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hokies4ever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:17 PM
Original message
Bigoted CNN coverage of Africa?
Talking specifically about their nightly coverage. Tonight Campbell Brown introduced their Africa segment with hoping that scientists will find diseases in Africa and find cures for them before they escape Africa and put the rest of the planet in peril. All I could do was roll my eyes. It's not an exact quote, but it's the best I can do without a transcript, and it's pretty darn close. Oh please Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta, save the rest of the world from that horrid exotic continent known as Africa! :rofl: These people are pathetic. :eyes:

Oh, and by the way, I'm betting that not ALL of the continent is covered in jungles.
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malaise Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:23 PM
Response to Original message
1. They all do that
Meanwhile their corporations continue to bleed Africa dry.
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pt22 Donating Member (400 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:33 PM
Response to Original message
2. Hoping to cure disease is pathetic? I don't understand.
And of course half of Africa is desert...what do jungles have to do with anything?
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hokies4ever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:37 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Welcome to DU!
:hi:

Honeymoon is over, now to take you to task. :rofl: Of course curing diseases is great. Fear-mongering with the "cure diseases before they escape from Africa and put the rest of the world in peril" was the part I find objectionable. The point of curing diseases is to cure patients, not to protect Europe or North America from Africa. See the difference?

"...escape from Africa and put the rest of the world in peril."
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pt22 Donating Member (400 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:57 PM
Response to Reply #3
7. Well, if there actually ARE diseases unique to Africa, doesn't it make sense to do
what they proposed? I would imagine the same precautions would obtain in the case of South America (which has far more 'jungle' anyway)

I guess I just don't grasp why anybody seems to think that an attempt to limit the spread of disease is some kind of insult or disrespect. Or why it is 'fear-mongering.'

Thank you for the welcome! :hi:
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hokies4ever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:03 PM
Response to Reply #7
11. "cure diseases before they escape from Africa and put the rest of the world in peril"
The actions are noble but her phrasing of the motivation is poor. Also, people should be a little bit more aware of the past history of the pharmaceutical industry and drug-testing in other nations. Anyway, if the motivation is to protect us from Africa, then why is our government putting our "planet in peril" by not cutting off African immigration to our country? In my opinion, the media plays a large role in making the American public xenophobic. That's why nobody cared what the UN or other nations thought about the Iraq War before we invaded.
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noamnety Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:41 PM
Response to Original message
4. No! Say it ain't so!!!
Edited on Mon Jun-16-08 09:41 PM by lwfern
Are you implying that the station that employs Lou Dobbs is somehow racist?!!!
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hokies4ever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:54 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. I love how Obama takes Lou Dobbs to task for his immigration saber-rattling
You can tell that Lou Dobbs feels like he's being left out of the national debate and he's virtually begging people to come on his show and talk with him. Like he's a lonely old man seeking company or something. :rofl:

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AspenRose Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:04 PM
Response to Reply #6
12. Please do not trash the memory of Fred Rogers with a comparison to Dobbs
Thank you - that is all ;-)

:rofl:
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hokies4ever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:06 PM
Response to Reply #12
13. Mr. Rogers is dead?!?
Actually I didn't know that. Sorry if it offended you. :patriot:

I just thought it was a funny thought to go along with Lou Dobbs being in need of a friend. :rofl:
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AspenRose Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:45 PM
Response to Reply #13
20. I have a 3 year old
We watch Fred's reruns every day. He was a national treasure!

Lou Dobbs, on the other hand, acts like a jack ass.

There's no contest :-)
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and-justice-for-all Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:43 PM
Response to Original message
5. Why go look for more dieases..
we have plenty to contend with as it is for fucks sake.
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pt22 Donating Member (400 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:59 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. Should we just pretend they don't exist?
:wtf:
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and-justice-for-all Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:02 PM
Response to Reply #8
10. Worry about whats already on your plate...nt
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stillcool Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:08 PM
Response to Reply #8
15. what diseases are we pretending don't exist?
http://www.wanttoknow.info/humanguineapigs
1931 - Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.

1932 - The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.

