Beast System: Laying The Foundation Of The Beast

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New vaccination fears over plan to give hepatitis jabs at eight weeks old

New vaccination fears over plan to give hepatitis jabs at eight weeks old​

Babies could be routinely vaccinated against hepatitis B under controversial plans being discussed by Government experts.

Cases of the disease, a blood infection which is often transmitted sexually, are said to be spiralling in Britain.

An influential committee on vaccination is considering adding it to a combination jab given to babies at eight weeks.

This would create a six-in-one vaccine which would also immunise against diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and Hib disease – a form of pneumonia.

But campaigners are concerned about the ‘over-vaccination’ of children and fear any complications caused by adding hepatitis B to the jab would be difficult to spot.

By the age of four, a child will have received 32 vaccines, some in multishot jabs including the MMR against measles, mumps and rubella.

The driving force behind the change is concern that infected immigrants are contributing to a rising tide of hepatitis B.

The virus is commonly spread by unprotected sex and needle sharing among drug addicts, and is 100 times more infectious than HIV. The disease can lead to liver cirrhosis and liver cancer.

Because it can be spread by only a tiny amount of blood through cuts and grazes, it is thought children in playgroups could be particularly vulnerable to catching it.

But GP Dr Richard Halvorsen, director of the Babyjabs single vaccines clinic, said he was opposed to the vaccination move.

He said: ‘The children at most risk are born to mothers carrying the virus and they are already given immunisation at birth.’

He said a 2004 study found adults immunised against hepatitis B were three times more likely to develop multiple sclerosis in the three years after vaccination.

The campaign group JABS, said the hepatitis B vaccine had also been linked to chronic fatigue syndrome.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which from this month has greater powers to decide UK vaccine policy, is due to discuss the plans at its next meeting in June.

According to one member of the committee, there is ‘huge pressure’ to introduce a universal vaccination against the infection.

The British Medical Association and the charity Hepatitis Foundation UK have previously called for all babies to be immunised against hepatitis B.

The move would also bring the UK in line with World Health Organisation policy.

Stella Pendleton, from Hepatitis Foundation UK, said: ‘The trouble is hepatitis B is known as a silent killer because there are often no symptoms until real damage has been done. I understand parents’ concerns, but a child vaccinated at a young age will always be protected.’

Andrew Thomson, of the BMA’s Board of Science, said infection rates were spiralling and that treating the infection was costing the NHS millions.

High risk areas for the disease include South Asia, Africa and parts of Eastern Europe. Many migrants from these areas settle in Britain.

The condition can kill five per cent of those who contract it.

The Hepatitis Foundation UK puts the numbers carrying the virus in the UK at 326,000 – double the official estimated figure seven years ago. Data from the Health Protection Agency show there are 700 cases diagnosed each year, 30 of them in children.

A Health Department spokesman said last night: ‘The safety of children is always paramount whenever decisions are taken regarding what vaccines are included as part of the child vaccination programme.’

 

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Gordon Brown's plan for army of teen volunteers

Gordon Brown's plan for army of teen volunteers​

The Prime Minister said a pledge to introduce compulsory community service would be included in Labour's next general election manifesto.

Under the scheme, the work - which could include helping out charities in the UK and abroad - is likely to become part of the National Curriculum. It would be integrated into moves to make everyone stay in education or training until the age of 18 by 2011.

Writing in the News of the World, Mr Brown insisted: "It is my ambition to create a Britain in which there is a clear expectation that all young people will undertake some service to their community, and where community service will become a normal part of growing up in Britain.

"And, by doing so, the contributions of each of us will build a better society for all of us."

He went on: "That would mean young people being expected to contribute at least 50 hours of community service by the time they have reached the age of 19.

"This will build on the platform provided by citizenship classes as they develop in our schools. But because the greater part of what I envisage as community service takes place outside the school day, it will require the close involvement of local community organisations and charities."

There would also be a "clear system of accreditation" to mark what youngsters have achieved through voluntary work, he added.

Mr Brown proposed the idea of a National Youth Service to channel teenagers into voluntary work last year. It is due to be formally launched in September, and would become compulsory if Labour was re-elected.

 

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Iraq air raids hit mostly women and children

Iraq air raids hit mostly women and children​

Air strikes and artillery barrages have taken a heavy toll among the most vulnerable of the Iraqi people, with children and women forming a disproportionate number of the dead.

Analysis carried out for the research group Iraq Body Count (IBC) found that 39 per cent of those killed in air raids by the US-led coalition were children and 46 per cent were women. Fatalities caused by mortars, used by American and Iraqi government forces as well as insurgents, were 42 per cent children and 44 per cent women.

Twelve per cent of those killed by suicide bombings, mainly the tool of militant Sunni groups, were children and 16 per cent were females. One in five (21 per cent) of those killed by car bombs, used by both Shia and Sunni fighters, was a child; one in four (28 per cent) was a woman.

The figures, compiled by academics at King’s College and Royal Holloway, University of London, show that hi-tech weaponry has caused lethal damage to those in the population who would be furthest away from the conflict.

The victims of one of the most brutal and common types of killings in the war – abduction and execution by death squad – were 95 per cent men, many of them bearing marks of torture.

