer false assurances, the Chinese stations simply black out the reports about the demonstrations. However, my husband indicates that many people outside of China are closely following the developments in the international fiscal center. The demonstrations continue unabated. In fact, the latest round was inspired by a little political candor from C. Y. Leung, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region who is the focus of protesters' ire.
Many were angered by Mr Leung's comments in an interview on Monday, where he said fully democratic elections would lead to populist policies, as poorer residents would have a dominant voice in politics. "If it's entirely a numbers game and numeric representation, then obviously you would be talking to half of the people in Hong Kong who earn less than $1,800 (£1,110) a month," he said. These startlingly frank remarks have not gone down well with many demonstrators, who see it as proof that the political system is rigged on behalf of the rich, the BBC's Juliana Liu in Hong Kong reports. It tallies with the narrative of the city as a place where the gap between rich and poor - which is one of the highest in Asia - is rising, our correspondent adds.
A CNN report describes the latest approach by Hong Kong's officials: Invite the students in to talk, and give them a lecture on law while offering to do a report to send to Beijing. The interaction of the "t-shirts" versus "the suits" was played on a big screen, so that the demonstrators could view the dialog.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 16, 2014 56 Comments
News has spread on social media that a second Dallas nurse known to be infected with the Ebola virus took a flight to Cleveland while experiencing a low grade fever---an early symptom of the disease. It turns out that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rules lead Amber Vinson to continue with her travel plans.
According to the government spokesperson, when Vinson called in, the staff she talked with looked on the CDC website for guidance. At the time, the category for "uncertain risk" had guidance saying that a person could fly commercially if they did not meet the threshold of a temperature of 100.4
So, she did. This situation underscores the biggest failure of the current response to the American Ebola situation: People are desperately clutching to the "it's not easily transmissible" mantra. The problem is that Ebola's origins, modes of transmission, and rate of infection are not completely understood. Ebola is listed as a Class 4 Pathogen, per the CDC's own site: LI #15 c

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 14, 2014 41 Comments
I was talking with biologists yesterday, as part of a work project, and we all were becoming increasingly alarmed at the bureaucratic response to the reports that nurses in Dallas and Spain were stricken with Ebola. I stated that the "tipping point" would be reached if one of the nurses spread the disease to someone else outside of the hospital setting. Presently, 76 Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital workers being monitored for potential infection with Ebola. Once someone outside the healthcare setting was infected, then the chances of this being a more serious health threat to the nation escalate. We are coming perilously close to the tipping point, as it looks like an Alcon employee who is "closely associated" with the Dallas nurse, Nina Pham, is in isolation and under observation to determine if he displays "Ebola symptoms". The CBS Dallas-Fort Worth affiliate offers a video report and post.
Dallas nurse Nina Pham tested positive for the Ebola virus over the weekend. Pham was one of the medical workers who administered treatment to Ebola patient Thomas Duncan, who died from the virus last week. Pham first noticed that she had some of the symptoms on Friday, and her diagnosis was confirmed on Sunday.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 13, 2014 10 Comments
As the news of the first Ebola case contracted within the country rivets the nation, Enterovirus-D68 continues infecting our children. Now it has claimed the life of a Michigan toddler:
A Michigan toddler has died of enterovirus D68, another reminder of the deadly potential of a disease that has infected hundreds nationwide in two months. Madeline Reid died at Children's Hospital of Michigan, where she had been transferred "for advanced services," according to the Detroit hospital's chief medical officer, Dr. Rudolph Valentini. "The CDC confirmed EV-D68 after her arrival here, and she subsequently succumbed to her illness," Valentini said.
News 8 Wood TV files this video report on Madeline's death. A little closer to my home, there has been a jump in the number of cases recorded.
California health officials Friday said they've now identified 32 cases of enterovirus D-68 statewide, a number that's jumped quickly in recent days. In Southern California, four cases were in L.A. County, three in Orange County and one in Ventura County, according to the California Department of Public Health. All 32 patients were identified as children ranging in age from a week old to 15 years old.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 11, 2014 3 Comments
In the wake of news that my future congressional representative may be someone with sound fiscal awareness, and since I am nothing if not optimistic, I took a glace at the status of the California governor's race today. This race pits our state's longest serving governor, Jerry Brown, against the Republican Neel Kashkari, who served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability. Kashkari is one of those rare candidates I like more as the campaign season progresses. In part, it is because he has been innovative on the campaign trail. Cal Watchdog's James Poulos has this assessment.
... Rather than offering the media a retread of tales of California Republicans’ past, Kashkari has presented a surprising spectacle. Wealthy political novices from business backgrounds, such as Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman, have tried to unseat top-tier Democrats before. They failed — leading national political journalists to question why the state GOP was willing to tolerate such a bad investment. Kashkari, who is not personally short on cash, has raised a far more modest campaign chest. But his small budget has become a buzz-building advantage. Not only has it fueled the kind of stunt-driven campaigning that grabs headlines, it has given state Republicans a feeling that neither donors nor the party have thrown good money after bad. And it has changed the media narrative, differentiating Kashkari from the political losers who have come before him.
Unhappily for the rest of the country, most of my fellow citizens are not as impressed. Real Clear Politics has the snapshot of the race I provided above, indicating the polls have budged little since I last covered the topic: LI #11 Governor's Race

