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medical-gal · 3 years

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Death by a thousand cuts

I have been thinking about writing this for months now. Even before I decided to quit the residency at my previous job.

COVID has been kicking our ass, true, but that was (is) true for most healthcare providers all around the world.

No, my struggle started a bit before that actually.

First some background, I have been working at one of the biggest most famous ID clinics in central Europe. The clinic is in a different country than I am originally from so there was a bit of cultural accommodating at the begging. But we were a big group of ID interns/residents/fellows and specialists.

I don't actually remember that much from my first year working there. And I couldn't figure out why, but then I read in some study that when u experience a high dose of stress and/or sleep deprivation for a long time, your brain kinda stopps being able to transcribe short term memory into a long term.

I was working 100hours/week, sometimes less, sometimes more. After a year and a half, when the last half I worked in the ID ER for five months, I always stayed after working 24 hours, sometimes over 36hours, and I would see and treat 70ish patients. Nobody from the older docs would help me out, nobody from other interns either bc usually they would have their own kind of hell to take care of.

The fact that basically, inexperienced doctors are taking care of patients never really phased my ex-boss. Her mantra was that if there was a problem that you cannot resolve, you can call her and she would advise you. Which most of the time was true, I must say that.

But we all have been young docs, barely out of our medical school garments, and sometimes as it happened, we could not recognize there IS a problem that maybe needs a more experienced opinion.

I am often confronted with this idea or more like a culture, of pretending that once you are an MD you don't need help and asking for it is a kind of weakness and that then you are forever on the list of WEAKLINGS.

And let me say this only once.

That's absolute bullshit.

Anyway, the first time I decided to quit I worked there for about a year and a half, I went for a long-expected holiday, I took three weeks off, had interviews and talked with my bf about my options.

Second thing...my man, bless his beard, would support me no matter what. He is almost 10 years older than me, so he has more work experience and I find it reassuring to discuss stuff like this with him bc I know he will not sugarcoat it. He said that I should dig my heels in and last at least one more year till the end of my "internship". As a "resident" who worked at this specific department, I wouldn't have a problem finding another job. We r basically the equivalent of a french legion of medical professionals (when u work in this specific department and everyone knows it, I will come back to that later).

So I took his advice. Thankfully as a part of our training, one of those parts is a year-long internship at the internal medicine department, which I did shortly after we had that conversation and guys, that was a revelation of how medicine and just...work and life can be experienced. There were enough docs for a floor, an attending who had the time to manage and advise us. I´ve grown that year as a doc so much. Other internships were mandatory so I could have become (equivalent of) a resident, and it was a general surgery, anesthesiology, radiology, microbiology etc. But I did them all and became a resident.

The moment I came back to our clinic, my boss would put me in our outpatient department. Which I have never worked on before. The head of the department has quit a few months before, and I had no idea what to do there, bc it's a very different type work. The only thing my boss told me when I spoke of my concerns were "you will learn".

Thankfully the previous head of the department was a good friend of mine and she would always answer my questions and requests. Suddenly I no longer had to deal with the hectic life of an ID floor or ER, no sepsis, meningitis, etc.

Most of my patients were the chronic type...Lyme, chlamydia, mycoplasma... let's say it literally drained the life out of me. But I managed. Also, I started to work for their outpatient office which takes care of patients with chronic hepatatis. That I enjoyed more.

I also started to dip my toes in vaccinology, either planned like for travel but I started to be more interested in preventive care in the immunocompromised and my own phantasmagoria was to make a palliative care team in our hospital. Bc, we had none. And then a wonderful thing happened, other docs, older experienced, great at their work, started to refer their patients to me specifically.

There were more examples of the utter a complete FUCK U(s) which were kindly provided either by the system or by the head of the department or the hospital.

Then covid hit and the shit hit the interstellar space.

I still can't make myself remember the first few months bc it actually causes me to go into a rage fit, and honestly, I am done with that kind of negativity.

I hold out for a year. Year of such shitty treatment from the chief and our hospital head. No thank you- s or you are doing a good job or we r all on the same ship.

No.

People will say that I quit bc of the money. And that's not true, tho it did irk me a bit. All the other ID specialists working at different hospitals would get covid bonuses every month. We got jack shit. Again, the best biggest most know ID clinic. We were the first and oftern the ONLY ones who would test for/diagnose/hospitalize/treat a patient who had covid FOR MONTHS in the beginning.

I mean, the medical community is small, the ID community even smaller so yes, we were able to compare and contrast the work at different ID departments in other hospitals bc our friends worked there. And all of them would go speechless when they would hear from us what we were living thru.

At one point at the beginning of the pandemic, ALL the ambulances would go thru our ER department and we were supposed to decide where the patient should go.

AN EXAMPLE

Ambulance with a woman who has known colon cancer, had a fever, stomach as a rock and is projectile vomiting. I was supposed to decide where she should go and the surgeon would be super pissed when I said that I don't think she has COVID but without PCR I can't be sure but I think there is a bigger pressing issue. I remember him saying:

"well if anyone else gets infected at our department and dies, it's on you."

fun.

There were other examples of seriously stressful episodes which I and my coworkers lived thru, for which we were not trained for, advised, or properly supervised. At a certain point, I started to take anxiolytics before and during my all-nighters bc I didn't know what I would do with all that stress which was so callously shat on me and my coworkers.

For a few months, I stopped working nights, only thru the mercy of my coworkers who saw how exhausted I was and would take my shifts.

Anyway, after only two months I had to start working nights bc I needed the money. The basic pay for docs was just not enough without the extra from night shifts. Talk about exploiting.

The moment however when I decided to QUIT, when I was DONE, when I actually heard my heart break, was the moment at the end of the previous year. They decided to start vaccinating in our tiny small vaccination centre. Let's say a "shit storm" brewing is the light version of events that ensued.

But basically, as I was trying to discuss with my boss that we are all exhausted, that this wave is not slowing down and that throwing more work at us, the docs and nurses and other staff, who are overworked, is not a good idea,

What she basically said to me is that who says things like that is lazy and that if she can handle it everyone must be also.

The thing is..most of us were at the bring. Some would handle it with casual and calous sex, drugs (legal or not), a bottle of wine before sleep. A coworker ended up with antipsychotics.

But u know,

we were all lazy apperently.

I realized there is no way out of this other than quitting. I could not continue being so tired and sad all the time. I took two weeks off, really thought about it. Had diarrhoea and nausea for a week as I realized I will have to quit :D

On a Monday I came back, handed in my notice. Basically what she told me and how she reacted made me realized how right the decision was.

I had to stay there for another three months bc that's the law, but my mood changed significantly.

I got another job in a smaller ID department, working with amazingly kind people, but that's another story.

But that was the only interview I actually looked for and did. I, however, did get several job offers from different types of medicine. From heads of different departments in my old hospital to smaller general medicine chain offices who are looking for ID specialists, to insurance companies.