The report, The Weapons That Kill Civilians, Deaths of Children and Noncombatants in Iraq, was compiled from a sample of 60,481 deaths in 14,196 events over a five-year period since the 2003 invasion. Civilian casualties from concentrated bouts of violence, such as the two sieges of Fallujah, were excluded.

IBC estimates that the total deaths in the conflict so far number 99,774. The medical journal The Lancet has maintained in another study that more than 600,000 people were killed in the first three years of the war. IBC holds that the indiscriminate nature of the fatalities caused by air strikes shows they should not be used in urban areas.

Growing anger over civilian casualties caused by air raids in another front of the “war on terror”, Afghanistan, has led to the US, UK and their Nato partners reviewing their policy of using warplanes. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan President, recently said this had become the most contentious issue between him and Western powers.

From 2004 to 2007, the overall tonnage of munition dropped from planes in the Afghan conflict rose from 163 tonnes a year to 1,956 tonnes, an increase of 1,100 per cent. Since 2001 the US air force has dropped 14,049 tonnes of bombs in Afghanistan and 18,858 in Iraq.

Professor John Sloboda, of Royal Holloway, co-author of the report, said: “Our weapon-specific findings have implications for a wide range of conflicts, because the patterns found in this study are likely to be replicated for these weapons whenever they are used.

*Last night a US army sergeant was facing life imprisonment after being found guilty of executing four Iraqi detainees in 2007. Master Sgt John Hartley shot four men in the head and dumped their bodies in a canal in West Rasheed area of Baghdad. He is due to be sentenced today.

 

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Jackie Chan: Chinese people need to be controlled

Jackie Chan: Chinese people need to be controlled​

BOAO, China – Action star Jackie Chan said Saturday he's not sure if a free society is a good thing for China and that he's starting to think "we Chinese need to be controlled."

Chan's comments drew applause from a predominantly Chinese audience of business leaders in China's southern island province of Hainan.

The 55-year-old Hong Kong actor was participating in a panel at the annual Boao Forum when he was asked to discuss censorship and restrictions on filmmakers in China. He expanded his comments to include society.

"I'm not sure if it's good to have freedom or not," Chan said. "I'm really confused now. If you're too free, you're like the way Hong Kong is now. It's very chaotic. Taiwan is also chaotic."

Chan added: "I'm gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we're not being controlled, we'll just do what we want."

The kung fu star has not been a vocal supporter of the pro-democracy movement in his hometown of Hong Kong. Since the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, voters have not been allowed to directly elect their leader. Several massive street protests have been held to demand full democracy, but Beijing has repeatedly said Hong Kong isn't ready for it.

The theme at Saturday's panel discussion was "Tapping into Asia's Creative Industry Potential," and Chan had several opinions about innovation in China.

He said that early in his career, he lived in the shadow of the late martial arts star Bruce Lee. He said that during his first foray into Hollywood, he struggled to establish his own identity, so he returned to Hong Kong. After spending 15 years building his reputation in Asia, Chan finally got rediscovered by Hollywood, he said.

Chan said the problem with Chinese youth is that "they like other people's things. They don't like their own things." Young people need to spend more time developing their own style, he added.

The action hero complained that Chinese goods still have too many quality problems. He became emotional when discussing contaminated milk powder that sickened tens of thousands of Chinese babies in the past year.

Speaking fast with his voice rising, Chan said, "If I need to buy a TV, I'll definitely buy a Japanese TV. A Chinese TV might explode."

 

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F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases

F.B.I. and States Vastly Expand DNA Databases​

Law enforcement officials are vastly expanding their collection of DNA to include millions more people who have been arrested or detained but not yet convicted. The move, intended to help solve more crimes, is raising concerns about the privacy of petty offenders and people who are presumed innocent.

Until now, the federal government genetically tracked only convicts. But starting this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will join 15 states that collect DNA samples from those awaiting trial and will collect DNA from detained immigrants — the vanguard of a growing class of genetic registrants.

The F.B.I., with a DNA database of 6.7 million profiles, expects to accelerate its growth rate from 80,000 new entries a year to 1.2 million by 2012 — a 17-fold increase. F.B.I. officials say they expect DNA processing backlogs — which now stand at more than 500,000 cases — to increase.

Law enforcement officials say that expanding the DNA databanks to include legally innocent people will help solve more violent crimes. They point out that DNA has helped convict thousands of criminals and has exonerated more than 200 wrongfully convicted people.

But criminal justice experts cite Fourth Amendment privacy concerns and worry that the nation is becoming a genetic surveillance society.

“DNA databases were built initially to deal with violent sexual crimes and homicides — a very limited number of crimes,” said Harry Levine, a professor of sociology at City University of New York who studies policing trends. “Over time more and more crimes of decreasing severity have been added to the database. Cops and prosecutors like it because it gives everybody more information and creates a new suspect pool.”

Courts have generally upheld laws authorizing compulsory collection of DNA from convicts and ex-convicts under supervised release, on the grounds that criminal acts diminish privacy rights.

DNA extraction upon arrest potentially erodes that argument, a recent Congressional study found. “Courts have not fully considered legal implications of recent extensions of DNA-collection to people whom the government has arrested but not tried or convicted,” the report said.

Minors are required to provide DNA samples in 35 states upon conviction, and in some states upon arrest. Three juvenile suspects in November filed the only current constitutional challenge against taking DNA at the time of arrest. The judge temporarily stopped DNA collection from the three youths, and the case is continuing.

