Baby hatches in China close as too many infants abandoned

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-03-29

A baby hatch in Jinan, Shandong province, June 2014. (File photo/CFP)

Several Chinese "baby safety islands" for unwanted children in Guangzhou, Jinan and Xiamen have been closed or have suspended operations temporarily because local welfare centers could not cope with the number of arrivals, the Beijing News reports.

A baby hatch, or "baby safety island" in Chinese, allows a parent to leave their unwanted child in a temperature-controlled room equipped with a cradle and incubator. Once placed in the hatch an alarm alerts the authorities to come and retrieve the child.

Zhejiang's first such center reportedly tried to restrict the way it took in children by only allowing for orphans and abandoned babies.

One official at the baby center in Quxhou, Zhejiang province said the agency is not closing but moving to a children's welfare center to better take care of the children. Meanwhile, the center has transformed itself into a baby rescue, government propaganda and consulting organization.

Since Shijiazhuang in Hebei province set up the nation's first baby hatch in June 2011, as of June 2014 there were a total of 32 such test-run safety islands in 16 provinces or cities, and together they had received 1,400 abandoned infants.

Statistics showed that the baby hatches in Guangzhou, Nanjing and Shijiazhuang had received 100-200 abandoned infants respectively within months of their opening, bringing a heavy workload to the centers and resulting in the closure or suspended operations.

In January 2014, Guangzhou opened a baby hatch and took in 262 abandoned infants within two months, with the city government swiftly announcing the closure of the center, saying the number of babies had exceeded its limit.

Xiamen's baby hatch has operated for one year and has taken in nearly 300 abandoned infants in that time, most of whom have illnesses or disabilities. Such babies would require expensive service and delicate care, resulting in great financial and manpower challenges for the center. Now the Xiamen center has temporarily closed.

The baby hatches in Shijiazhuang, Xi'an and Tianjin said they remain open, though officials there declined to give more details.

Beijing to help Africa strengthen post-Ebola health system

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-03-28

Lin Songtian during a press conference, Oct. 31, 2014. (Photo/CNS)

China will help Africa with its public health system post-Ebola, said a Chinese official on Friday at a China-Africa health roundtable.

Lin Songtian, director of the Chinese Foreign Ministry's African Affairs Department, made the remarks at the three-day Fifth International Roundtable on China-Africa Health Collaboration held in Beijing, which will end Saturday.

Lin said China was studying the support it could offer Africa, adding China will help the African Union build a disease prevention and control center, which would link epidemic surveillance facilities in each member countries.

In terms of capacity building, Lin suggested that more scholarships could be granted to African health professionals and students for them to study in China, as well as more training offered to Chinese health aid workers dispatched to the African continent.

A policy recommendation on China-Africa health cooperation was put forward at the roundtable, which included suggestions such as the two sides should boost cooperation in medicine and vaccine production, diagnostics, health financing instruments, and enhanced dialogues and knowledge exchange.

Ren Minghui, director of the department of international cooperation of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, said China had a unique role to play in supporting African health development as it was capable of producing high-quality and low-cost medicines and vaccines.

Related Articles:

Ebola report slams slow WHO response

World's first academy for humanitarian relief to be launched

Germanwings crash co-pilot hid illness from airline

Yahoo – AFP, Celine Jankowiak with Deborah Cole in Berlin, 27 March 2015

French gendarmes and investigators sift through the scattered debris on March 26, 

2015 at the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320 in the French Alps above

the southeastern town of Seyne (AFP Photo/Anne-Christine Poujoulat)

The black box voice recorder indicates that Andreas Lubitz, 27, locked his captain out of the cockpit on Tuesday and deliberately flew Flight 4U 9525 into a mountainside, French officials say, in what appears to have been a case of suicide and mass murder.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said that "everything is pointing towards an act that we can't describe: criminal, crazy, suicidal".

German prosecutors revealed that searches of Lubitz's homes netted "medical documents that suggest an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment", including "torn-up and current sick leave notes, among them one covering the day of the crash".