Like I said, french legion.

Or Runway and your boss is Miranda Pristley. Once u survive that, u survive anything.

But at my old work they would keep hitting you with wave after wave of passive agressive comments about how if u quit, u wont be able to find anything as"prestigious" as this.

There were many other exmaples of a shitty and questionable situations which were treated as "normal" but there is not point on getting on that rage train.

Contrary as it might seem, I am greatful I got to live thru this, good and bad, bc now I know what I am and am not willing to sacrifice for a job. No matter how much I might love it.

#sorry this is long #but goddammit it needed to be said #suzy's adventures in id

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phantom-le6 · 3 years

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Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 3 (3 of 6)

Carrying on with my reviews of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, here’s another round that brings us to about the mid-point of the third season

Episode 11: The Hunted

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise is investigating the planet Angosia III as a candidate for entry into the Federation. Captain Picard is discussing this with Prime Minister Nayrok when a convict escapes on a transport ship from the Angosian prison colony on Lunar V. Picard offers his assistance and The Enterprise locates the ship, which flies behind an asteroid. However, only the drive section emerges from the other side with no life signs. Following it around they find the ship's wreckage. Believing that the prisoner has perished, the ship returns to the planet, only to discover the drive section they saw has disappeared.

Picard and Commander Riker return to the Enterprise and following a hunch from Data locate an escape pod and beam aboard the prisoner. When security try to take the prisoner into custody he fights back, virtually unaffected by their phasers. He overpowers the guards and injures O'Brien before he is subdued by Lt Worf and Riker. Upon further examination the crew find that the prisoner does not emit any life signs on scanner.

The prisoner identifies himself as Roga Danar a former soldier. Counsellor Troi meets Danar and reads little aggression from him, finding it unlikely that he could be so violent. Danar explains that he and others were genetically enhanced and mentally programmed, greatly increasing their abilities and affecting their responses when in danger. The crew also finds that despite being a prisoner Danar has no criminal record. Nayrok confirms Danar's story but says that the soldiers were unsuited for life in civilized society. When Captain Picard raises the subject with Nayrok, he refuses to discuss the abuses Danar alleges, considering it a matter of internal security, and instead simply arranges for Danar to be returned to the colony. Danar tells Troi that the conditioning was never reversed or treated, and due to its effects, a small misunderstanding could often lead to murder. Rather than try to fix the conditioning, the government imprisoned them all.

During the transfer from the Enterprise to the Angosian transport, Danar manages to escape. Easily evading security, he cripples the Enterprise by causing an explosion in one of the Jeffries tubes, disabling the sensors. With the Enterprise blind Danar beams aboard the Angosian transport vessel. Taking control, he attacks the Lunar V colony and rescues several of his fellow inmates.

Danar and the other inmates lead an attack on the capital and confront the Angosian government. Nayrok pleads with the Enterprise to help. Picard beams down with an away team but refuses to help, questioning the morality of how they've treated their soldiers. Nayrok and his compatriots explain the government's view on the matter; that they weren’t sure the soldiers' augmentations could be reversed, thus requiring them to be confined for their own good and perhaps used again in the future. Against this, Picard is frustrated at their intransigence on this matter.

In the middle of this argument, Danar and his rebels storm the government building. In an act of hypocrisy, Nayrok pleads with Picard to intervene against this insurrection. Picard elects instead to depart considering he has sufficient information for his report, including the flagrant sentient rights abuses discovered, reminding Nayrok that he himself called the matter an internal affair.

With Nayrok fruitlessly protesting against their being abandoned, Picard informs the government that they have to make a choice on what to do with their veterans. Danar smiles at the away team, happy to finally be recognized as they depart. On their return to the Enterprise, Picard notes that if the government survives, they will be given assistance in helping their veterans with their conditioning. He also notes that they may reapply to join the Federation at a later date.

Review:

This episode is strictly oriented with no focus on any single character from the main cast. Apparently, the underlying theme of the episode was to show a metaphorical reflection and exploration of how veterans of America’s war in Vietnam were treated, and by extension remains a metaphor for how modern militaries in western society treat their veterans. The psychological component of the episode’s sci-fi elements, in turn, is also a potential metaphor for PTSD, albeit not necessarily the most positive one given the actions of Danar under his own form of conditioning.

More worrying, however, is that a lot of people preferred an earlier draft of the finale in which the altered Angosian soldiers would have had a massive shoot out ending in a wipeout of all the guest characters. Frankly, I think that would have been a terrible idea, because then depending on how that was played out, you’re essentially suggesting anyone whose mental health has been adversely affected by war is doomed to some kind of mutual destruction ending on their life. The revised ending is far more positive, because it suggests even the most ignorant of societies can learn to treat combat-induced mental trauma, and indeed mental ill health as a whole, the right way. That kind of hopeful message is what Star Trek is ultimately supposed to be about, even if at this period in the franchise it occasionally lent too far towards its utopian ideals.

Overall, I think this is a pretty decent episode, made even more so thanks to James Cromwell making his first of many guest appearances within the Star Trek franchise. Of course, his most notable one is yet to come within my TNG review (*Cough* First Contact). On the whole, I give this episode about 8 out of 10. Could have been full marks, but somehow I don’t think it’s quite at the upper-most levels of Trek.

Episode 12: The High Ground

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The crew of the Enterprise is sent on a mercy mission to deliver medical supplies to the war-torn non-affiliated planet Rutia IV, in the middle of a decades-long conflict with rebel separatists called the Ansata. The Enterprise crew cannot intervene in the conflict itself, internal to the planet, because to do so would violate the Prime Directive. While Chief Medical Officer Dr Crusher, Lt. Commander Data, and Lieutenant Worf relax in a cafe, a bomb goes off in a public plaza, injuring many bystanders. Dr Crusher attempts to tend to the wounded bodies against Captain Picard's suggestion to return to the ship, but her efforts are interrupted when she is abducted by a man using an unknown method of teleportation. After being denied the use of the Enterprise's superior firepower to seek and destroy the Ansata's base of operations, Alexana Devos, the head of Rutian security, orders severe interrogation of all known Ansata sympathizers, an act that the Enterprise crew find immoral. Without new information from Devos, the Enterprise crew investigate the teleportation technology and find that it is used to shift between dimensions, allowing the Ansata rebels to bypass even force fields. The investigative team, which includes Wesley, lets Picard know that they need to observe more of the teleportations to be able to pinpoint the location of the base.