Sixteen states now take DNA from some who have been found guilty of misdemeanors. As more police agencies take DNA for a greater variety of lesser and suspected crimes, civil rights advocates say the government’s power is becoming too broadly applied. “What we object to — and what the Constitution prohibits — is the indiscriminate taking of DNA for things like writing an insufficient funds check, shoplifting, drug convictions,” said Michael Risher, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union.

This year, California began taking DNA upon arrest and expects to nearly double the growth rate of its database, to 390,000 profiles a year from 200,000.

One of those was Brian Roberts, 29, who was awaiting trial for methamphetamine possession. Inside the Twin Towers Correctional Facility in Los Angeles last month, Mr. Roberts let a sheriff’s deputy swab the inside of his cheek.

Mr. Roberts’s DNA will be translated into a numerical sequence at the F.B.I.’s DNA database, the largest in the world.

The system will search for matches between Mr. Roberts’s DNA and other profiles every Monday, from now into the indeterminate future — until one day, perhaps decades hence, Mr. Roberts might leave a drop of blood or semen at some crime scene.

Law enforcement officials say that DNA extraction upon arrest is no different than fingerprinting at routine bookings and that states purge profiles after people are cleared of suspicion. In practice, defense lawyers say this is a laborious process that often involves a court order. (The F.B.I. says it has never received a request to purge a profile from its database.)

When DNA is taken in error, expunging a profile can be just as difficult. In Pennsylvania, Ellyn Sapper, a Philadelphia public defender, has spent weeks trying to expunge the profile taken erroneously of a 14-year-old boy guilty of assault and bicycle theft. “I’m going to have to get a judge’s order to make sure that all references to his DNA are gone,” she said.

The police say that the potential hazards of genetic surveillance are worth it because it solves crimes and because DNA is more accurate than other physical evidence. “I’ve watched women go from mug-book to mug-book looking for the man who raped her,” said Mitch Morrissey, the Denver district attorney and an advocate for more expansive DNA sampling. “It saves women’s lives.”

Mr. Morrissey pointed to Britain, which has fewer privacy protections than the United States and has been taking DNA upon arrest for years. It has a population of 61 million — and 4.5 million DNA profiles. “About 8 percent of the people commit about 70 percent of your crimes, so if you can get the majority of that community, you don’t have to do more than that,” he said.

In the United States, 8 percent of the population would be roughly 24 million people.

Britain may provide a window into America’s genetic surveillance future: As of March 2008, 857,000 people in the British database, or about one-fifth, have no current criminal record. In December, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Britain violated international law by collecting DNA profiles from innocent people, including children as young as 10.

Critics are also disturbed by the demographics of DNA databases. Again Britain is instructive. According to a House of Commons report, 27 percent of black people and 42 percent of black males are genetically registered, compared with 6 percent of white people.

As in Britain, expanding genetic sampling in the United States could exacerbate racial disparities in the criminal justice system, according to Hank Greely, a Stanford University Law School professor who studies the intersection of genetics, policing and race. Mr. Greely estimated that African-Americans, who are about 12 percent of the national population, make up 40 percent of the DNA profiles in the federal database, reflective of their prison population. He also expects Latinos, who are about 13 percent of the population and committed 40 percent of last year’s federal offenses — nearly half of them immigration crimes — to dominate DNA databases.

Enforcement officials contend that DNA is blind to race. Federal profiles include little more information than the DNA sequence and the referring police agency. Subjects’ names are usually kept by investigators.

Rock Harmon, a former prosecutor for Alameda County, Calif., and an adviser to crime laboratories, said DNA demographics reflected the criminal population. Even if an innocent man’s DNA was included in a genetic database, he said, it would come to nothing without a crime scene sample to match it. “If you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear,” he said.

 

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Australia should have a one-child policy, says lobby group

Australia should have a one-child policy, says lobby group​

AUSTRALIA should consider having a one-child policy to protect the planet, an environmental lobby group said.

Sustainable Population Australia said slashing population was the only way to avoid "environmental suicide".

National president Sandra Kanck wants Australia's population of almost 22 million reduced to seven million to tackle climate change.

And restricting each couple to one baby, as China does, was "one way of assisting to reduce the population".

"It's something we need to throw into the mix," the former Democrats parliamentarian said.

 

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Children tracked by sat nav to stop bad behaviour

Children tracked by sat nav to stop bad behaviour

Children will be tracked by satellite on public transport and encouraged to spy on their friends and report bad behaviour, under a pilot scheme by the Welsh Assembly.​

The project is being trialled across the six North Wales counties to tackle anti-social behaviour on school buses.

Pupils will use a picture swipe card to clock on and off the bus allowing parents to keep a closer check on their child via a website.

It will help deal with a number of issues including truancy, drivers reporting and identifying ill-behaved children and monitoring a child's whereabouts in the event of them going missing or a bus breakdown.

The scheme include 'Bus Angels' aged 14 and above, who covertly report incidents of bad behaviour,

Peter Daniels, transport manager at Denbighshire County Council said: "The main aims are to support schools, drivers, parents and pupils on school buses to improve behaviour and enable them to understand the consequences of some of the things they do.

"I have to say in north east Wales we don't really see trouble and misbehaviour, but in the afternoon some of the pupils can be jolly and minor anti-social behaviour can occur, or from time to time something more serious.