A police officer pictured outside the apartment 

of Andreas Lubitz, the co-pilot of the crashed

 Germanwings plane, in Duesseldorf, western

 Germany, on March 26, 2015 (AFP Photo/

Federico Gambarini)

They did not specify the illness.

But Bild daily earlier reported that Lubitz sought psychiatric help for "a bout of serious depression" in 2009 and was still getting assistance from doctors, quoting documents from Germany's air transport regulator.

The paper also cited security sources as saying that Lubitz and his girlfriend were having a "serious crisis in their relationship" that left him distraught.

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said that Lubitz had suspended his pilot training, which began in 2008, "for a certain period", before restarting and qualifying for the Airbus A320 in 2013.

According to Bild, those setbacks were linked to "depression and anxiety attacks".

Lubitz lived with his parents in his small home town of Montabaur in the Rhineland and kept an apartment in Duesseldorf, the city where his doomed plane was bound.

Duesseldorf prosecutors said the evidence found in the two homes "backs up the suspicion" that Lubitz "hid his illness from his employer and his colleagues".

They said they had not found a suicide note, confession or anything pointing to a "political or religious" motive but added it would take "several days" to evaluate the rest of what was collected.

Reiner Kemmler, a psychologist who specialises in training pilots, noted that people "know that depression can compromise their airworthiness and they can hide it".

"If someone dissimulates, ie they don't want other people to notice, it's very, very difficult," Kemmler told Deutschlandfunk public radio.

Desperate captain used 'axe'

Lubitz locked himself into the cockpit when the captain went out to use the toilet, then refused his colleague's increasingly desperate attempts to get him to reopen the door, French prosecutor Brice Robin said.

According to Bild, the captain even tried using an axe to break through the armoured door as the plane was sent into its fatal descent by Lubitz.

This could not be immediately confirmed, but a spokesman for Germanwings told Bild that an axe was standard emergency equipment on board the aircraft.

A policeman stands next to a police car in

 front of a house in Duesseldorf, western 

Germany, on March 26, 2015, during the

 investigation into the Germanwings 

plane crash over the French Alps 

(AFP Photo/David Young)

The tragedy has already prompted a shake-up of safety rules, with several airlines announcing a new policy requiring there always be two people in the cockpit.

German aviation industry body BDL and the transport ministry agreed to the rule for Lufthansa, its subsidiary Germanwings and other companies, while the European Aviation Security Agency threw its weight behind the policy.

Meanwhile, the UN world aviation body stressed that all pilots must have regular mental and physical check-ups.

'Unimaginable'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the findings that Lubitz appeared intent on crashing the plane added an "absolutely unimaginable dimension" to the tragedy, in which most victims were German and Spanish nationals.

In the northwestern town of Haltern, which lost 16 students and two teachers who were returning from a school exchange, the revelations prompted shock and rage.

The principal of the stricken school, Ulrich Wessel, said "what makes all of us so angry (is) that a suicide can lead to the deaths of 149 other people".

German President Joachim Gauck, a Protestant pastor, attended a memorial service in Haltern Friday and also extended special condolences to the families of the victims in Spain and other countries.

Meanwhile in Montabaur, Mayor Edmund Schaaf urged reporters encamped in the community to show restraint with Lubitz's parents, a banker and a church organist, who live in a handsome home on a leafy, normally quiet street.

"Regardless of whether the accusations against the co-pilot are true, we sympathise with his family and ask the media to be considerate," he said.

A French gendarmerie helicopter winches up an investigator on March 26, 2015 near
scattered debris on the crash site of the Germanwings Airbus A320 in the French
Alps above the southeastern town of Seyne (AFP Photo/Anne-Christine Poujoulat)

Descent button

Investigators say Lubitz's intention was clear because he operated a button sending the plane into a plunge.

For the next eight minutes, Lubitz was apparently calm and breathing normally.

"He does not say a single word. Total silence," Robin said.

The second-in-command had all psychological tests required for training, Lufthansa's Spohr told reporters Thursday, insisting: "He was 100-percent airworthy."