At the Ansata base, Dr Crusher learns her abductor is Kyril Finn, the leader of Ansata. She refuses to eat or otherwise cooperate with Finn. After several hours, Finn lets Dr Crusher out of her restraints and requests that she help treat their wounded. She discovers that the "Inverters", the Ansata teleportation technology, cause irreversible damage to the user's DNA, and that many of the Ansata are sick due to excessive use of the Inverter. Finn admits that the Inverter is their only advantage against the Rutian government. After more hours pass, Finn believes that the Federation, by providing medical aid and working with Rutian security forces to find the doctor, is working with the Rutian government and launches an attack on the Enterprise, despite Crusher's requests to avoid harming her son. The Ansata manage to plant a bomb on the Enterprise warp engine. It is quickly transported into space by La Forge, but the distraction is enough to allow Finn to appear on the bridge. When Captain Picard jumps on Finn to save the bridge crew, he ends up being abducted. With Picard as his captive, Finn uses the Inverter to come to Counsellor Troi on the Enterprise and demand the Federation become involved in mediating the dispute, returning to the planet before security can arrive. Picard, learning of Dr Crusher's situation, tells her to continue to work on gaining Finn's confidence to hopefully end the dispute peacefully.

Data and Wesley are able to use Finn's appearance to locate the Ansata base, and Commander Riker and Devos assemble their forces. After they transport into the base, the combined forces are quickly able to quell the resistance. Finn, as a last resort, attempts to execute Picard, but Devos kills him. It is her conclusion that if Finn remained alive, his imprisonment would spark more resistance, while being killed in battle will only elevate him to martyr status and reduce the violence in the short-term. When a young Ansata member attempts to exact revenge on Picard, Dr Crusher is able to convince him to drop his weapon, which Riker notes is a sign that there may be more fruitful discussions to resolve the issue in the future.

Review:

According to the Trek wiki-page Memory Alpha, a lot of people on the TNG crew felt that this was a flop episode, somehow being a mishandling of an episode that was done primarily to satisfy a demand for more action-oriented stories. Apparently, it was originally intended as a metaphor on the American revolution, but then became compared to the Troubles of Northern Ireland. Indeed, at one point Data mentions a Reunification of Ireland in 2024 resulting from terrorism, and as a result the episode has never aired on TV stations based in the Republic of Ireland, while the show was shown only in an edited format on British television until May 2006 on Sky One (September 2007 for the after-midnight repeats on BBC 2).

However, I disagree with the opinion of the show’s crew. This was a good episode precisely because it did issue exploration, because issue exploration is what Trek often does brilliantly. Moreover, I like how Finn points out the difference between being seen as a revolutionary or a terrorist is sometimes more about the perspective of those in power after the conflict is over and a winner, or loser, is declared. He says this while discussing George Washington, and it’s a very apt analogy. Had George Washington lost the American revolution, he’d have gone down in history as being akin to Guy Fawkes in many minds. Instead, he won and gained a notable place in history as the founder of the United States.

Also, the idea that terrorism would just be limited to how we view certain revolutions, or that Ireland was the only possible comparison for this episode at the time this series was made, is also wrong. As we’ve come to learn the hard way in the 21st century, terrorism is also the tool of the religious extreme, and that applies to all religions, because no faith has cornered the proverbial market when it comes to terrorist acts. However, back then in the early 1990’s, Ireland would hardly have been the only country experiencing terrorism. Ever since its creation, the Jewish state of Israel has been subject to acts of violence from the displaced Palestinian population, which Israel routinely portrays as terrorism despite the fact that Israel invariably has the Palestinian people out-manned, out-gunned and heavily oppressed, as if subjecting them to what the Jews suffered for centuries some excuses their actions. Haven forbid it would enter either side’s head that maybe, just maybe, it would be better to share the land in peace and just agree to disagree on the whole mythical sky-figure issue.

This is why this episode is actually far better than the show-makers seem to think; because it does what Trek does best and, rather sadly given the subject matter, retains its relevance on repeat viewings. Its only flaw to my mind is that we get another bit of entertainment where people might think there’s a bit of Stockholm Syndrome going on when there isn’t. I’m no expert, but Beverly isn’t held captive long enough or subjected to any kind of ill-treatment that would make me buy into Picard’s warning about her ‘warming up to her captor’, just like I can’t buy into that same kind of concept in Beauty and the Beast for the same reason. Make it at least a week or two and I’d buy it, but only a matter of hours in both cases? Sorry, no chance, or at least not without some mind-altering substances and skilful manipulation of the captive’s psyche, none of which applies. Overall, I give this episode 8 out of 10.

Episode 13: Deja Q

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Enterprise arrives at planet Bre'el IV to prevent the looming disaster of the planet's asteroidal moon falling from its orbit and crashing into the highly populated planet; as the ship arrives, the planet is already experiencing damaging effects of the moon's gravitational field. As the crew is working, Q appears on the bridge naked. Q explains that he is being punished by the Continuum for spreading chaos throughout the universe and he has been stripped of all his powers, banished from the Q Continuum, and transported to the Enterprise as a human, asking asylum. Captain Picard reluctantly helps Q, but instead of assigning him guest quarters, Picard treats Q like a criminal and throws him in the brig.

As the moon continues to descend to the planet, Picard urges Q to use his powers and move the moon back into its original orbit. Q still insists that he is powerless except for his IQ of 2005. The captain assigns Lt. Commander Data to watch Q and he is ordered to assist the Engineering team. Q suggests that they "change the gravitational constant of the universe." Q begins experiencing more human conditions, such as back spasms and hunger. Data takes Q to the Ten-Forward Lounge. When Q enquires about what food is best to address his constant suffering, Data suggests a chocolate sundae as he has observed Counsellor Troi turning to chocolate when depressed. After ordering ten sundaes, his hunger is quickly displaced upon encountering Guinan, who takes advantage of Q's mortal form to stab him with a fork. Shortly thereafter, Q is set upon by a cloud of gaseous entities called the Calamarain, who, having previously been tormented by Q, are attempting to get revenge. After raising the shields to prevent the Calamarain from attacking Q, Picard determines that Q took refuge on the Enterprise to protect himself from alien species that hold grudges against him.

Q's idea of changing the gravitational constant of the universe, impossible with human technology, sparks an idea in Chief Engineer La Forge to modify the gravitational constant of the moon using a warp field, and they attempt to use this. However, during the attempt the Enterprise's shields go down, allowing the Calamarain to attack Q again. Data attempts to save Q from their assault but is electrified in doing so, nearly frying his positronic brain. Realizing that his presence on the Enterprise is doing more harm than he expected, Q leaves the ship in a shuttlecraft. As the Calamarain close onto the shuttle, a second Q being appears on the shuttle and informs Q that due to his selfless act to protect the Enterprise, the Continuum is willing to give him a second chance and restore his powers. Q accepts, shrinking the Calamarain entities and teleporting them into the palm of his hand, gloating over the restoration of his powers. The other Q reminds him that he should reflect upon the lessons he's learned, and he grudgingly turns the tiny aliens loose. Q, dressed as a mariachi, returns to the Enterprise and celebrates. Nudged by Picard to leave, he departs, bestowing a parting gift on Data for showing Q how to be more human. After Q disappears, Data begins to laugh uncontrollably for a moment, to the surprise of the rest of the Enterprise crew. Upon learning that the Bre'el moon has returned to a safe orbit, Picard surmises that Q is responsible, and says that perhaps Q has a residue of humanity after all, but a cigar appears in Picard's hand with Q's voice telling him, "Don't bet on it."

