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Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 2/13/2012 5:11:44 PM
	Quote: This continues to be a worrying situation. Iran is totally correct in that most nuclear powers continue to demand things of others from a situation of strength, however Iran's instability and relationships with Israel poses a significant threat. Things will unfold as part of the scheme of things but it will happen despite fears and speculation. Roger Yes Roger, this situation is so disturbing in general terms. I'm afraid we only can wait and see what happens. Hugs, Miguel
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Luis Miguel

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

2/13/2012 5:15:45 PM

Thousands of Workers Killed by Mystery Illness in C. America

Filadelfo Aleman & Michael Weissenstein | February 13, 2012

Relatives mourning former plantation worker Segundo Zapata Palacios at his home in Chichigalpa, Nicaragua. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Chichigalpa, Nicaragua. Jesus Ignacio Flores started at age 16, working long hours on construction sites and the fields of his country’s biggest sugar plantation.

Three years ago, his kidneys started to fail and flooded his body with toxins. He became too weak to work, wracked by cramps, headaches and vomiting.

On Jan. 19, he died at his home. He was 51. His withered body was dressed by his wife, embraced a final time and carried in a pickup truck to a grave on the edge of Chichigalpa, a town in Nicaragua’s sugar-growing heartland, where studies have found more than one in four men with symptoms of chronic kidney disease.

A mysterious epidemic is devastating the Pacific coast of Central America, killing more than 24,000 people in El Salvador and Nicaragua since 2000 and striking thousands of others with chronic kidney disease at rates unseen anywhere else. Scientists say they have received reports of the phenomenon as far away as southern Mexico and Panama.

Wilfredo Ordonez, who worked the fields for more than 30 years in El Salvador, was hit by the chronic disease when he was 38. Ten years later, he depends on dialysis treatments he administers to himself four times a day.

“This is a disease that comes with no warning. When they find it, it’s too late,” Ordonez said.

Many of the victims are manual laborers or work in sugar cane fields that cover the coastal lowlands. Patients, local doctors and activists say they believe the culprit is the agricultural chemicals workers have used for years with virtually no protection. But a growing body of evidence supports a more complex hypothesis.

The roots of the epidemic, scientists say, appear to lie in the grueling nature of the work done by those who labor for hours without enough water in blazing temperatures, pushing their bodies through repeated bouts of extreme dehydration and heat stress. The punishing routine appears to be part of a previously unknown trigger of chronic kidney disease.

“The evidence most strongly points to this idea of manual labor and not enough hydration,” said Daniel Brooks, a professor of epidemiology at Boston University’s School of Public Health, who has worked on a series of studies of the kidney disease epidemic.

As hard work and intense heat alone are not unique to Central America, some researchers won’t rule out manmade factors. But no strong evidence has turned up.

“I think everything points away from pesticides,” said Dr. Catharina Wesseling, an epidemiologist who also is regional director of the Program on Work, Health and Environment in Central America. “It is too multinational; it is too spread out. I would put my bet on repeated dehydration.”

Dr. Richard J. Johnson, a kidney specialist at the University of Colorado, Denver, is working with other researchers investigating the cause of the disease.

“This is a new concept, but there’s some evidence supporting it,” he said. “There are other ways to damage the kidney. Heavy metals, chemicals, toxins have all been considered, but to date there have been no leading candidates to explain what’s going on in Nicaragua. As these possibilities get exhausted, recurrent dehydration is moving up on the list.”

In Nicaragua, the number of annual deaths from chronic kidney disease has more than doubled, from 466 in 2000 to 1,047 in 2010, according to the Pan American Health Organization. In El Salvador, it reported a similar jump, from 1,282 in 2000 to 2,181 in 2010.

In the cane-growing lowlands of northern Costa Rica, there also have been sharp increases in kidney disease, and the Pan American body’s statistics show deaths are on the rise in Panama.

While some of the rising numbers may be due to better record-keeping, scientists believe they are facing something deadly and previously unknown to medicine.

In nations with more developed health systems, the disease that impairs the kidney’s ability to cleanse the blood is diagnosed early and treated with dialysis in medical clinics. In Central America, many victims treat themselves at home with a cheaper but less efficient form of dialysis, or go without any dialysis at all.

At a hospital in the Nicaraguan town of Chinandega, Segundo Zapata Palacios sat still in his room. His levels of creatinine, a chemical marker of kidney failure, were 25 times the normal amount.

His family told him he was hospitalized to receive dialysis. In reality, it was to ease his pain before his inevitable death, said Carmen Rios, a leader of Nicaragua’s Association of Chronic Kidney Disease Patients.

“There’s nothing to do,” she said. “He was hospitalized on January 23 just waiting to die.”

Zapata Palacios passed away on Jan. 26. He was 49.

Working with scientists from Costa Rica, El Salvador and Nicaragua, Wesseling tested groups on the coast and compared them with groups who had similar work habits and exposure to pesticide but lived and worked more than 500 meters above sea level.

Some 30 percent of coastal dwellers had elevated levels of creatinine, strongly suggesting environment rather than chemicals was to blame, Brooks said.

Brooks and Johnson said they had seen echoes of the Central American phenomenon in reports from hot farming areas in Sri Lanka, Egypt and east India.

“We don’t really know how widespread this is,” Brooks said. “This may be an under-recognized epidemic.”