Recovery operations at the crash site were ongoing, with French officials trying to find body parts and evidence. A second black box, which records flight data, has not yet been recovered.

"There's not much plane debris left. There's mainly a lot of body parts to pick up. The operation could last another two weeks," said police spokesman Xavier Vialenc.

Related Articles:

Psych meds found at home of Germanwings co-pilot: media reports
Police search home of Andreas Lubitz, Germanwings co-pilot behind crash

US rolls out plans to cut antibiotic use

Yahoo – AFP, 27 March 2015

US President Barack Obama's new plan aims to cut inappropriate antibiotic use by

50 percent for outpatients, and 20 percent for inpatients (AFP Photo/Fred Tanneau)

Washington (AFP) - US President Barack Obama on Friday rolled out plans to cut inappropriate antibiotic use by half, in an effort to tackle drug resistance.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug-resistant bacteria, also known as "superbugs," kill 23,000 people a year in the United States.

"Antibiotic resistance is one of the most pressing public health issues facing the world today," Obama told Internet health portal WebMD.

To reduce the toll, the new plan aims to cut inappropriate antibiotic use by 50 percent for outpatients, and 20 percent for inpatients.

Measures include developing diagnostic tests to determine whether an infection is bacterial or viral.

"Over-prescribing is a serious problem," Obama said. "We need to give doctors the information and guidance they need to make the right call in hard situations."

The plan would also encourage the development of new antibiotics.

But critics say measures fail to tackle one major source of antibiotic over use: farming.

"The Obama Administration needs to do more to reduce antibiotic use in animals that are not sick," the Natural Resources Defense Council said.

"Our government should be taking steps to reduce antibiotics to protect our health, rather than protecting poor industry practices."

The plan may also hit funding problems. Obama needs Republicans in Congress to back a budget that pays for the measures.

Related Articles:

More must be done to cut unnecessary antibiotic prescriptions, say experts

High levels of antibiotic-resistant bacteria found in Asian farmed fish

The Sharon Kelly Story: How She Beat Her Lung Cancer with Cannabis Oil

Cure Your Own Cancer, Lincoln Horsley, 8 Jan 2015

Sharon Kelly

This is the story of 54 year old Sharon Kelly, a wife and mother who was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in December 2013. She was given no chance of survival and told she would only have months to live. Luckily the decisions she would make would prove her "doctors" wrong.

On Monday, December 16th, 2013 Sharon started complaining of a small pain on her left side around her ribs. She had gotten a massage on the previous Friday so she thought that must be a side effect of the massage. As the days went on the pain increased and when Sharon took a deep breath she started to have terrible pain in that same spot. So she decided to get checked out and on December 19th, 2013 Sharon Kelly was diagnosed with non small cell lung cancer.

By the middle of January 2014 the diagnosis had gotten worse.  The Doctors told Sharon the cancer had spread to the lining of her lung & lymph nodes and they classified it as stage IV Terminal Lung Cancer. She was given only 6-9 months to live. She asked if anything could be done like an operation or radiation but she was coldly told  "the horse had bolted and was way too late to do anything". They told Sharon they do not offer radiation treatment for stage 4 lung cancer. Sharon was even told that chemo was "not really worth doing" as it would only make her more sick. The doctors were more concerned with her enjoying the "short time" she had left than actually trying to help her live. They had given up on her upon their diagnosis and it was obvious to Sharon they didn't seem to want to treat her.

Sharon had a 5cm primary tumor in her left lung (pictured in the CT scan to the left). She had a number of lymph nodes in her chest that were cancerous as well as a lymph node in the base of her neck that was inflamed with cancer. She had considerable fluid around her heart which they said was cancer in the plura lining of the left lung. Sharon knew NOTHING

Sharons CT Scan December 2013.

about cannabis oil at this point. By the end of January the doctors had still yet to start any treatment for Sharon. They were still trying to get a biopsy of the primary tumor to test Sharon for EGFR mutation. Sharon demanded they do something, so they finally agreed to start chemo, almost 2 months after being diagnosed.