"I have to say in north east Wales we don't really see trouble and misbehaviour, but in the afternoon some of the pupils can be jolly and minor anti-social behaviour can occur, or from time to time something more serious.

"It's very much like the scheme in London where an Oystercard user boards a bus and taps in and then taps out when he or she gets off.

"Using GPS tracking, parents will know exactly where their pupils are on the bus."

 

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Indonesia floats idea of man-made swine flu

Indonesia floats idea of man-made swine flu​

As swine flu continues to take its toll, claims surface that the deadly four-part flu virus could have been created for "bio-terror attacks."

Speaking at a conference to reassure the public over hers government's response to the swine flu threat, Indonesian Heath Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Tuesday that the controversial virus could have been man-made.

She declined to elaborate on her claim but she had previously accused Western governments of making and spreading viruses in the developing world to boost pharmaceutical companies' profits, AFP reported.

"I'm not sure whether the virus was genetically engineered but it's a possibility," Supari said.

Supari assured Indonesians that the deadly virus could not survive in tropical countries like Indonesia which was the worst hit country by the bird flu virus.

"H1N1 survives in countries with four seasons. The type A H1N1 virus hopefully won't be able to sustain itself once it enters the tropical climate of Indonesia," she added.

No cases of swine flu have been reported in Indonesia. It has banned imports of live pigs and pork products.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised its pandemic alert to level four, which means the virus is capable of significant human-to-human transmission. The virus has so far killed nearly 150 people in Mexico and has been reported in eleven countries, including Mexico, the US and Spain.

Several other countries from Colombia to New Zealand are investigating suspected cases.

Health experts say the virus comes from the same strain of virus that causes seasonal outbreaks in humans. They point out that this newly-detected version, which is highly contagious and fast-mutating, also contains genetic material from the types of influenza that afflict swine and birds.

 

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New 3shot Government flu vaccine Program?

New 3shot Government flu vaccine Program?

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Innocent Names To Be Kept On DNA Database

Innocent Names To Be Kept On DNA Database​

DNA profiles of innocent people will continue to be held for up to 12 years on a database used to fight crime, under Government plans.

The announcement is a compromise, in response to a ruling by the European Court last year which said holding details of people who had not broken the law was a violation of their human rights.

The man who took the Government to the European Court was Michael Marper, a 49-year-old from Sheffield.

His DNA was taken by police in 2001 when he was arrested and charged with harassing his partner. The case was later dropped after the couple settled their differences and got back together. The court in Strasbourg ruled in his favour last December.

Speaking exclusively to Sky News, Mr Marper said the policy of retaining the DNA of innocent people was wrong.

"It was an invasion of privacy, I was offended," he said.

"They'd taken my rights away and I wasn't going to let them do that.

"If people get arrested for assault then, yes, their DNA should be taken. But if it goes to court, and it fails, they should be taken off... that way there'll be no innocent people on the database."

Although Mr Marper's details have now been removed, hundreds of thousands of other people in his position will have to wait far longer for their own details to be deleted.

The Government's proposals state that the DNA samples provided by innocent people will be quickly destroyed and their profiles will be removed from the database, but not immediately.

Anyone accused of serious violent and sexual offences, who are released without charge or later cleared of an offence, will still have their DNA profiles held for 12 years.

Anyone falsely accused of less serious crimes will stay on the database for six years.

The Home Office estimates that this could ultimately result in 850,000 people being removed from the database, but warns that the process of checking each entry could take two years.

Policing Minister Vernon Coaker said: "What the European Court ruling said was that it was the indefinite retention of these samples that was the issue and that's why we've responded in the way that we have.

"But let's not forget that by keeping DNA on arrest it means that the police have been able to find and through the courts convict people for homicide, for rape, for serious violent crimes, for serious sexual crimes, people who would otherwise have escaped justice."

The UK DNA database is one of the largest of its kind in the world, holding almost five million records of finger prints, mouth swabs and samples from hair and skin cells.

However, at least a fifth are thought to belong to innocent people.

Hugh Whitall, from the Nuffield Council For Bioethics, said: "It is a question of proportionality but having innocent people's DNA on the database indefinitely is clearly unacceptable.

"A proportionate approach that looks at the evidence and considers what is a reasonable time in view of all the circumstances is obviously a better policy.

"Now we need to look at the detail and see whether the balance is right between protecting privacy and fighting crime, but broadly these proposals seem to be going in the right direction."

Supporters of the database point to a number of high profile cases in recent years, where DNA evidence has been instrumental in securing convictions.

Included is the case of serial killer Steve Wright, jailed for the murder of five prostitutes in the Ipswich area in 2006.

Another man convicted largely through DNA evidence was Mark Dixie who was sentenced to life imprisonment after being found guilty last year of murdering 18-year-old model Sally Ann Bowman.

 

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Government wants the military to run state schools

Government wants the military to run state schools​

The Armed Forces will be drafted in to run state schools under plans to drive up discipline and respect in classrooms.

Ministers are in talks with defence chiefs about taking over a handful of schools and turning them into military academies.

Alongside daily lessons, pupils would be expected to take part in activities such as drills, uniformed parades, weapons handling and adventure training.

The first state schools set to gain 'military academy' status are understood to be based in Portsmouth and Colchester.