Jason Glaser, co-founder of La Isla Foundation, a group working to help victims of the epidemic in Nicaragua, said he and colleagues had received reports of mysterious kidney disease among sugar cane workers in Australia.

Nicaragua’s highest rates of chronic kidney disease show up around Ingenio San Antonio, a plant owned by the Pellas Group conglomerate, whose sugar mill processes nearly half the nation’s sugar. Flores and Zapata Palacios both worked at the plantation.

According to one of Brooks’ studies, some workers were cutting sugar cane for up to 10 hours a day with virtually no break and little shade in average temperatures of 30 degrees Celsius.

Glaser said worker protections in the region were badly enforced by companies and government regulators, particularly those to stop workers with failing kidneys from working in the cane fields.

Many workers disqualified by tests showing high creatinine levels return to the fields with subcontractors who have less stringent standards, he said. Some use false IDs or give their IDs to their healthy sons, who then pass the tests and work in the fields.

“This is the only job in town,” Glaser said. “It’s all they’re trained to do. It’s all they know.”

Compared to Nicaragua, where thousands of kidney disease sufferers work for large sugar estates, in El Salvador many are small, independent farmers. They blame the chemicals and appear not to have changed their work habits despite the latest research.

In Nicaragua, the dangers are better known, but workers still need jobs. Zapata Palacios left eight children. Three of them work in the cane fields.

Two already show signs of kidney disease.

Associated Press

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 2/13/2012 5:21:30 PM
	While Digging Up 1,235 Acres For His Golf Course, Donald Trump Says Wind Farms Are 'Destroying' Scotland by ThinkProgress February 12, 2012 Written by Stephen Lacey, Climate Progress Real estate mogul and former Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has outdone himself this time. After starting construction on a 1,235 acre coastal golf course on rural land in Scotland that will feature two golf courses, 950 houses and a luxury hotel, Trump is now complaining that the Scottish Minister is “hell-bent on destroying Scotland’s coastline” with offshore wind projects. Last summer, Trump vowed to fight an 11-turbine offshore wind project proposed for waters 1.5 miles away from his sprawling complex where bulldozers have been ripping up untouched grasses and flattening coastal sand dunes to make way for an artificial golf course. In a letter to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond sent this week, Trump hilariously says he will try to “save Scotland” (yes, really) from the plight of wind turbines being proposed for the country’s coastline: “With the reckless installation of these monsters, you will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scottish history.” Trump also said he would never be “on board” with the project, which he called “insanity”. He added: “As a matter of fact, I have just authorised my staff to allocate a substantial amount of money to launch an international campaign to fight your plan to surround Scotland’s coast with many thousands of wind turbines.” He added: “Please understand that I am doing this to save Scotland.” One Scottish politician called Trump’s comments “desperate” and “embarrassing” — perhaps two of the biggest understatements of the year so far. Trump’s letter comes after a multi-year battle with local landowners who don’t want to be forced from their property to make way for the golf course. In one case, Trump built a fence around a local homeowner’s property he deemed “ugly” and then billed him for half the costs! Yes, this is coming from a man who ran for U.S. president, and who now sees himself as a serious candidate for Secretary of State in order to “be in a position to negotiate against some of these countries.” Trump has not signaled what his negotiating strategy would be. But if history is any guide, it will likely involve sending hypocritical letters to countries threatening his pet projects. This post was originally published by Climate Progress, a branch of ThinkProgress. Related Stories: Michigan Drags Feet in Developing Offshore Wind Wind Turbine Blades With Telescopic Arms, Catching The Breeze Duck Hunters Oppose Wind Farm Because It Kills Ducks Read more: climate progress, donald trump, renewable energy, scotland, wind farm, wind power Photo from Zach Karpinski via flickr Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/while-digging-up-1235-acres-for-his-golf-course-donald-trump-says-wind-farms-are-destroying-scotland.html#ixzz1mHdm1KRf
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
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Myrna 6311 16559 Waynes...	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 2/13/2012 6:18:28 PM
	HI Luis, Well it depends on what you think is good looking or not. Donald Trump is an selfish, mean, hateful person. How dare he be so cruel. I guess that is what selfishness is think only of me, or should I say think only of Donald. Trump’s letter comes after a multi-year battle with local landowners who don’t want to be forced from their property to make way for the golf course. In one case, Trump built a fence around a local homeowner’s property he deemed “ugly”and then billed him for half the costs! Need I say more! Except people like this make me ill.
	LOVE IS THE ANSWER
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Amanda 2190 2587 Lexington	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 2/13/2012 8:33:14 PM
	Myrna, I could not have said any better. I guess money gives Donald and his ilk the right to dictate to others how to live their lives even to the natural born people that have lived in Scotland for centuries passing their properties from one generation to the next and have managed to keep their environment beautiful and productive. Amanda Quote: HI Luis, Well it depends on what you think is good looking or not. Donald Trump is an selfish, mean, hateful person. How dare he be so cruel. I guess that is what selfishness is think only of me, or should I say think only of Donald. Trump’s letter comes after a multi-year battle with local landowners who don’t want to be forced from their property to make way for the golf course. In one case, Trump built a fence around a local homeowner’s property he deemed “ugly”and then billed him for half the costs! Need I say more! Except people like this make me ill.

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