Sharon suffered through 2 rounds of chemo from the end of January to the beginning of February before she tested positive to the EGFR mutation. This meant she would no longer be treated with the first chemo she was given, but would be put on a chemo tablet called Tarceva. Sharon was told that the Tarceva could only slow down the spread of the cancer. They told her that there had been some cases of the Tarceva shrinking cancer, but not many, and that it only works for a short time. Over time the cancer would come back, but probably much worse. The Tarceva was only given to  help extend her life. Sharon was given no hope of surviving and was sent home by her "doctors" to die.

With no hope or any options left Sharon's youngest daughter turned to the internet in hope of finding some answers. After seeing some of the testimonials from people who have had success with cannabis oil, like Stan Rutner who beat his lung cancer with cannabis oil, Sharon's daughter called her mother and suggested she try cannabis oil since there was nothing else left. Luckily Sharon was open minded to the cannabis oil treatment and agreed to give it a try. What did she have to lose?

Sharon started her cannabis oil treatment on February 26, 2014. Her husband Neville made her first batch of oil for her. You can learn to make cannabis oil for yourself on our "Make the Oil" page. Sharon started her cannabis oil doses small but still struggled with tiredness she got from it. She was taking about a rice grain under the tongue every 3 hrs with a bigger one before bed. Along with the cannabis oil Sharon started to juice fresh cannabis leaves and bud every morning and added that to her "super smoothie".

By May of 2014 Sharon had learned about cannabis oil suppositories. Sharon was still having trouble with the oil causing her to become tired when she took it orally. She found that by taking cannabis oil as a suppository it did not give her the tired feeling it gave her when she took the oil orally under her tongue. Using suppositories she was finally able to take the full 1 gram of oil per day that is recommended for aggressive cancers. She settled on suppositories being the best application for her. To make her suppository she would mix her cannabis oil with organic Coconut Oil. She would mix ½ cannabis oil and ½ coconut oil putting it in a syringe and administering it as the “up and in” method which Sharon calls it. Sharon was eventually able to take 1½ to 2 grams of cannabis oil as a suppository spaced out evenly throughout her day. She took a bigger than dose under the tongue before bed which would guaranteed her a good night’s sleep.

Another very important step Sharon took in killing her cancer was starting on a good alkalizing diet. She ate next to no red meat, no dairy, no bread or grains, no sugar, no processed foods, no artificial sweeteners.   She would eat a slice of organic mango 3 times a week. She had read that it helped clean your CBD receptors. She would also have a "super smoothie" each morning. Her daily smoothie would include a variety of kale, celery, squash, carrots, a whole beetroot, lots of fresh greens, ½ an orange, ½ a granny smith apple, asparagus, fresh ginger root and 1 tbsp fresh turmeric root.  She also added these to her diet: Bio Pure Whey Protein, Spirulin,a Cacao Powder, Chia, Hemp Protein, Hemp Oil, Teas (Tulsi, Licorice, Green, Gotu, Nettle), Pomegranate Juice, Grape juice, Cinnamon, Organic frozen mixed berries, Ground flaxseed (linseed), lypo-spheric Vit C 3 times a day, also oxygen drops in her filtered water several times a day all the while keeping to a low carb diet. There are a lot of great places online to find recipes for an alkaline diet.  The Alkaline Sisters is a great place to start.

Sharon showed shrinkage of her tumors with each scan taken at 2 month intervals. By July the primary tumor was only 2.1cm, down from 5cm in December of 2013, and all the lymph nodes were now normal size. The fluid that was around her heart was gone and the plura in the lining of the lung as the doctors described it “seemed to be gone”. So what Sharon was doing seemed to be consistently working.