The controversial scheme will initially be in areas where there are a large number of military families, but is set to be rolled out across the country.

Ministers believe that children in failing schools would particularly benefit from a military-style education because it would give them role models and a more structured existence.

But the plan is likely to raise fears among teaching unions that the academies could turn into tough 'boot camps' or recruiting stations.
Last year, union leaders accused the Army of giving children 'misleading propaganda' about life in the Armed Forces.

The National Union of Teachers also vowed to back any teachers who wanted to boycott the services' recruitment drives.

The latest idea comes as the Government prepares to launch a major extension of the 'school cadet force' scheme in deprived areas.

Gordon Brown is a strong supporter of the military's involvement in schools, which he believes teaches young people discipline and pride their country.

The first academy school dedicated entirely to the Armed Forces was announced last week, giving the Ministry of Defence a role in state education for the first time.

The Duke of York's Royal Military School in Dover, which offers boarding places for the children of military personnel, will also offer 200 extra places to youngsters from non-military backgrounds.

But senior Whitehall sources have revealed that the Army is looking at taking over a secondary state school in Portsmouth, while the Parachute Regiment is considering running a secondary school in Colchester.

Last night, critics of the scheme cast doubts over whether the over- stretched Armed Forces have the funding or resources to take on extra educational responsibilities.

The sources also stressed that no pupil would be forced to take part in any activity against their will.

One said: 'This is not about teaching pupils to shoot people. The Armed Forces can be a force for good in our schools and teach important skills including teamwork and respect.'

Schools Minister Jim Knight said: 'Academy status for the Duke of York's is ideal and will mean they can continue to march to the beat of their own drum by retaining their military ethos and curriculum.

'I hope this is just the beginning of an even closer relationship between our Armed Forces and schools, particularly with providing boarding facilities for those families who are often on the move and in garrison town communities.'

However, David Laws, Liberal Democrat Education spokesman, called the policy 'yet another Labour gimmick'.

'While many schools would no doubt benefit from a dose of Army discipline, there is real doubt as to whether this is a clear policy or just another Gordon Brown gimmick,' he said.

'Hazel Blears recently warned against Government gimmicks but it seems as though the Prime Minister has yet to take note.'

 

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G20 police 'used undercover men to incite crowds'

G20 police 'used undercover men to incite crowds'​

An MP who was involved in last month's G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.

Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards.

Brake, who along with hundreds of others was corralled behind police lines near Bank tube station in the City of London on the day of the protests, says he was informed by people in the crowd that the men had been seen to throw bottles at the police and had encouraged others to do the same shortly before they passed through the cordon.

Brake, a member of the influential home affairs select committee, will raise the allegations when he gives evidence before parliament's joint committee on human rights on Tuesday.

"When I was in the middle of the crowd, two people came over to me and said, 'There are people over there who we believe are policemen and who have been encouraging the crowd to throw things at the police,'" Brake said. But when the crowd became suspicious of the men and accused them of being police officers, the pair approached the police line and passed through after showing some form of identification.

Brake has produced a draft report of his experiences for the human rights committee, having received written statements from people in the crowd. These include Tony Amos, a photographer who was standing with protesters in the Royal Exchange between 5pm and 6pm. "He [one of the alleged officers] was egging protesters on. It was very noticeable," Amos said. "Then suddenly a protester seemed to identify him as a policeman and turned on him. He legged it towards the police line, flashed some ID and they just let him through, no questions asked."

Amos added: "He was pretty much inciting the crowd. He could not be called an observer. I don't believe in conspiracy theories but this really struck me. Hopefully, a review of video evidence will clear this up."

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has received 256 complaints relating to the G20 protests. Of these, 121 have been made about the use of force by police officers, while 75 relate to police tactics. The IPCC said it had no record of complaints involving the use of police agents provocateurs. A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: "We would never deploy officers in this way or condone such behaviour."

The use of plain-clothes officers in crowd situations is considered a vital tactic for gathering evidence. It has been used effectively to combat football hooliganism in the UK and was employed during the May Day protests in 2001.

Brake said he intends to raise the allegations with the Met's commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, when he next appears before the home affairs select committee. "There is a logic having plain-clothes officers in the crowd, but no logic if the officers are actively encouraging violence, which would be a source of great concern," Brake said.

The MP said that given only a few people were allowed out of the corralled crowd for the five hours he was held inside it, there should be no problem in investigating the allegation by examining video footage.

 

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Bilderberg Group Meets In Athens Amid Tight Security

Bilderberg Group Meets In Athens Amid Tight Security​

ATHENS (AFP)-- Some of the world's top business and political leaders started annual secret talks with the Bilderberg group Thursday in a suburb of Athens, under tight security control.

The surroundings of the Astir Palace, a luxury hotel in the suburban resort of Vouliagmeni, where the group is holding its annual meeting, were protected by dozens of policemen, who were keeping the press and public at bay, an AFP journalist said.

A Greek navy launch and boats carrying elite divers could be seen a few meters off the coast of the peninsula where the hotel stands. Greek newspapers said the group had also asked for the protection of two F-16 warplanes and a police helicopter.

Reports say U.S. State Department number two James Steinberg, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, World Bank President Robert Zoellick, European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso, Queen Sofia of Spain and Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands are among those attending the Bilderberg meeting.