Review:

Q is back, and speaking as a Marvel fan, it’s very much a case of Loki playing at being Thor. So far, Q’s been a trickster of sorts, using his powers to amuse himself, test humanity or both. This time, however, he gets stripped of his powers, dumped on the Enterprise and can’t get his powers back until he shows humility and selflessness. This is something that was baked into Thor’s comic incarnation of decades before this episode, so whether the Trek people realise it or not, Marvel beat them to the punch, and I’m sure other writers have covered the same kind of story before Marvel as well. Ultimately, it’s a fun episode as Q episodes ultimately became, but not by any means a highly original one. For me, the best part of the episode is Q giving Data the gift of laughter. Overall, I give this episode 7 out of 10.

Episode 14: A Matter of Perspective

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

With a routine planetary survey ahead, the Enterprise drops Commander Riker and Chief Engineer La Forge at the Botanica Four research space station orbiting Tanuga Four to check on the progress of the work of Dr Nel Apgar, a Tanugan who has been working on Krieger waves, a new promised energy source for the Federation. When the Enterprise returns, Captain Picard is told that Riker stayed behind to have a private meeting with Apgar, and moments after Riker transports back to the ship, the station explodes, killing Apgar, and almost killing Riker due to the explosion disrupting the transporter process. Tanugan investigator Krag comes aboard to accuse Riker of murder; under Tanugan law, Riker is guilty until proven innocent, and Krag demands Riker's extradition. Captain Picard requests that they hold a hearing aboard the Enterprise to determine Riker's guilt. This involves the use of a holodeck, recreating the events on the station from data logs and testimony from Riker, Dr. Apgar's wife Manua, and his research assistant, Tayna.

In the holodeck recreation, Krag demonstrates that a directed energy beam from Riker's location prior to transport struck the Krieger wave converter, destroying it and the station, but his theory is that Riker fired a phaser just before beaming out. Riker presents his case first, with his simulation showing Apgar highly agitated with a Federation presence before he is ready for them, and Manua openly flirting with Riker. Manua then makes aggressive passes at Riker in the guest quarters when Apgar walks in on them, attempts to attack Riker, but Riker subdues him. Apgar leaves with Manua giving Riker a veiled threat. Riker's simulation concludes with his final confrontation where Apgar tells Riker that he will lodge a formal complaint about Riker's behaviour and accuses Riker of potentially damaging the project with baseless information in Riker's progress report.

In Manua's version of the events, she is a doting wife, with her husband promising rich rewards coming from the project. From her point of view, Riker is the one making the advances, and when they are alone in the guest quarters, Riker threatens to rape her when her husband storms in to defend her, but Riker overpowers him and threatens to have the project shut down. During a recess, Riker asserts to Counsellor Troi that he never seduced or tried to rape Manua, and Troi believes him, but she tells him that Manua believes the events happened as described, and that "it is the truth as each of you remembers it".

Tayna's testimony is her version of events from Apgar's point of view as he told her. Picard tries to have the testimony dismissed as hearsay, however, Tanugan law allows such testimony, so they proceed. In her simulation, when Apgar walks in on Riker and Manua, Apgar is the one to successfully subdue Riker, leaving Riker threatening to kill Apgar. Based on the testimonies presented, Picard is not sure Riker's case is strong enough to avoid extradition.

Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise find highly focused pulses of an unknown, intense radiation striking parts of the ship, putting holes through the bulkheads. La Forge fears what would happen if this should occur inside the warp reactor. The initial assessment is that the only commonality is the timing of these events, which upon further examination they soon trace to be precisely in time with the lambda field generator on the surface, which had remained operating after the station's destruction. Picard comes to realize the truth, and prepares a new simulation on the holodeck.

With Krag, Manua, Tayna, and Riker all present, Picard demonstrates through a combination of the testimonies that Apgar was more interested in the potential financial success of completing the Krieger wave converter; he would not get this through the Federation, and Picard postulates that he in fact was trying to weaponize the project to make money, thus explaining his hostility towards Riker's presence. Further, Picard suggests that Apgar had successfully built the converter; the holodeck simulation of it, also being fully functional, has been focusing the energy from the generator on the planet, resulting in the damaging radiation experienced on the ship, which La Forge identified as Krieger waves. Picard completes his explanation by running the holodeck simulation of the moment of Riker's transport, synchronized with the planetary generator – the holodeck simulation shows that Apgar had aimed the Krieger wave generator at Riker, but when the energy beam struck him, the beam bounced off the transporter field and hit the converter, destroying it and the station. Krag agrees with the conclusion that Apgar accidentally killed himself and Riker is exonerated.

Review:

This is basically a Riker episode, and here we get a kind of spin on his customary ‘girl of the week’ escapades. This time, he’s accused of murder in a society where suspects are guilty until proven innocence, as opposed to the innocent until proven guilty stance of western society that Trek juris prudence is based on. In addition, the bulk of the evidence for Riker’s guilt is testimony that varies massively from Riker’s own recounting of events, and with little physical evidence to prove what happens until the end.

Because of all this, the episode makes several good points. First and foremost is a point that is later made throughout the entire CSI franchise, which is that scientific evidence is ultimately superior to witness testimony, as the testimony is biased by each character’s individual perceptions and the fundamentally unreliable nature of biological memory. In addition, as Greg Sanders points out in one episode of the tenth season of the Vegas CSI show, witnesses tend to merge what they see with prior assumptions. This is probably most evident with the last of the trio of witness testimonies, as Tayna’s deposition is probably affected by her admiration for Dr Apgar as much as any spin Apgar himself might have put on whatever he told her.

Secondly, the show tries to point out the error in taking a guilty until proven innocent stance. Had Picard allowed extradition of Riker without performing the holodeck recreations, Riker’s innocence in the murder charge would never have been proven, and the character could have potentially been imprisoned or killed for a crime he didn’t commit. This is why our system of justice has to assume innocence as the default state and prove guilt rather than vice versa; it is there specifically to protect the innocent from wrongful conviction.

Sadly, the episode falls short on two major points. First, there is too much variance between the three testimonies regarding the Riker-Manua relationship and Apgar’s actions with Riker in the guest quarters for me to believe Troi when she says everyone’s saying what they believe is the truth. Riker’s version portrays Manua as an unfaithful wife and he’s trying to be the consummate gentleman, Manua’s version suggests she is a doting wife and Riker a would-be rapist (which we’ve had two-and-a-half seasons to know is a flat-out lie in his case), and Tayna’s version suggests Riker and Manua were both into hooking up behind Apgar’s back. Likewise, Riker’s version of Apgar bursting in suggests Riker acted purely defensively, Manua’s version suggests Riker went for Apgar first, while Tayna’s version shows Apgar as someone who makes a successful physical defence of himself. That’s way too much difference for me to believe it’s just a ‘matter of perspective’. The show makers needed to get the three stories to coincide better.