Sharon's CT Scan September 2014

On September 3rd, 2014 Sharon had her second CT scan (picture below) and she would get her best new yet. Sharon's 2nd scan found that there were no active cancer cells in her body. Sharon was cancer free after only 7 months on the cannabis oil. Sharon's oncologist was bewildered with the results. The oncologist said this was new territory for her as she had never heard of  “Full Metabolic Response” on Tarceva, EVER. In the beginning Sharon did mention to the oncologist she was looking into medical cannabis. The oncologist was very cautious and told Sharon there were no studies done of cannabis use while on Tarceva and the cannabis could work against the Tarceva. Sharon believes the oncologist knows about the cannabis use because Sharon told the oncologist she would be "doing things herself at home", but it was never mentioned again.  The oncologist continued to say “she has never been here before” and that "there is no cure for lung cancer but Sharon is in the best place she could ever hope to be". They are now calling the primary tumor scar tissue. Sharon is now 100% CANCER FREE. Sharon's "doctors" cannot explain it.

It has now been 13 months since the diagnosis and Sharon is still here. Sharon gives God and cannabis oil the credit for her amazing recovery.  If she had listened to what her "doctors" told her, she would have gone home and waited to die. Instead Sharon and her husband took a chance on an alternative treatment and took her life into their own hands. If not for taking that chance Sharon would no longer be with us. Sharon will have another PET scan January 20th, 2015.  It will be amazing to see what the doctors have to say when she is still cancer free. Please check back for updates.

Related Articles:

Anita Moorjani's Near Death Experience clears in 4 days, grade 4B lymphoma cancer (+Video)

Woman 'cured by lucky DNA mutation'

Senator Ted Cruz to sign up for 'Obamacare'

Yahoo – AFP, 24 March 2015

US Senator Ted Cruz announces his candidacy for the Republican
nomination to run for US president March 23, 2015 at Liberty University
 in Lynchburg, Virginia (AFP Photo/Paul J. Richards)

Washington (AFP) - Senator Ted Cruz is among America's most vocal opponents of "Obamacare," but the newly-announced presidential candidate is reportedly about to sign up for the health care program he loves to hate.

"We will presumably go on the exchange and sign up for health care and we're in the process of transitioning over to do that," Cruz told The Des Moines Register on Tuesday.

One day earlier, the 44-year-old freshman senator became the first major Republican politician to formally declare his campaign for the White House.

In his announcement speech, Cruz proclaimed that if elected he would repeal "every word of Obamacare."

Meanwhile, he is signing up for the coverage as a requirement for members of Congress.

The lawmaker's family has been covered under the plan held by his wife Heidi Cruz through her employer Goldman Sachs.

But Cruz told the Register that his wife is going on an unpaid leave of absence to join him full time on the campaign trail.

The health care exchanges that Cruz would join became law under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

They constitute an online marketplace where small businesses, and individuals including the uninsured, can purchase health coverage.

As a US lawmaker, Cruz will choose his insurance through the DC Health Link small business market.

According to federal guidelines, members of Congress receive a "government contribution" if they purchase coverage through the ACA.

Asked whether he would accept the government contributions, Cruz told CNN he will "follow the text of the law."

He reiterated his intent to keep fighting for a full Obamacare repeal, even though some Republicans have "quietly and privately given up on that fight."

The ACA came into effect five years ago Monday.

Giant rats helping to sniff out tuberculosis in Mozambique

Kitten-sized rats are being used by scientists to detect tuberculosis-causing bacteria in a project which hopes to save both time and money

The Guardian, AFP, Tuesday 24 March 2015

A giant rat used to detect tuberculosis-causing bacteria at Apopo research
 centre in Eduardo Mondlane University in Maputo, Mozambique. Photograph:
Adrien Barbier/AFP/Getty Images

Giant rats may strike fear and disgust into the hearts of homeowners worldwide, but researchers in Mozambique are improbably turning some of them into heroes.

At Eduardo Mondlane University in the capital Maputo, nine giant rats are busy at work – sniffing out tuberculosis-causing bacteria from rows of sputum samples.

These are no ordinary rats, as they have undergone six months of training in Tanzania. Their most distinguishing asset is their impeccable sense of smell.

Placed inside a glass cage, a rat darts from sample to sample, then stops or rubs its legs, indicating that a sample is infected with a TB causing bacteria.

Once the task is complete, it is given a treat through a syringe for a job well done.