The group, which has been holding annual off-the record talks open to guests only since 1954, feeds conspiracy theories and speculation about its intentions, with critics accusing it of plotting world domination.

Several sources say Polish political adviser Joseph Retinger, former Belgian prime minister Paul van Zeeland and former Unilever chief executive Paul Rijkens organized the first meeting at the Hotel Bilderberg in the Netherlands to unite European and U.S. elites amid growing transatlantic tensions a half-century ago.

Its success spawned similar talks at posh hotels and palaces in Europe, the U.S. and Canada each year since.

 

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Woman cuffed for not holding escalator handrail

Woman cuffed for not holding escalator handrail​

MONTREAL — Anyone who has ridden an escalator and bothered to pay attention has seen – and likely ignored – little signs suggesting riders hold the grimy handrail.

In Montreal's subway system, the friendly advice seems to have taken on the force of law, backed by a $100 fine.

Bela Kosoian, a 38-year-old mother of two, says when she didn't hold the handrail Wednesday she was cuffed, dragged into a small holding cell and fined.

“It was horrible, disgusting behaviour [by police],” said Ms. Kosoian, a 38-year-old student of international law. “I did nothing wrong. They should go find the guys who stole my tires off the balcony.”

Ms. Kosoian, who studies at the Université du Québec à Montreal, was riding an escalator down to catch a 5:30 p.m. subway from the suburb of Laval to an evening class downtown when she started rifling through her backpack looking for a fare.

Ms. Kosoian, who grew up in Georgia when it was still part of the Soviet Union, says she didn't catch the officer's instruction to hold the rail when he first approached.

When he told her again to hang on, she says she replied, “I don't have three hands.” Besides, she had been sick and feared catching a new bug.

That's when the officer demanded identification so he could write her ticket, she said.

Ms. Kosoian started arguing. The officers handcuffed her and threw her into a small holding cell. The officers searched her bag and gave her a $100 ticket for failing to hold the banister and another $320 ticket for obstruction.

The handcuffs bruised Ms. Kosoian's wrists and an officer's boot scraped skin off the top of her foot.

She intends to fight the tickets.

Société de transport de Montréal regulations say “it is forbidden for all persons to disobey a directive or a pictogram posted by the Société.”

At the top of the escalator in the Montmorency station, a small sign indeed shows a stick man holding a railing with the words, “Hold the handrail.”

Montreal's metro system is policed by transit inspectors and local police departments.

Isabelle Tremblay, a spokesperson for the STM, seemed relieved to establish late yesterday that Laval police stopped Ms. Kosoian.

“We were quite surprised to hear about this, we don't give fines for such things,” Ms. Tremblay said.

Laval police were unable to provide an explanation yesterday.

As Ms. Kosoian noted, Montreal's subway takes bicycles, strollers and babies but has few elevators, making banister-holding an unlikely juggling act for many.

Transit systems across Canada have struggled with innocent-sounding behaviour that can cause accidents.

A couple years ago, Toronto transit authorities removed signs urging escalator riders to stand on the right, walk on the left, because walking on escalators caused dozens of injuries. Walkers were not fined.

In the Vancouver region, officials will soon launch a campaign to discourage running, sliding down banisters and other risky behaviour.

“We do tend to tear our hair out sometimes at the ways people get hurt,” said Drew Snider, a spokesman for the regional transportation authority.

In Montreal, 16 students were injured in 2004 when an escalator suddenly stopped.

As for fears of catching another flu, a leading germ expert says you are more likely to fall down an escalator than catch illness from a handrail.

“No matter how dirty your hands become, all you have to do to avoid getting ill is wash your hands,” said Dr. Philip Tierno, the author of The Secret Life of Germs.

“Safety is first. If you break your head or break your neck, you don't have to worry about washing your hands.”

 

[oneofmany]

Squad run by Dick Cheney assassinated Benazir: Hersh

Squad run by Dick Cheney assassinated Benazir: Hersh​

WASHINGTON, May 18: A special death squad assassinated Pakistans former prime minister Benazir Bhutto on the orders of former US vice-president Dick Cheney, claims an American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.

Mr Hersh, a Washington-based journalist who writes for the New Yorker magazine and other prominent media outlets, also claims that the former vice-president was running an “executive assassination ring” throughout the Bush years. The cell reported directly to Mr Cheney.

In an interview to an Arab television channel, Mr Hersh indicated that the same unit killed Ms Bhutto because in an interview with Al Jazeera TV on Nov 2, 2007, she had said she believed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was already dead. She said she believed Omar Saeed Sheikh, an Al Qaeda activist imprisoned in Pakistan for killing US journalist Daniel Pearl had murdered Bin Laden.

But the interviewer, veteran British journalist David Frost, deleted her claim from the interview, Mr Hersh said.

The controversial US journalist told Gulf News on May 12 he believed Ms Bhutto was assassinated because the US leadership did not want Bin Laden to be declared dead. The Bush administration wanted to keep Bin Laden alive to justify the presence of US army in Afghanistan to combat the Taliban, Mr Hersh said.

The Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist claimed that the unit also killed former Lebanese prime minister Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief of that country.

Mr Hariri and the Lebanese army chief were murdered for not safeguarding US interests and refusing to allow US to set up military bases in Lebanon. Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, was also a key man in the plot, Mr Hersh said.

