Fina’s little body shook for hours with teeth-chattering chills. The next day her torment worsened, as nausea and vomiting continued even after there was nothing left in her stomach. Finally, her vomiting ebbed and chills turned to fever, drenching her body in sweat. Then more chills, fevers, nausea, convulsions, and constant, unbearable pain in every muscle, bone and joint.
She cried out, and tears mixed with sweat. But no one could help her. She had no money for doctors, medicines or a hospital room. She didn’t even have a mother or father to comfort her. All the orphanage school staff could do was caress her, pray and hope she’d get better – and wait for her to die.
And in agony that never stopped from the time the malaria first struck her down, Fina Nantume did die. So did 49 of her classmates, out of 500 students in the APEA Primary School for orphans in Kampala, Uganda, in 2005. Most of the survivors were also afflicted with malaria at least once that year. Some became permanently brain damaged. Others died in subsequent years.
Fina didn’t have to die. None of these spirited, beautiful young students had to die. None of them had to get malaria. The disease is preventable, treatable and curable.
Then why did they? Why does half the world’s population remain at risk of getting malaria? Why are some 250 million people infected annually – with 90% of the agonizing chills, fevers, nausea, brain damage and death occurring in sub-Saharan Africa?
It’s said malaria is a disease of poverty, and poor countries don’t have enough funds,doctors or medicines to treat the disease – or prevent it in the first place. True enough. But malaria is also, and much more so, a disease of callous, intransigent environmental extremism and wanton disregard for human life. A disease whose prevention is hampered, and actively thwarted, by pervasive opposition to mosquito-killing insecticides, and mosquito-repelling DDT...
The “net” effect of these bald-faced lies is that anti-pesticide zealots are perpetuating poverty, misery, disease and death in malaria-endemic regions all over the world. Safe in offices made malaria-free by the very chemicals, technologies and prosperity they deny to others, these baby killers and their financial benefactors are violating the most basic human rights of people in poor nations: the right of access to technologies that enhance and safeguard life.
Paul Driessen is a policy advisor for the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow and for the Congress of Racial Equality. He is author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power- Black death.
Dr. Robert Novak is a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham who has devoted much of his life to combating malaria.
... by all means let the next pope be nice--and a great deal more. Let him have the charm of John XXIII, the earnestness of Paul VI, the charisma of John Paul II, the intellectual brilliance of Benedict XVI. But above all let him be a brave teacher of Catholic truth in the face of all the demands that he be something less.
US 'planned to blow up a nuclear bomb on the Moon'
The US planned to explode a nuclear bomb on the Moon during the Cold War as a show of strength, according to reports.Frank J. from IMAO must have had an inside line, in his legendary post on IMAO.
American military chiefs allegedly devised the secret project, named 'A Study of Lunar Research Flights' – or 'Project A119' – in the hope that the Soviet Union would be intimidated by viewing the nuclear flash from Earth.
It would give the US a much needed morale boost after the Russians successfully launched Sputnik in 1957, according to physicist Leonard Reiffel, who was involved in the project.
According to the report in The Sun, the US would have used an atom bomb, because a hydrogen bomb would have been too heavy. The planning reportedly included calculations by astronomer Carl Sagan, who was then a young graduate.
Military officials however reportedly abandoned the idea, which would have taken place in 1959, because of fears that it would have an adverse effect on Earth should the explosion fail.
The project documents were kept secret for nearly 45 years, and the US government has never formally confirmed its involvement in the study.
In a recent Al-Jazeerah interview, Richard Dawkins was asked his views on God. He argued that the god of "the Old Testament" is "hideous" and "a monster", and reiterated his claim from The God Delusion that the God of the Torah is the most unpleasant character "in fiction".
As you can see, Dawkins has no trouble attacking the Hebrew God in a most direct and uncompromising manner. No atheist wallflower he.
Asked if he thought the same of the God of the Koran, Dawkins ducked the question, saying: "Well, um, the God of the Koran I don't know so much about."
How can it be that the world's most fearless atheist, celebrated for his strident opinions on the Christian and Jewish Gods, could profess to know so little about the God of the Koran? Has he not had the time? Or is Professor Dawkins simply demonstrating that most crucial trait of his species: survival instinct.