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 09, 2014 13 Comments
While reporting on the San Diego area's extremely competitive congressional race in CA-52 between Democrat Scott Peters and Republican Carl DeMaio, my colleague Casey Breznick noted that "DeMaio recently took further steps to distance himself from the Tea Party by releasing a new campaign ad where he says:
“As a proud gay American, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life, but a Tea Party extremist? Nothing could be farther from the truth."
I assert that the internal polls for Peters must be worse than those Casey officially reported, because the Democrat ads are referencing Tea Party so often that one could confuse DeMaio for the president of Lipton Tea Company. And, as I noted previously, DeMaio has never truly been "Tea Party". However, I am now concerned that the ad may have been too demeaning of the area's Tea Party groups, who are among the most active grassroots supporters of DeMaio. Dawn Wildman, co-founder of the SoCalTax Revolt Coalition and the organizer of the area's first Tea Party finds the approach disturbing. She says:

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 07, 2014 30 Comments
Earlier, I weighed in on how the media and administration are handling the Ebola epidemic, using language to minimize the fact that it is a hemorrhagic fever. It the wake of reports that Colorado children who suffered from an infection of the very aggressive respiratory pathogen, Enterovirus D-68, have also experienced limb paralysis, today's "Bio-Insurrection" research has revealed that there is a nice, new moniker associated with it: Non-Polio Enterovirus. From our Department of Health: LI #09 Non-polio enterovirus I made this discovery while I was searching for confirmation that a child's recent death was associated with an Enterovirus D-68 infection. Sadly, it was.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 04, 2014 42 Comments
One of the most troubling tendencies of the Obama Administration and their minions in the media is to relabel a problem, giving the appearance that solutions are on their way. Exhibit 1: An act of terror becomes a "man-caused disaster". Exhibit 2: The prohibition on the term "illegal alien". Now, the illness associated with a terrible pathogen is now being reclassified from "Ebola Virus Hemorrhagic Fever" to "Ebola Virus Disease". LI #08 Ebola VD This seems to be an attempt to lull people into a false sense of security, lumping it with other "Virus Diseases" like the flu and the common cold. I have taught bloodborne pathoghen safety from the early 1990's, when healthcare, security, and first-aid providers were worried about contracting AIDS. Ebola is rated as a class 4 pathogen because of its fatality rates in humans and the fact that there is no cure or treatment. It is, and remains, a "hemorrhagic fever". It did not stop being a Class 4 pathogen once it hit the Dallas hospital. The mechanism of attack, which includes destruction of the endothelial cells that weaken the blood vessels and cause excessive bleeding, has not changed. Once the blood vessels are weakened, a suite of devastating symptoms occurs, as noted in a Business Insider article published in July of this year.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on October 02, 2014 1 Comment
I recently pondered: Is Hong Kong on brink of its own version of Tiananmen Square? Now, I think the answer is no. It appears the recent student-lead uprising is being handled by Hong Kong leaders the way many of our municipalities handled their "Occupy" events -- Wait until the residents tire of the disruptions, then sweep the activists away.
Crowds of pro-democracy protesters thinned noticeably by Thursday morning after the Hong Kong government adopted a more conciliatory stance of trying to wait out the demonstrators. Downtown streets that had been fairly crowded on previous nights began to empty late Wednesday, as many went home after days outdoors in heat that had been sweltering even by Hong Kong’s tropical standards. But many predicted that crowds would build again later on Thursday, as demonstrators returned after showers, sleep and hot meals. “Compared to yesterday morning, I think there is a smaller crowd,” Venus Wong, a 22-year-old office worker, said as she sat in front of the local government headquarters with two friends, eating a McDonald’s breakfast at midmorning. “But I think more people will come back later in the day.”
These demonstrations---collectively known as the "Umbrella Revolution", a nod to the umbrella's use in protecting people from the effects of tear gas---decry Beijing's control over the slate of Hong Kong chief executive candidates for 2017, and have been bolstered by outside contributions from Anonymous:
The "hacktivist" group Anonymous sent this video to News2share early Wednesday morning, apparently declaring a cyber-war against Hong Kong for the treatment of protestors there. The group has already defaced several Hong Kong-based websites, and promised that dozens more would be affected over the next few days.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 30, 2014 48 Comments
A man traveling from Liberia in West Africa to Dallas, Texas has been diagnosed with Ebola, becoming the first patient to present with the disease on US soil. CDC and local Texas health officials emphasized in a news conference today that they anticipate that the disease will be readily contained.
The first Ebola case has been diagnosed in the United States, but a top health official said today there is "no doubt... we will stop it here." Dr. Tom Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the patient left Liberia on Sept 10 and arrived in the U.S. on Sept. 20. The patient sought medical help on Sept. 27 and was put in isolation on Sept. 28, Frieden said. Tests confirming the Ebola diagnosis came back today. The White House said President Obama was briefed about the patient by Frieden. Frieden stressed that the patient was not sick on departure from Liberia or upon arrival in the U.S. and the disease can only be contracted by someone exhibiting symptoms of the disease. Frieden said he was confident there would not be an Ebola outbreak in the U.S. "There is no doubt in my mind we will stop it here," he said.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 28, 2014 6 Comments
My stepdaughter, a graduate of UCLA with a degree in Chinese, works in Beijing. Today, she has been regularly protesting updates via Facebook on the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, and confirms that tear gas is being used to disperse the massive crowds.
Tens of thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators are surging through the streets of Hong Kong to protest against Beijing’s influence over how the semi-autonomous territory elects its top officials. Police used several rounds of tear gas to scatter the mostly peaceful crowds that had blocked one of Hong Kong’s main thoroughfares in the early evening. But protestors did not disperse entirely. Earlier today, pro-democracy group Occupy Central announced the beginning of a civil disobedience campaign intended to disrupt Asia’s largest financial center until its demands for free elections are met. The campaign, originally planned for October, is riding a wave of momentum following a sit-in over the weekend where televised clashes between police and students, some of whom were pepper sprayed, prompted city residents to rally in support of the students. Organizers say that around 60,000 demonstrators were on the streets today, media reports put that number at 30,000, and police have not given an estimate.