According to Mr Hersh, Lt-Gen Stanley McChrystal who was last week named the new commander in charge of US forces in Afghanistan, ran the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), an elite unit so clandestine that the Pentagon for years refused to acknowledge its existence.

Gen McChrystal, a West Point graduate and a Green Beret, is currently director of Staff at the Pentagon, the executive to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A media report noted that most of what Gen. McChrystal has done over a 33-year career remains classified, including service between 2003 and 2008 as commander of the JSOC.

On July 22, 2006, Human Rights Watch issued a report titled ‘No blood, no foul’ about American torture practices at three facilities in Iraq. One of them was Camp Nama, which was operated by JSOC, under the direction of then Major Gen. McChrystal.

Gen McChrystal was officially based at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, but he was a frequent visitor to Camp Nama and other Special Forces bases in Iraq and Afghanistan where forces under his command were based.

An interrogator at Camp Nama known as Jeff described locking prisoners in shipping containers for 24 hours at a time in extreme heat; exposing them to extreme cold with periodic soaking in cold water; bombardment with bright lights and loud music; sleep deprivation; and severe beatings.

When he and other interrogators went to the colonel in charge and expressed concern that this kind of treatment was not legal, and that they might be investigated by the military’s Criminal Investigation Division or the International Committee of the Red Cross, the colonel told them he had “this directly from Gen McChrystal and the Pentagon that there’s no way that the Red Cross could get in”.

On March 11, Mr Hersh told a seminar at the University of Minnesota that the unit Mr Cheney headed was very deeply involved in extra-legal operations.

“It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently,” he explained. “They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office ... Congress has no oversight of it … It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on.”

Mr Hersh said: “Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.”

Although Mr Cheney had ignored such allegations in the past, recently he began responding to these charges, making counter-allegations against the Obama administration.

Last week in particular, Mr Cheney appeared almost daily on popular talk shows and also delivered a formal address at the American Enterprise Institute on the importance of interrogation techniques widely considered to be torture. Once known for his reticence and low profile, Mr Cheney has now become his party’s most audible voice.

Media commentators, however, attribute his sudden exuberance to the fear that if he did not defend himself, he might be prosecuted for authorising torture.

“Mr Cheney knew, when he began his media assault, that the worst of the horrors inflicted upon detainees at his specific command are not yet widely known,” said one commentator. “If the real stuff comes into full public light, he feared the general outrage will be so furious and all-encompassing that the Obama administration will have no choice but to … seek prosecutions of those Bush-era officials who specifically demanded those barbaric acts be inflicted upon prisoners.”

One blogger wrote that Mr Cheney not only authorised water-boarding, putting prisoners in confined spaces, pushing them, slapping them, putting bugs on them or demeaning them and their religious faith.

He quoted former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as telling a congressional panel in July of 2004 that if pictures of such acts were “released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse”.

Mr Hersh recently gave a speech to the American Civil Liberties Union making the charge that children were sodomised in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon had tape of it.

 

[oneofmany]

Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track, Eliminate Undesirables

Saudi 'Killer Chip' Implant Would Track, Eliminate Undesirables​

It could be the ultimate in political control — but it won't be patented in Germany.

German media outlets reported last week that a Saudi inventor's application to patent a "killer chip," as the Swiss tabloids put it, had been denied.

The basic model would consist of a tiny GPS transceiver placed in a capsule and inserted under a person's skin, so that authorities could track him easily.

Model B would have an extra function — a dose of cyanide to remotely kill the wearer without muss or fuss if authorities deemed he'd become a public threat.

The inventor said the chip could be used to track terrorists, criminals, fugitives, illegal immigrants, political dissidents, domestic servants and foreigners overstaying their visas.

"The invention will probably be found to violate paragraph two of the German Patent Law — which does not allow inventions that transgress public order or good morals," German Patent and Trademark Office spokeswoman Stephanie Krüger told the English-language German-news Web site The Local.

 

[oneofmany]

Tony Blair believed God wanted him to go to war to fight evil, claims his mentor

Tony Blair believed God wanted him to go to war to fight evil, claims his mentor​

The former Prime Minister's faith is claimed to have influenced all his key policy decisions and to have given him an unshakeable conviction that he was right.

John Burton, Mr Blair's political agent in his Sedgefield constituency for 24 years, says that Labour's most successful ever leader – in terms of elections won – was driven by the belief that "good should triumph over evil".

"It's very simple to explain the idea of Blair the Warrior," he says. "It was part of Tony living out his faith."

Mr Blair has previously admitted that he was influenced by his Christian faith, but Mr Burton reveals for the first time the strength of his religious zeal.

Mr Burton makes the comments in a book he has written, and which is published this week, called "We Don't Do God".

In it he portrays a prime minister determined to follow a Christian agenda despite attempts to silence him from talking about his faith.

"While he was at Number 10, Tony was virtually gagged on the whole question of religion," says Mr Burton.

"Alastair [Campbell] was convinced it would get him into trouble with the voters.

"But Tony's Christian faith is part of him, down to his cotton socks. He believed strongly at the time, that intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone – Iraq too – was all part of the Christian battle; good should triumph over evil, making lives better."

Mr Burton, who was often described as Mr Blair's mentor, says that his religion gave him a "total belief in what's right and what's wrong", leading him to see the so-called War on Terror as "a moral cause".