“Within 30 minutes, the rat can test close to a hundred samples, which normally takes a laboratory technician four days,” said Emilio Valverde, TB program director at APOPO, the organisation leading the research.

The project, which started in February 2013, has brought hope to thousands of TB sufferers who sometimes receive false results and test negative using the standard laboratory system.

In 2006, tuberculosis was declared a national emergency in Mozambique, with 60,000 people in 2014 said to be infected, according to the ministry of health.

That number was a 10 percent increase from 2013.

Samples delivered to the university for testing are collected from 15 health centres across Maputo.

Belgian group APOPO is planning to expand the program to other parts of the country, while working on getting the system approved by the World Health Organization.

The organisation claims rat testing is more cost effective than other conventional methods.

Each rat costs around $6,700 to $8,000 to train, with a six-to-eight-year life span.

The cost is lower compared to rapid diagnostic test GeneXpert, which costs up to $17,000 per device, setting the state back between $10 and $17 per test.

The kitten-size rats are also used by APOPO to detect landmines by sniffing out explosives.

They are light enough to cross terrain without triggering the mines, and are followed by de-mining experts who reward the rats with bananas.

The rats weigh up to 1.5 pounds and are said to be “easier to catch and train” – according to Valverde.

Samples pointed out by the rats to contain TB bacteria are then sent for further tests using fluorescence microscopy, a more sensitive laboratory technique.

The results are sent back to health centres, allowing patients to start treatment early.

Although TB is a treatable disease, in underdeveloped countries like Mozambique it can be deadly if left untreated and is particularly harmful to people living with HIV.

Mozambique is one of the countries worst affected by TB and 1 in 10 adults is HIV-positive.

With World Tuberculosis Day being marked on Tuesday, the Mozambican Ministry of Health said it was cautiously monitoring the APOPO work.

“This technique has to be compared to others that are available and already WHO approved, such as GeneXpert or LED microscope,” said Ivan Manhica, who heads the national programme for tuberculosis at the health ministry.

According to the WHO, TB killed 1.5 million people in 2013.

Dogs prove successful at sniffing out bowel cancer

DutchNews.nl, March 24, 2015

Dogs being trained to sniff out bowel cancer can already recognise its smell after less than a year in training, the Telegraaf reports on Tuesday.

The five cocker spaniels are being trained by the Royal Dutch Guide Dog Foundation KNGF and have sniffed 380 samples of human faeces including some from patients with bowel cancer. They are already able to pick out the 20 tubes containing faeces from bowel cancer patients in 80% of attempts. 

The KNGF is working with the VU medical centre in Amsterdam on this pilot project to train dogs as medical detectives. According to the VU, it is an important step in the early diagnosis of bowel cancer which is discovered in 15,000 people a year.

‘Bowel cancer is mainly diagnosed following a colonoscopy,’ the VU’s professor Henk Verheul says on the KNGF website. ‘This is uncomfortable for the patient and leads to late diagnosis. It would be fantastic if we could use specially trained dogs to search for cancer by sniffing faeces or breath.’ 

The intention is to train dogs to recognise other forms of cancer in the future.

Related Article:

Scent-Trained Dog Detects Thyroid Cancer in Human Urine Samples

Injection needles leak glue particles, MMR vaccinations postponed

DutchNews.nl, March 24, 2015

The vaccination of babies in some parts of the Netherlands was postponed on Tuesday because of fears about glue leaking from the needles. 

Tv programme Eén Vandaag reported on Tuesday that needles made by the Terumo company could leak particles of glue which can end up in the bloodstream of anyone receiving an injection. 

The needles are widely used in the Dutch healthcare system. The MMR vaccination programme for around 170,000 nine-month old babies and 180,000 nine-year-old children a year also uses the Terumo needles.

The public health institute RIVM sayes the Terumo needles should not be used pending a full investigation. This is expected to take several weeks. 

In Amsterdam, the GGD council health service in Amsterdam said it has enough stock of other brands of needle, but in Zuid-Limburg vaccinations for babies and children were postponed because of a shortage.