1935 - The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occurred within poverty-stricken black populations.

1940 - Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.

1942 - Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather than serve on active duty.

1943 - In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.

1944 - U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing. Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite.

1945 - Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.

1945 - "Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.

1946 - Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word "experiments" to "investigations" or "observations" whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.

1947 - Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.

1947 - The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.

1950 - Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.

1950 - In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Francisco. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.

1951 - Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.

1953 - U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.

1953 - Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.

1953 - CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.

1955 - The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.

1956 - U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.

1960 - The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the European population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.

1965 - Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.

1965 - Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.

1966 - CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.

1966 - U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.

1967 - CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.

1968 - CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.

1969 - Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.

1970 - Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology techniques are used to produce AIDS-like retroviruses.

1970 - United States intensifies its development of "ethnic weapons" (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.

1975 - The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus).

1977 - Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.

1978 - Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.

1981 - First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been introduced via the Hepatitis B vaccine.

1985 - According to the journal Science (227:173-177), HTLV and VISNA, a fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and evolutionary relationship.

1986 - According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.

1986 - A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.

1987 - Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.

1990 - More than 1500 six-month old black and Hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.

1994 - With a technique called "gene tracking," Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man-made.

1994 - Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf War.

1995 - U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.

1995 - Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.

1996 - Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed to chemical agents.

1997 - Eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.
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B.S. Lewis Donating Member (96 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 09:59 PM
Response to Original message
9. I wonder if Brown like Obama
An exotic candidate to deal with an exotic continent. :)
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madrchsod Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:07 PM
Response to Original message
14. well there is some really bad diseases in africa
that maybe we would not want to mutate into a longer life cycle. if ebola and other short life diseases mutate into a longer life cycle....well it`s going to make the plagues of the 1400-1600`s seem like a common cold
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hokies4ever Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:10 PM
Response to Reply #14
16. Baseless assertion
Health care services and hygiene are much better today than they were in Europe back in those days.
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Mojorabbit Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:25 PM
Response to Reply #16
18. I think
ebola is a concern in regards to africa and while there is some improvement in some areas there is almost nothing in the way of health infrastructure in others.

From Asia there is the concern of pandemic flu and in many places in Asia for example parts of Indonesia the health infrastructure is also poor. People who cannot afford to pay for hospitalization go without as do many here.
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Fuzz Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:11 PM
Response to Original message
17. Well, the people there were just not lucky enough to have
Edited on Mon Jun-16-08 10:12 PM by Fuzz
been brought here as slaves.

Better add the :sarcasm: thing. Just in case.
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Carnea Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:29 PM
Response to Original message
19. Well Ebola is a concern... but I understand the wording is poor.... nt
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Bjorn Against Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-16-08 10:58 PM
Response to Original message
21. Wait, CNN covers Africa? Since when?
I didn't think their cameras ever left Britney's Beverly Hills hangout.
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On the Road Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-17-08 12:45 AM
Response to Original message
22. Can't Argue with That Story
Edited on Tue Jun-17-08 12:47 AM by ribofunk
An outbreak of ebola or Marburg virus is a greater threat that all the terrorists and axis of evil members combined. It could do to the whole world what European diseases did to native Americans.

Having said that, coverage of Africa is pretty bad -- you really have to dig to find out what's going on. Governments can change, genocidal campaigns can be waged, new countries can break away with barely a peep in the US news.

Strangely enough, Anthony Bourdain's visit to Ghana is on the tube now. It is one of the few shows I've ever seen to give a good ground-eye feel for Africa. Maybe it's easier for a chef, gourmet and beer-drinker to appreciate a place than for a reporter or politician.
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Jack_DeLeon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Jun-17-08 02:24 AM
Response to Original message
23. Nice kneejerk reaction OP, but there is a scientific reason for this...
IIRC Africa is one of the worlds most genetically diverse places.

There are some pretty nasty things that are out there such as Ebola that could be very bad if it evolved into something that was airborne and say let its hosts survive long enough to spread it further.

But hey I guess you would feel alot better if we just left all those poor African's alone, stupid white men always got to be messing in their affairs right. :eyes:
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