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 28, 2014 11 Comments
I have been following the outbreak of Enterovirus 68 closely. An awful trait of pathogens is that the more rapidly they spread, the nastier their health effects can become. It appears Enterovirus 68 may be following this pattern. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is checking into reports that limb weakness and paralysis in nine children may be related to the far-reaching outbreak of the respiratory disease.
The CDC released a statement today saying nine children in Denver had reported a neurologic illness that led to some limb weakness or paralyzation. All of the children had reported having a kind of respiratory virus before showing symptoms of limb weakness. Six of the eight children tested were found to be positive for a rhinovirus or enterovirus and four of those cases were found to be the Enterovirus 68. The other two cases were still pending. Dr. Larry Wolk, the chief medical officer and executive director for Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said that the children affected range in age from 1 to 18, with an average age of 10. "It is a spectrum of arm or leg weakness that can be as mild weakness or as severe as paralysis," Wolk said. "What ties them all together though are findings of spots or lesions in the grey matter of the spinal cord on MRI scans."

Posted by Leslie Eastman on September 24, 2014 16 Comments
Remember when the worst infection Americans had to worry about was a bad flu? As I reported last week, Enterovirus 68 with its potentially devastating respiratory symptoms is still spreading among American children. An outbreak has now been reported in San Diego county:
California’s first cases of a virus that has been spreading across the country were confirmed Thursday by the state’s chief health official. Four cases of enterovirus D68 have been confirmed, all in Southern California. One was in Ventura County; three others were in San Diego County. The patients ages ranged from 2 to 13 years old. More instances of the disease were expected as results from lab tests come back, the California Department of Public Health said in announcing the cases.
So far, 175 cases have been formally reported, with newly documented occurrences in West Virgina. Meanwhile, there has been a troubling infectious disease development in a Texas hospital involving newborns:
Accessibility by WAH