The company itself has issued a statement saying the needles pose no health risks for patients. The programme was a ‘biased presentation of the fact, and thus incorrectly creates a sense of anxiety with patients,’ the statement said.

Walmart in Beijing apologizes for relabeling old meat

Want China Times, Staff Reporter 2015-03-24

A closed Walmart store in Hangzhou, April 22, 2014. (Photo/Xinhua)

A Walmart store in Beijing will fully refund customers who bought raw meat products within 14 days if the product was not fresh, reports the Chinese-language Beijing Times, which had discovered the store had been putting new labels on unsold meat each morning. Some of the meat had clearly gone bad as it was discolored and had a bad odor.

Walmart said following the revelations that it will cooperate with a local government investigations and also activate its internal investigation mechanism. It also said it will also take measures against employees found responsible.

A Beijing Times reported who visited a Walmart in the city's Qinghe area discovered earlier this month that store employees would stick a new label with a later expiry date on packs of unsold raw meat from the day before at around 6 am each day and put them back on the shelf.

Questioned by the reporter, the employee said customers want fresh meat and that if the label is changed, the meat is considered fresh and from that day. It will only be "recycled" when the meat turns black or when it starts to smell bad, the report said.

The reporter also found that cuts of expired raw meat were rearranged into new packs, while raw meat that had started to smell strange would be ground into dumpling stuffing for sale.

The Beijing Times also reported that sanitary conditions did not meet required standards, as the meat was not properly washed and the fridges were merely sprayed with hot water during cleaning.

Walmart issued a statement of apology and promised to look into the claims.

Related Article:

Dutch meat trader at centre of horse scandal faces five years in jail

Dutch make breast reconstruction standard in cancer treatment

DutchNews.nl, March 23, 2015    

Efforts are being made to standardise the way women diagnosed with breast cancer in the Netherlands are offered reconstructive surgery, broadcaster Nos says on Monday.

In some hospitals women are not offered reconstructive surgery immediately after an operation at all, while in others breast reconstruction is a standard part of the treatment plan. 

Patients’ and doctors’ organisations have now agreed to try to standardise the approach to ensure women are properly informed about the choices they can make and their treatment. 

‘It is often possible to carry out reconstructive surgery immediately after a breast amputation, so that the patient does not wake up ‘flat-chested’,’ René van der Hulst, chairman of the plastic surgeons’ association NVPC told the broadcaster. 

Research shows that reconstruction reduces the psychological, social and sexual problems which arise from losing a breast.

World's first academy for humanitarian relief to be launched

Humanitarian Leadership Academy to train aid workers from over 50 countries in organising rapid responses to disasters and emergencies

The Guardian, Julian Borger Diplomatic editor, Sunday 22 March 2015

Local residents receive humanitarian aid in the city of Debaltseve, Ukraine.
The world’s first academy for humanitarian relief will train aid workers in
responding to disasters and emergencies. Photograph: Sokolov Mikhail/
Sokolov Mikhail/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

The world’s first academy for humanitarian relief is to be launched, aimed at training 100,000 aid workers from over 50 countries in organising rapid responses to disasters and emergencies.

The Humanitarian Leadership Academy, launching on Monday, is a response to the growing number of humanitarian crises around the world, driven by climate change and conflict, combined with a severe and worsening shortage of people with the skills necessary to coordinate the large-scale response required in the critical first days to prevent mass casualties.

The HLA is being set up by a global consortium of aid organisations with initial £20m funding from the UK Department for International Development, out of a target of £50m. The Save the Children charity has paid the startup costing and is hosting the academy’s hub in London.

Further centres will open in Kenya and the Philippines later this year, and by 2020 the plan is to have ten training centres around the world, which would offer both classroom and virtual training for the surrounding regions, in mobilising the rapid response in resources and manpower needed in the wake of a disaster.

Jan Egeland, a former UN head of humanitarian affairs and emergency relief, will be the academy’s first chairman. He said the initiative “may revolutionise the entire humanitarian sector”.

“Investment in a new and better trained generation of humanitarian workers closer to where we find the greatest needs will bring development and sustainability to many of the world’s most fragile communities,” Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said.

