Russian Military Medics Vaccinate Syrian Refugees to Prevent Epidemics

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Russian military medical personnel are treating residents in Umm-al-Tiur in Syria’s Hama Governorate who returned to their homes after the end of hostilities. Military doctor Vyacheslav Bolshakov told reporters:

The people in the specified community may be at risk of endemic typhoid and viral hepatitis A. We’re administering typhoid and hepatitis A vaccines to civilians. Initially, we worked with the administration and the mayor. They conducted an outreach campaign, addressing people with the need, and we carried out the vaccinations.

The terrorists failed to reach central Umm-al-Tiur during military operations but carried out regular attacks on the community, badly damaging the electric and water supply systems. The local authorities are restoring the infrastructure with support from Russian specialists, who are gathering samples for analysis in order to evaluate the serviceability of the water system and delousing the city yards and streets. Russian military medical personnel and local authorities are carrying out outreach activities and establishing vaccinating centres to avoid epidemics. As many as 27 communities in the southern de-escalation zone in Quneitra, as-Suwayda, and Daraa Governorates joined the ceasefire and sided with the Syrian government over the past week due to negotiations conducted by the Russian Reconciliation Centre for the Opposing Sides.

6 July 2018

TASS

http://tass.com/society/1012157

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US Life Expectancy Rates Drop for the Second Year in a Row: Alcohol, Drugs, and Suicide Noted

The Republicans are the main architects of the falling life expectancy… but Clintonista Democrats are just as bad. Neoliberalism IS bad for your health… in BOTH its “conservative” and “liberal” iterations.

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Life expectancy in the Land of the Free dropped for the second year in a row. A new report published in the British Medical Journal revealed that drug addiction, alcohol abuse, and suicide rates contributed to the dramatic drop. The report pointed up that the drop was most significant among middle-aged white Americans and those living in rural communities. Steven Woolf, a co-author of the report released Wednesday, said:

We’re seeing an alarming increase in deaths from substance abuse and despair.

The report stated that the US life expectancy average was 78.6 years in 2016, a 0.1-year drop from 2015. It didn’t yet calculate the US life expectancy for 2017. Woolf noted:

It may not sound like much, but the alarming story isn’t the amount of the decrease but that the increase ended.

The USA had the highest life expectancy in the world in 1960. However, American life expectancy is currently 1.5 years lower than the 35 nations included in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which includes Canada, Germany, Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, and the UK. The report also reveals that Americans are less healthy than those in other developed nations due to adolescent pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Americans also engage in risky behaviour, including high-calorie intake, drug abuse, and gun ownership. In addition, many Americans live in cities where walking or biking is less common. The lack of universal health care in the USA also contributed to poorer American health. The report stated:

The consequences of these choices are dire… not only more deaths and illness, but also escalating health care costs, a sicker workforce, and a less competitive economy. Future generations may pay the greatest price.

According to Woolf, the deadly US opioid crisis contributed to the drop in life expectancy, but it isn’t the primary cause:

It’s a larger issue, involving addiction to opioids but also fatal overdoses from other drugs.

The rate of fatal drug overdoses surged 137 percent in 2000-14. In addition, deaths from alcohol abuse and suicide dramatically increased. In 1999-14, the suicide rate rose 24 percent. White middle-aged Americans, people with limited education, women, and those in rural areas experienced the largest increase in suicide rates. Woolf explained:

The problem is concentrated in rural largely-white counties that often struggled for many years with stagnant wages, unemployment, poverty, and the loss of major industries that fuelled local economies. The root causes argue for policy solutions, especially those directed at strengthening the middle-class, but these aren’t sufficiently prioritised by elected officials.

11 February 2018

Sputnik International

https://sputniknews.com/society/201802111061548893-US-life-expectancy-rates-drop-second-year-in-row/

24 March 2016. No Religious Organisation Has the Right to Ram Its Religious Beliefs Down Another’s Throat with the State’s Connivance

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I saw this comment on RT on a story about a bunch of nuns seeking exemption from offering contraceptive coverage for their secular employees:

If every fanatic with a lawyer can bring the state to a halt, you have no state.

I quite agree. If these nuns employ secular employees, they have no right to dictate their private behaviour or their religious practise, let alone to do so with the state’s connivance. Modern states are secular in character… that is, they have no “Church by Law Established”, therefore, the state is neutral in religious matters. The state can allow no religious body or person to evade laws binding on all citizens by citing “religious belief”. For instance, Quakers must pay income tax, even though much of that money goes for war purposes, which is against deeply held Quaker beliefs. The same is true of other Traditional Peace Churches. These bodies have shouldered their burden as conscientious citizens… in return, the state does its best to accommodate their pacifist tenets. During times of conscription, the state has either allowed men of these groups to serve in noncombatant roles (mostly as medical orderlies, where many won deserved recognition for bravery at the front) or to carry out essential civilian duties (such as firefighters in national forests or as assistants in civilian hospitals). These people are worthy of the respect of all decent people… they shoulder their common civic burden and shirk nothing onerous and hard. These nuns are punks. “We want a religious exemption! We won’t offer contraceptive services to our employees”. This coverage is state-mandated… that ends the discussion. If the Peace Churches can accommodate the military needs of the state, these nuns can accommodate the state’s mandate that they offer full healthcare coverage to their employees. Actually, as a socialist, I think that we need a state-funded single-payer system (most hospitals and doctors prefer such a system over the present chaotic non-system)… since the nuns wouldn’t be offering healthcare coverage, it wouldn’t “burden” their conscience. The sooner that we have single-payer, like the rest of the civilised world, the better off we all shall be.

BMD

Dr Liza Gave DNR and LNR 800 Kilos of Blood Transfusion Reagents

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Today, Dr Ye P Glinka (commonly known as “Dr Liza”), a member of the RF Presidential Council for Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights, announced:

We gave 800 kilos of blood transfusion reagents to health facilities in the DNR and LNR.

Previously, the humanitarian organisation Справедливая помощь (Spravedlivaya Pomoshch: Fair Aid) repeatedly delivered medical supplies to the DNR and LNR. In particular, in early November, Dr Liza took albumin and antibiotics to the DNR to treat a boy seriously injured in the terakt* at the Torez polygon*.

30 December 2015

DAN Donetsk News Agency

http://dan-news.info/russia/doktor-liza-peredala-v-dnr-800-kg-reaktivov-dlya-stancij-perelivaniya-krovi.html

• Terakt: Russian acronym for “terrorist action”

• Polygon: Russian colloquialism for a military base, due to polygonal concrete blocks on the drill ground and airfields