Second, there’s no follow-up regarding Riker’s possible act of rape; as much as we know Riker would never commit such an act, it seems both strange and wrong to have the show essentially ignore that aspect of the charges against Riker. Much like the season 2 opener the child, it shows how blind we were back then regarding what we now term rape culture. In summation, I give this episode 6 out of 10.

Episode 15: Yesterday’s Enterprise

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D) encounters a rift in spacetime while on a routine mission. As they monitor the anomaly, the heavily damaged USS Enterprise-C, a ship believed to have been destroyed more than two decades earlier, emerges. Instantly, the Enterprise-D undergoes a sudden and radical change from its current timeline: it is now a warship, and the United Federation of Planets is at war with the Klingons. Neither Worf nor Counsellor Troi are seen or referred to, and Tasha Yar, who was killed years before, is now alive and running the tactical station. None of the crew notice the change, but Guinan senses that reality has shifted, and has a meeting with Captain Picard to discuss her concerns. She senses that there are supposed to be children on the ship, which of course is completely impractical on a warship. She suggests that the Enterprise-C does not belong in their time and must return to the past. Picard, who knows that this would be a suicide mission, refuses to give such an order based on Guinan's intuition alone.

Captain Rachel Garrett of the Enterprise-C and her crew learn they have travelled into the future. Garrett explains that they were responding to a distress call from the Klingon outpost on Narendra III, and were attacked by Romulan starships. While his crew works to repair the Enterprise-C and tend to the crew's injuries, Picard and his command staff discuss whether or not the ship should return to the past. Commander Riker argues that their deaths would be meaningless, but Data suggests that it would be considered an honourable act by the Klingons. Picard discusses the situation with Garrett, who tells him that her crew will serve the Federation in the present. Picard quietly reveals to her that the Federation is on the verge of defeat and the presence of one ship will make no difference, but if the Enterprise-C were to return to the past they might prevent the war from ever starting. Garrett agrees and announces to her crew that they will return through the anomaly; at that moment, the two ships are ambushed by a Klingon Bird of Prey. Garrett is killed, and her helmsman, Richard Castillo, takes command.

During the repair efforts, Yar becomes close to Castillo, but is unnerved by tense interactions with Guinan. Guinan reveals to Yar that she knows Yar dies a meaningless death in the other timeline, and that the two should never have met. Based on her discussion with Guinan, Yar requests a transfer to the Enterprise-C, which is granted by Picard. As the Enterprise-C prepares to return through the anomaly, three Klingon battlecruisers attack. With the anomaly becoming unstable, Picard orders the Enterprise-D to cover the Enterprise-C's withdrawal. The Enterprise-D suffers massive systems damage and major crew losses under the Klingon barrage, including the death of Commander Riker, forcing Picard to man the tactical station himself. With the Enterprise-D on the brink of destruction, the Enterprise-C traverses the anomaly, triggering the return of Enterprise-D's original timeline. In the restored timeline, Guinan – the only one subtly aware of what has transpired – asks Geordi La Forge to tell her more about Yar.

Review:

Somehow, despite a lack of underlying issue exploration, character development or anything else that typically make great Trek, this episode has gone down in history as one of the pinnacle episodes of the franchise generally and TNG in particular. To be fair, it is fairly unique on two points. First, it is TNG’s first episode to make any really effective use of time travel, and it’s a rare example of the time travel being people coming forward from the past and having to go back there, whereas most time travel involves heading back to the past and returning to the future. Second, it brings back Denise Crosby as Tasha Yar…just to kill her off again.

The real stand-out point of this episode is that after almost two seasons worth of episodes between this one and ‘Skin of Evil’, TNG basically brought back a killed off main cast character to try and re-do that death better. Now knowing the legacy of this episode later in the TNG series, I can honestly say they could have done better. Really, this episode shouldn’t have had a legacy just to preserve the more purposeful death for Tasha that this episode tries to provide. Moreover, this episode fails to impose any kind of consistency on past-to-future time travel, as a much later episode would involve the same kind of time travel without history-altering interruptions, and I’ll discuss that more when that episode comes up. For now, however, I’m content to say that I’m not about to give this episode quite the same level of praise that others seem to have afforded it. Instead, I give it about 7 out of 10.

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ramblingsofastarrider · 6 years

Text

Muse: Hithfaeril Xithrilinth-Con-Stristal

Name: Hithfaeril Xithrilinth-Con-Stristal

Race: Nyctcimmerian

Age: 94/ average of 200. Human equivalent of 35.

Height: 6′ 6″

Languages OC Speaks/Knows: Superannuated Secunnic , Galactic international.

Fear(s): Returning to Seccunas, Boridhren, loud footfalls and similar sounds.

Medical Condition(s): Spores of the Learned’s Mercy.

Right, Left, or Both-handed: Ambidextrous

Likes: Watching wrestling, falling asleep around people

Dislikes:

Beliefs: Slistastin

Sexual Orientation: Demisexual

Appearance:

Eyes: Entirely blue

Hair: Abdomen length, black but glows blue in the moonlight. Worn in a high ponytail when working, typically down otherwise.

Notable markings: Large branding mark on the back of her neck. Bioluminescent patterning that glows blue in moonlight, eyes glow blue in moonlight.

Position: Assistant Navigator (The Assistant Navigator or sometimes known was Lookout Officer help the Chief Navigator with charting courses as well calculations. They operate the ship’s radar, reading heat signatures, identifying nearby ships, bases, objects and potential hazards via long range scanner.)

Backstory: At age 50, Hithfaeril failed her citizenship test and was taken in to slavery by Boridhren, a cut-throat wealthy Nyctcimmeran. She was given injections of the Spore’s of the Learned’s Mercy in the same year and was used by Boridhren for profit in the underground slave fighting rings of her planet. At age 85 she escaped and fled for 5 years before being taken in by Captain Daliron, securing a position on the SS Nebula Cruiser.

Character Reference:

artist unknown, if you know who has made this let me know so that I may credit them!

#character #hithfaeril

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biofunmy · 4 years

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Rwanda avoids US-style opioids crisis by making own morphine

BUSHEKELI, Rwanda — It was something, the silence. Nothing but the puff of her breath and the scuff of her slip-on shoes as Madeleine Mukantagara walked through the fields to her first patient of the day. Piercing cries once echoed down the hill to the road below. What she carried in her bag had calmed them.

For 15 years, her patient Vestine Uwizeyimana had been in unrelenting pain as disease wore away her spine. She could no longer walk and could barely turn over in bed. Her life narrowed to a small, dark room with a dirt-floor in rural Rwanda, prayer beads hanging on the wall by her side.

A year ago, relief came in the form of liquid morphine, locally produced as part of Rwanda’s groundbreaking effort to address one of the world’s great inequities: As thousands die from addiction in rich countries awash with prescription painkillers, millions of people writhe in agony in the poorest nations with no access to opioids at all.