Last year witnessed a record number of severe global humanitarian emergencies and the highest number of refugees the world has seen since the second world war. 50 million people were forced to flee their countries.

  

Justin Forsyth, chief executive of Save the Children, said: “If we are to save more lives in some of the toughest places in the world we need to train and support local people themselves to become the humanitarian workers and volunteers of the future. The academy will do this by bringing together an extraordinary and unique coalition of actors to train and share best practice, transforming the humanitarian system.”

The idea behind the establishment of ten national and regional centres around the world is that each should be able to tailor responses to crises in terms of local conditions and local culture. Aid experts have said that previous attempts to increase local and regional capacity to react to large-scale emergencies have foundered because they were seen as impositions of practices developed far away.

The plan is for each centre to provide a common pool of knowledge, the latest technology and examples of best practice, as well as solid career structures for humanitarian workers, with internationally recognised certification for successive levels of achievement, recorded in ‘humanitarian passports’. The end result should be to expand the pool of people available in every region to manage the humanitarian response in the first 72 hours of an emergency.

“This is potentially one of the most transformational projects I have been involved in,” said Gareth Owen, Save the Children’s director of emergencies, who has been working on the academy project since 2007. “It is based on the recognition that many studies of humanitarian disasters and emergencies point to leadership and decision-making as the critical factor. Really by now we should have a global capacity that we can draw on that is far greater and more diverse. We haven’t invested enough in people on the ground.”

Owen said that climate change was adding to the relentless annual toll of humanitarian crises: “We used to have a big natural disaster about once a decade and that has come down to one every two or three years.”

Global funding for emergency relief has largely stagnated. Owen said the $20bn (£13bn) spending on the response to humanitarian emergencies is a third of the amount the world spends on yoghurt, for example, and that there is no comparison with the $1.5tn spent on arms.

“The Humanitarian Leadership Academy will help create a faster and more effective disaster response system by empowering local people in the most vulnerable countries to be the first responders after a disaster strikes,” Justine Greening, the secretary of state for international development, said. “The high quality training and expertise delivered by this academy will mean humanitarian responses not only provide immediate, life-saving relief, but also help build a more secure and resilient world.”

Related Article:

Ebola report slams slow WHO response

Ebola report slams slow WHO response

Doctors Without Borders has published a report on the Ebola outbreak which has claimed over 10,000 lives. The frontline aid agency has condemned the slow global response, particularly from the World Health Organization.

A year on from the start of the worst Ebola outbreak in history, Doctors Without Borders published a report slamming the international community's response to the crisis, particularly that of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Doctors Without Borders - known by its French acronym MSF - also detailed the "indescribable horror" faced by its staff as they were forced to turn away the sick due to a lack of resources and could only spend one minute per patient because of the great number of cases flooding their facilities.

The MSF report accuses the WHO, charged with a leading role on global health emergencies, of being far too slow in taking action and of taking on a distanced, administrative role instead of a dominant medical one. It further accuses the organization of only declaring "a public health emergency of international concern" once Western health workers had contracted the disease while working in the worst-hit countries in West Africa.

Meetings instead of action

According to MSF, there was a meeting in Geneva at the end of June last year between the WHO, MSF, and similar agencies, at which the aid group asked for an immediate response in Liberia that did not fully materialize until July, by which time a second wave of the disease had struck.

Of the more than 10,000 Ebola deaths to date, more than 4,200 of them were in Liberia.

"Meetings happened. Action didn't," Marie-Christine Ferir, MSF emergency coordinator, said in the report.

"All the elements that led to the outbreak's resurgence in June were also present in March, but the analysis, recognition and willingness to assume responsibility were not," the report read. Therefore it fell to MSF to bear the brunt of the response in the early months, despite only having 40 staff members with Ebola experience before the spread of the virus began.

The report also criticizes the governments of Sierra Leone and Guinea, the other two hardest-hit countries, for refusing to admit the scale of the epidemic and putting "needless obstacles" in the path of MSF teams.

es/lw (AFP, epd)