Mexican officials came to a rural area in Mexico last Friday to announce over loudspeakers that they had vaccines available to its citizens.
Since this is an area that doesn’t have much access to medical care in the event of illness, many people jumped at the chance to have their children vaccinated for rotovirus, Hepatitis B, and tuberculosis.
Unfortunately, shortly thereafter 29 children were hospitalized due to adverse reactions. Six of them are still considered to be in serious condition, and 2 infants died.
The parents of the infants who died were supposedly so outraged by the deaths that they refused to allow autopsies to be performed. This has caused Mexican health officials to investigate the cause of the complications due to the vaccines. As of now administration of these vaccines has been suspended.
They allude to the possibility that it was bad batch of vaccines, or that the needles could have been contaminated or exposed to viruses or bacteria. The officials involved have visited the families and have vowed their support and transparency in the investigation of these issues.
2 Babies die, dozens hospitalized after vaccination in southern Mexico By Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN
It is very troublesome on many levels that these residents were seeking to prevent their children from contracting these illnesses, and instead their children were hospitalized due to complications from the vaccines.
I’m glad they’ve suspended these vaccines until they uncover the origin of what went wrong. It’s unfortunate that now there are two families that will never see their baby’s firsts or know who their baby would become in the world. To me, this is absolutely heartbreaking.
The other families who still have their children in the hospital, some still in serious condition, are probably being faced with the fears of losing their children as well – all because they were trying to protect their children.
I was vaccinated, my children were vaccinated, and I am very close to people who have chosen not to vaccinate. The problem is that when we accept these vaccines, we’re putting our lives in the hands of the people who create and administer them. We have to trust that they have been tested and deemed safe for us to use if we choose to do so.
The question I pose with this article is, what are we trading our safety and peace of mind for? This goes for those who vaccinate or not. Is it safer to just skip all vaccines and deal with contracting an illness or using “herd immunity,” or is it safer to vaccinate. No matter how you look at it, there is a possibility for deadly pros and cons.
Bright Spots Increase on Dwarf Planet Ceres
I wrote previously about Ceres and its bright spots. Recently, there have been new photos of the planet from the Dawn Spacecraft that reveal these spots are multiplying. It is considered to be reflective material, possibly ice, that’s causing these bright spots on the planet’s surface.
We may not know exactly what these spots are and how they are multiplying now. The Dawn Spacecraft has just completed its 15 day orbit around the dwarf planet and is in the process of lowering down about 2,700 miles above the surface to do more comprehensive surface mapping.
Are these bright spots really ice? It’s very possible. However, I wonder, if it is not ice…what could it be? Ice is a probable cause because space is cold; and if water is present on the dwarf planet, the ice can grow. I am really looking forward to finding out what they discover on this nearer decent to map the surface.
Ceres’ white spots multiply in latest Dawn photos Bob King, Universe Today
Moving Closer to the End of Bulk Phone Collection
Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act does not authorize the way NSA has collected bulk phone records. It has actually been ruled illegal, even though a lower court had deemed the collection to be ‘constitutional’. Not only are these bulk collections no longer allowed, it has also put a stop to bulk record collection using National Security letters, which is basically like an administrative subpoena.
The House passed a bill that would put an end to the bulk phone collection. They have not completely done away with the collection, but now it’s considered to be okay on a case-by-case basis. This has been a debate in Washington for years, so they say. But I feel if Edward Snowden didn’t blow the whistle on it, we would still have no idea we were all being monitored as potential threats to national security.
There are some who are still trying to stick to the way the PATRIOT Act is currently used, and there are others, like Rand Paul, who are pushing for even greater restrictions on data collection. The vote to end bulk collection was just about unanimous. Old habits can die hard, but this one wore out its welcome.
The PATRIOT Act itself is supposed to expire by June 1st, so they need to come to some sort of final conclusion by then. What I wonder, though, is if it’s supposed to expire on June 1st, are these amendments or restrictions to the PATRIOT Act actually keeping it alive longer?
What if they didn’t vote these collections of personal or business data to no longer be legal and hence the PATRIOT act lived on? Perhaps we can find a better way to protect US citizens than to be sneaky in how they refer to ‘data collection’. What does case-by-case basis really mean, anyway? If you’ve ever spoken ill of the government in public or on the phone, does that give the government the go-ahead to monitor you from now on?
I mean, I can read between the lines here on this one. I personally think the PATRIOT Act should just expire. I’m glad they have voted on more restrictions, if it won’t go away, but I’d rather it just go away. The report from 9/11 and the onset of this type of surveillance that we’ve been under since then really don’t have much validity.
The Government knew about 9/11 the same as they knew about Pearl Harbor. It’s all a strategic move on a government that wants support for declaring war. It’s tragic loss of life for the purpose of industry, really. It’s awful in my opinion.
I will say this: I served in the Navy during Operation Enduring Freedom and deployed in Afghanistan. I am very good friends with an ex-Army Ranger, and my brother served in Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was over there, and I am speaking from what I saw with my own eyes and from my conversations with other people who have also seen what we did over there with their own eyes.
The war in Iraq was a distraction from what we were doing in Afghanistan. We were not hunting weapons of mass destruction. There may be soldiers or marines who were told that’s what they were doing, but I haven’t heard that any were ever found…
We were using our military as a security force for people who were building oil pipelines through Afghanistan. This happened in Iraq too. The bases that my brother was on when he was in the military were no longer bases when he went back over to continue his work as a civilian a few months later. These bases were oil refineries…owned by the United States.
That is not something I read somewhere; this is personal experience. I come from a family with over 100 years of military service. It’s a family tradition to be proud to be an American and honor those who have fallen before me so that my loved ones could be ‘free’. It was something I truly believed and why I joined. Unfortunately, opinions change when you see friends die for the sake of industry and financial gain for the 1%.
We are far greater beings than we have been told, far greater beings than most of us realize.
In Light and Love,
Lindsey
House Votes to End N.S.A.’s Bulk Phone Data Collection By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, New York Times