Companies don’t make money selling cheap, generic morphine to the poor and dying, and most people in sub-Saharan Africa cannot afford the expensive formulations like oxycodone and fentanyl, prescribed so abundantly in richer nations that thousands became addicted to them.

Rwanda’s answer: plastic bottles of morphine, produced for pennies and delivered to homes across the country by community health workers like Mukantagara. It is proof, advocates say, that the opioid trade doesn’t have to be guided by how much money can be made.

“Without this medicine I think I would die,” said Uwizeyimana, 22.

When Mukantagara arrived, she smiled.

The small-scale production of liquid morphine that began in neighboring Uganda years ago is now being taken significantly further in Rwanda. It aims to be the first low- or middle-income country to make palliative care — or the easing of pain from life-threatening illness — available to all citizens, and for free.

As a palliative care worker, Mukantagara has long been a witness to death. She watched her sister die of cancer decades ago, in agony without relief.

The 56-year-old nurse settled on the edge of Uwizeyimana’s bed, and they began with prayer. Uwizeyimana was feeling better. “Now I think everything is possible,” she said. They held hands and prayed again, in whispers. Uwizeyimana closed her eyes.

As her visitors left Uwizeyimana blessed them, wishing for them what she might never have herself. May you get married, if you are not, she said. May you have children.

“It is hard to estimate how long someone will live,” Mukantagara said, walking away. Uwizeyimana is not the youngest among the 70 patients she sees. Many have cancer. Some have HIV. A few have both.

She attends patients’ funerals and thanks grieving families for their care. To relax, she sings in her church choir, and in her office by the hospital chapel she hums along with the hymns. A psychologist colleague offers her counseling.

The work is never easy, she said. But with morphine, at least, there is a chance for death with dignity.

———

Twenty-five years ago, the killing of some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate ethnic Hutus left this small country with an intimate knowledge of pain. Those who survived, struggled to recover from ghastly machete wounds and the cruelest of amputations.

With the health system shattered, there was little to ease the agony.

As Rwanda rebuilt itself, resilience was essential. Pain was to be endured, ideally without showing suffering; if you did, some said, you were not strong.

But medical advances meant more people were living into old age and facing diseases such as cancer. Some thought their pain was punishment from God for past sins, recalled Dr. Christian Ntizimira, one of Rwanda’s most outspoken advocates for palliative care. At the same time, health workers treating Rwandans in the late stages of AIDS pleaded for a way to ease their pain.

Many doctors were ignorant of morphine or scared to use it. When Ntizimira was hesitant to prescribe it, early in his career, a mother fell to her knees in front of him and pleaded for mercy for her son. Ntizimira was ashamed.

“I went home and questioned myself: ‘Why study so many years if I can’t help someone in pain?’” he recalled. “I didn’t sleep that night.”

In much of the world, the use of opioids was exploding. Consumption has tripled since 1997, according to the International Narcotics Control Board. But the increase was in expensive formulations that are profitable for pharmaceutical companies, according to an AP analysis of INCB data. The use of morphine, the cheapest and most reliable painkiller, stagnated.

Administration of morphine for hospice patients is undisputed — in 2016, when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control called on doctors to cut back on the flood of opioid prescriptions that fed the addiction crisis, it specifically exempted end-of-life patients.

But a dying person will only be a customer a few months and will not bolster the pharmaceutical industry’s profits, critics say. The problem in the United States took hold when companies began campaigning to prescribe opioids for patients suffering from chronic conditions like back pain and osteoarthritis — prospective customers for decades, said Dr. Anna Lembke, a Stanford University professor who wrote a book about how well-meaning American doctors helped facilitate the crisis and has been a witness against pharmaceutical companies.

The campaign changed the culture of opioid prescribing for a generation of doctors: The prescription rate quadrupled between 1999 and 2010. The INCB reported that some 90 percent of opioids are now consumed by the richest nations, where just 17% of people live, primarily the U.S., Canada, Western Europe and Australia.

A major study by the Lancet Commission on Global Access to Palliative Care and Pain Relief recently described the inequality between rich and poor countries as a “broad and deep abyss.”

The study estimates it would cost only $145 million a year to provide enough morphine to ease end-of-life suffering around the globe, yet millions still suffer without pain medication in the poorest places.

“Pain is a torture,” said Diane Mukasahaha, Rwanda’s national coordinator of palliative care. She described patients without morphine who were near starvation because they couldn’t bear to eat. “People should have medication like an American person. We all are human beings. The body is the same.”

Stefano Berterame, chief of the narcotic control for the INCB secretariat, said the agency has implored pharmaceutical companies to help.

Commercially made morphine is on average nearly six times more expensive in many low- and middle- income counties than it is in wealthy ones, the INCB has reported, and the price varies wildly from place to place. Experts attribute it in part to small countries with low opioid consumption lacking the negotiating power to import drugs at bulk prices, particularly for controlled narcotics that require international authorizations that tack on cost. Studies have shown that in some countries, a 30-day supply of morphine costs the equivalent of 40 days of minimum wage work.

In 2013, Stephen Connor, executive director of the Worldwide Hospice Palliative Care Alliance, made a list of all the companies that make opioids and invited them to attend a conference. It was a chance, he said, to discuss how they could help address the crushing need for end-of-life pain treatment by producing morphine as a social good.

Of more than 100 companies invited, only five came — and none of the American companies that mass-market opioids.

And so a growing number of African countries — Rwanda, Kenya, Malawi — began to make and distribute morphine on their own, usually in a nonprofit and government collaboration. They looked to Uganda, where the nonprofit Hospice Africa Uganda was making liquid morphine from powder in a process so basic the solution was mixed for nearly two decades at a kitchen sink.

The Ugandan operation, though much praised, remains limited in reach. Its existence outside the government health system is precarious, relying so much on donor support that it nearly shut down this year, founder Dr. Anne Merriman said.

By putting morphine production and distribution under strict government control and covering the costs for patients, Rwanda has quietly become the new model for Africa. The liquid is produced from imported powder three times a week, about 200 bottles at a time, in a single room where a handful of workers in protective scrubs are checked before leaving to prevent the drug being smuggled out, said Richard Niwenshuti Gatera, a pharmacist and director of the production facility.

Before Rwanda’s morphine production began in 2014, Gatera watched his aunt make a 12-hour journey by bus to Uganda to obtain the drug. If none was available, she would return home, wait a while and set out again. Last year she died, peacefully, while taking the Rwanda-made drug, he said.

Like all opioids, liquid morphine can be abused, and can be addictive. But the government has direct control over the supply to prevent what happened in the United States, where drug distributors shipped millions of pills to pharmacies in tiny towns, quantities far outside justifiable medical need, said Meg O’Brien, whose Treat the Pain organization helps poor nations produce morphine. The drug is reserved for the sickest people. Only the supplier of morphine powder supplier makes money, so there is no mass marketing effort to expand sales.

The bottles of liquid morphine are distributed to hospitals and pharmacies, where they are kept under lock and key until community workers like Mukantagara retrieve them. Then they are carried to the homes of the suffering even in some of Rwanda’s most rural areas, along footpaths between rolling bean fields and banana plants.

Mukantagara arrived at the bedside of 89-year-old Athanasie Nyirangirababyeyi. She lives on a mattress in her son’s home, sleeping under a poster of Jesus and the words of Psalm 23 — “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” — though she never learned to read. She has been sick for five years and has taken liquid morphine for three.

“With pain relief I can eat. I can go outside,” Nyirangirababyeyi said. “I can greet my neighbors. I can walk slowly, slowly and go to church.”

———

But fear and confusion surrounding opioids persists.

Opioids are among the most addictive drugs on the planet, and many doctors and bureaucrats in the developing world have long hesitated to import or prescribe them. Cost, onerous regulations and cultural aversion have made it harder for patients in the poorest countries to find relief.

Dr. Zipporah Ali, executive director of the Kenya Hospices and Palliative Care Association, said she and colleagues toured the country and were shocked to find expired opioids sitting on shelves in health facilities while patients screamed in pain. After watching her brother die of leukemia without painkillers, she now works with Kenya’s government to get locally made liquid morphine into hospitals.

Even in Rwanda, doctors at first were hesitant to prescribe morphine for Ange Mucyo Izere, a 6-year-old girl who is undergoing chemotherapy for bone cancer.

“She was not able to sleep, talk, pray,” said her mother, Joselyne Mukanyabyenda.

The girl began sipping doses of the liquid morphine in October and has been transformed. She took a visitor’s smartphone and began snapping photos, then struck poses for a camera.

“I miss school. I miss my friends,” she said. If the chemotherapy helps, she is expected to return to class.

There have been no reports of abuse from nurses across the country, said Mukasahaha, the nation’s palliative care director.

The health workers who prescribe morphine, including nurses and midwives, are taught to differentiate between chronic life-limiting diseases, which can be treated with morphine, and chronic pain, which cannot, at least without risk.

It is a key distinction. Critics say for-profit drug makers have blurred that line, seizing on the good intentions of hospice advocacy to market opioids to patients with common chronic conditions. It is hard for people to tell now when opioids are appropriate and when the risks outweigh the benefits, said Lukas Radbruch, a German doctor and professor of palliative medicine.

“What makes me mad is the confusion this causes,” he said. “If you would have asked me two years ago, I would say we’re steadily improving. But now I’m really afraid that the crisis in the U.S. is triggering a backlash which leads to rapid deterioration of the global situation.”

Earlier this year, the World Health Organization rescinded guidelines that sought to expand opioid access after U.S. lawmakers alleged they were corrupted by Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.

The congressional investigation found that organizations and people with financial ties to the company had a role in crafting the 2011 document, which stated addiction occurs in less than 1% of patients — a common marketing claim of the pharmaceutical industry that has been repeatedly debunked. The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that up to 29% of patients prescribed opioids for chronic pain misuse them and up to 12% develop addiction.

Rep. Katherine Clark, D-Massachusetts, who authored the report, said she understands the need to address the global scourge of untreated pain. But she said the international health community cannot turn the reins over to the for-profit pharmaceutical industry that is already widely blamed for causing one epidemic.

Purdue wrote in a statement that the report is “riddled with inaccuracies,” and the company denies influencing the documents. The statement maintained that the marketing of OxyContin was in line with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approved labeling and that Purdue always complied with the agency’s orders to update labels or enhance warnings “to maximize patient safety.” Decisions about when to prescribe opioids, the company said, should be up to doctors and their patients.

Dr. Gilles Forte, coordinator of the WHO’s essential medicines department, said the agency is putting together a panel to write new guidelines that will include a more detailed accounting of the latest scientific evidence about the risks of opioids and the cause and consequences of the American epidemic. He said they took the congresswoman’s allegations seriously but found no evidence the guidelines were tainted by pharmaceutical interests.

In the meantime, poor nations don’t know what to do, said Liliana De Lima, executive director of the International Association for Hospice and Palliative Care. The whole world now seems concerned about people suffering and dying from opioid addiction, she said, but not about people suffering and dying in agony without opioids.

“I asked myself, when do patients lose dignity? she said. “It’s not just about how long you live. It’s about how well you live until you die.”

Most countries in the developing world continue to look to for-profit companies for pain relief. It is an inherently broken model, De Lima said, because companies are only interested in selling drugs they can profit from, so the neediest people in agony will never get what they need.

Rwanda offers an alternative, and hope.

The drive to provide homemade morphine is spreading across Africa, though slowly: Twenty-two of the continent’s 54 countries now have affordable liquid morphine, according to Hospice Africa Uganda. Use is still badly limited by poor logistics and lack of funding.

Rwanda aimed to reach everyone who needs palliative care by 2020. But as the new year approaches, not everyone receives home visits by community health workers, Mukasahaha said. The training of those workers, thousands in all, goes on.

At a rural home near Lake Kivu, Mukantagara carried a bottle to 52-year-old Faina Nyirabaguiza, who has cancer. Each of her movements signaled pain. She walked slowly. She settled on a wooden bench and folded over herself, rubbing her wrist with her thumb.

Mukantagara increased her morphine dosage on the spot. She poured the green liquid into the bottle cap. Nyirabaguiza drank three, one after another.

“Maybe it will help me,” she said, her eyes fixed on a spot in the distance. “My wish is to die. Really, I’m suffering.”

Nyirabaguiza closed her eyes and prayed. Mukantagara’s hand was on her back, soothing.

On the nurse’s ride back to the hospital, her vehicle passed a pickup truck with a coffin in the back. Women ran alongside it, down the winding road, and sang.

———

The Global Opioids project can be seen here. http://bit.ly/2zWNwSk

Sahred From Source link Health

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sociologyquotes · 7 years

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President Clinton’s role in the Iraqi Genocide

from the essay Clinton’s Worst Crimes by David L. Harten (2001)

“The day before the House impeachment vote, [President] Clinton bombed Iraq, delaying the impeachment vote. He continued the bombing throughout all the days of the impeachment vote.

[...] Clinton gave several excuses for bombing Iraq on the eve of the impeachment vote, especially the (bogus, but unquestioned) claim that Iraq had stopped cooperating with UNSCOM inspectors. In reality, Iraq’s cooperation with UNSCOM inspectors had actually been increasing, despite U.S. attempts to provoke a confrontation. However, knowing the impeachment schedule, Clinton had directed UNSCOM chief Richard Butler to write a report that Iraq was not cooperating. Even Scott Ritter, the former chief UNSCOM weapons inspector who quit because he thought the weapons inspectors were not tough enough, said that the White House had been on the phone with UNSCOM "shaping" the report to make sure it would justify bombing Iraq during the impeachment trial.

[...] because of Clinton's December 1998 bombing, Iraq began challenging the U.S. and British "no-fly zones," which they had not been doing before. The risk to U.S. pilots is negligible (no U.S. plane has ever been hit), but it has given the U.S. and Britain an excuse for nearly daily bombing of Iraq (not just radar sites, but cities, towns, shepherd's camps, etc.). Since December 1998, this illegal bombing has killed about two hundred Iraqis, including shepherds with their flocks, families in their houses, and small children, and injured many more.

[...] Bombs are merciful compared to what Clinton has done to the innocent children of Iraq, the most vulnerable of all, by maintaining ten years of the harshest sanctions in the history of mankind, begun on August 6, 1990, and kept in place at the insistence of the United States. On May 12, 1996, television’s "Sixty Minutes" interviewed Madeleine Albright (then U.S. ambassador to the UN, now Secretary of State). Leslie Stahl asked Albright, "We have heard half a million children have died [from economic sanctions in Iraq]. That's more children than died in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?"

Albright replied, "I think this is a very hard choice. But the price, we think, is worth it."

[...] Yes, even four and a half years ago, 500,000 Iraqi children had already died as a direct result of economic sanctions. Over one million Iraqi civilians have died from the sanctions, mostly children under age five. Those are not Iraqi figures -- those figures come from Unicef, the World Health Organization, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN’s Department of Humanitarian Affairs, and other international sources. The "oil-for-food" program is so ineffectual that two consecutive UN directors of that program (Denis Haliday and Hans Von Sponeck) resigned, out of protest that they were presiding over a humanitarian disaster which can only be called genocide.

[...] Embargoes during peacetime are tough enough, but after a devastating war, they are disastrous. During the Gulf War, U.S. forces deliberately targeted Iraqi water treatment plants, dams, and electric generating facilities (in violation of the Geneva Convention), later admitting they did it in order to cause disease (which was biological warfare by the United States). Iraq has not been allowed to rebuild its water treatment plants since then. Chlorine, and water chlorinators, are prohibited under sanctions. Disease is at epidemic levels, especially among babies and children under five. Nobel Peace prize winners have visited Iraq and described the sanctions as genocide. Iraqi children are dying from starvation, malnutrition, tainted water, lack of basic medicines, and diseases that were once rare but now epidemic.

Iraqis are also suffering horrible birth defects and cancers caused by the 350 tons of depleted uranium (DU) fired into Iraq by U.S. forces during the 1991 Gulf War. DU, used for armor-piercing shells, becomes on impact an dust that drifts on the desert winds until inhaled. DU is not only toxic, but has a radioactive half-life in the billions of years.

U.S. sanctions law is so tough that even shipping food or medicine to Iraq is punishable by a one million dollar fine and 12 years in prison. I have personally tried to send baby formula, but the U.S. post office refuses, due to sanctions. Many items are specifically banned (pencils, books including medical textbooks, chlorine, etc.), while all other items are prohibited without a U.S. Treasury Department license that is almost impossible to obtain.

Fifty-five years ago, people asked, "Where were the good Germans? Why didn't they act to prevent the Holocaust?" History will judge America the same way over the current genocide against Iraqi civilians, the genocide by sanctions.

[...] Contrary to Clinton Administration propaganda, the small amount of food and medicines that are allowed into Iraq under the "oil-for-food" program (UN Res. 986) are distributed extremely efficiently by the Iraqi government. The U.S. constantly places long holds on shipments of food and medicine, or refusing to allow shipment of essential items altogether. Food and medicines spoil because of lack of refrigeration, or rot in warehouses because the forklifts and trucks to transport them are banned by sanctions. An American who visited an Iraqi hospital that lacked basic medicines and equipment due to sanctions said, "I know what this place is now. It's a death row for children." The doctors try their best, but there is little they can do without medicine, equipment, electricity, or even medical textbooks.

Those who agree with sanctions on Iraq act as if only one person lives there, Saddam Hussein. Yes, Saddam is a cruel dictator who does not allow freedom of speech and has executed hundreds of his political opponents, but that number pales compared to the million or more the Clinton administration has killed through sanctions. Admittedly, Saddam is a brutal and cruel dictator (although he was just as brutal and cruel when the U.S. was arming him and supporting him, under Reagan and Bush, while he gassed his people with U.S. support).

[...] When I spoke about Iraq in my church, tears came to my eyes telling of the father who had to hold his young daughter while her leg was sawed off without anesthesia, because of sanctions. Thinking of my own young son, I also cried describing the mother who, unable to sufficiently breastfeed her baby due to her own malnourishment (the meager food ration under sanctions has no fruits, vegetables, meat, or dairy), gave him sugar water, but the water was polluted. The baby developed diarrhea, and for lack of a five dollar medicine, he died. I know my own young son and unborn baby could never survive in Iraq under UN sanctions, which have been kept in place for over ten years at the insistence of the U.S. We are killing an entire generation, body and soul, destroying a civilization.

[...] "What about weapons of mass destruction?" some may ask. Ex-weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote in the Boston Globe (3/9/00) that, "...from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq has in fact been disarmed... The chemical, biological, nuclear and long-range ballistic missile programs that were a real threat in 1991 had, by 1998, been destroyed or rendered harmless." The true weapons of mass destruction are the sanctions themselves. It is ironic that sanctions began on August 6, 1990, the 45th anniversary of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, because it would be more humane for the U.S. to drop a Hiroshima-sized atomic bomb on Iraq every year than to continue the sanctions. In fact, as an article in the May/June 1999 issue of Foreign Affairs shows, the sanctions against Iraq have killed more people than all "weapons of mass destruction" in history, combined! The same UN resolution used to justify sanctions on Iraq also declared the Middle East a nuclear-free zone. Israel is in blatant violation of that same resolution, yet we do not starve the Israeli people to coerce their leader (nor should we).

There is no doubt that sanctions actually strengthen Saddam Hussein politically. Sanctions strengthen Saddam's grip on Iraq and weaken all opposition, as the struggle to survive, to keep one's children alive, supercedes all thought of rebellion. Sanctions also cause anti-Americanism, as the Arab world knows what we are doing to Iraq, killing over a million innocent people to get revenge on their leader.

The United States used international law to justify the 1991 Gulf War. However, the U.S. and British "no-fly zones" and the continuing bombing of Iraq violate international law. The sanctions themselves violate international law as enshrined in the Genocide Convention (Article II, "…deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring its physical destruction, in whole or in part"), the Geneva Conventions (Geneva Protocol 1, Article 54 outlaws "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare"), the World Declaration on Nutrition ("food must not be used as a tool for political pressure"), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

#united states #history #united states military #united states corruption #bill clinton #clinton administration #iraq #gulf war #us sanctions #sanctions #genocide #saddam hussein #weapons of mass destruction #human rights violations #war crimes #united states war crimes #war

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