"I truly believe that his Christianity affected his policy-making on just about everything from aid to Africa, education, poverty, world debt and intervening in other countries when he thought it was right to do it.

"The fervour was part of him and it comes back to it being Christian fervour that spurred him into action for better or worse."

Mr Burton says that inherent in Mr Blair's faith was the belief that people should be treated fairly: "He applied that same principle in everything he did – from establishing the Social Exclusion Unit to ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, and ridding Iraq of the evils of Saddam Hussein's rule."

The comments will add to the suspicions of Mr Blair's critics, who fear he saw the Iraq war in a similar light to former US President George W Bush, who used religious rhetoric in talking about the conflict, as well as the war in Afghanistan, describing them as "a crusade".

Last week, Donald Rumsfeld, the former US defence secretary, was accused of sending the Mr Bush memos during the Iraq war that featured quotes from the Bible alongside images of American soldiers.

Anti-war campaigners criticised remarks Mr Blair made in 2006, suggesting that the decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God.

Mr Blair was not worried by people questioning his decisions, Mr Burton says, but was "genuinely shocked if they questioned his morality because there was never a dividing line between his politics and Christianity".

Although key advisers such as Mr Campbell tried to stop him talking about his faith while prime minister – famously declaring "we don't go God" – Mr Burton says that he was nevertheless determined to fight secularism.

Mr Burton, who coauthored the book with Eileen McCabe, a journalist, said Mr Blair wanted to "buffet the secular society that dominated life in Britain" and thought it was "time to nudge it in the other direction".

Tony Blair complained in 2007 that he had been unable to talk about his faith while in office as he would have been perceived as "a nutter".

"It's difficult if you talk about religious faith in our political system," he said. "If you are in the American political system or others then you can talk about religious faith and people say 'yes, that's fair enough' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter."

Since leaving Downing Street, he has set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and given a number of interviews about his faith.

Last month, he challenged the attitudes of the Pope on homosexuality, and argued that it is time for him to "rethink" his views.

 

[oneofmany]

Cheney admits: No link between Saddam, 9/11

Cheney admits: No link between Saddam, 9/11​

Former US Vice President says there was no Saddam Hussein involvement in 9/11 terrorist attacks but that the Iraqi dictator provided terrorists with a safe haven.

Dick Cheney, appearing at the National Press Club on Monday, said that the US intelligence trying to link Saddam with al-Qaeda on September 11 attacks proved to be baseless.

"I do not believe and have never seen any evidence to confirm that [Hussein] was involved in 9/11. We had that reporting for a while, [but] eventually it turned out not to be true," Cheney conceded, according to CNN.

Yet, the hawkish former leader insisted that Saddam was a terrorism sponsor and strongly defended Bush's decision to invade Iraq.

Saddam was "somebody who provided sanctuary and safe harbor and resources to terrorists. ... [It] is, without question, a fact."

"There was a relationship between al Qaeda and Iraq that stretched back 10 years. It's not something I made up. ... We know for a fact that Saddam Hussein was a sponsor -- a state sponsor -- of terror. It's not my judgment. That was the judgment of our [intelligence community] and State Department," he said.

US-led international forces invaded Iraq in 2003 to oust Saddam regime that Washington had claimed was equipped with Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But the US-led coalition body in Iraq, tasked with finding the country's alleged WMDs could find no such weapons.

 

[LennyNero1972]

The saga continues.......

 

[oneofmany]

Man 'cooked' to death in Australian prison van

Man 'cooked' to death in Australian prison van ​

The family of an Australian Aboriginal elder who died after being "cooked" in the back of a prison van on a scorching hot day is considering suing, they said.

A coroner Friday dismissed treatment of the 46-year-old man as inhumane and a "disgrace," saying he would ask prosecutors to consider criminal charges over his death from heatstroke in Western Australia in January 2008.

The elder, known only as Mr Ward as his first name was withheld for cultural reasons, was transported 360 kilometres (225 miles) to jail in temperatures of up to 50 degrees Celsius (122 F) in a van with faulty air conditioning.

Ward, who was arrested a day earlier for drink driving, spent four hours in the searing heat between the mining towns of Laverton and Kalgoorlie, suffering third-degree burns where his body touched the metal floor, the inquest heard.

Western Australia Coroner Alastair Hope found that Ward was effectively "cooked" to death and heavily criticised the state prisons department, the private security firm that operated the van and the two guards who escorted Ward.

"It is a disgrace that a prisoner in the 21st century, particularly a prisoner who has not been convicted of any crime, was transported for a long distance in high temperatures in this pod," Hope said.

The hearing was told that when Ward eventually arrived unconscious at hospital in Kalgoorlie, his body was so hot that staff were unable to cool him down. After an ice bath, which failed to save him, he had a body temperature of 41.7 degrees Celsius as opposed to a normal temperature of 37 degrees Celsius.

Ward's cousin, Daisy Ward, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Saturday the family was considering filing a civil lawsuit against GSL, which ran the prison van fleet, for breaching its duty of care.

"The community wants to see that they are punished... for what they have done, for what they have not done," she said.

The transport company offered to travel to Ward's home town of Warburton to apologise to the family, but the family has declined the offer.

"We all said that it was too late and that... they could have come forward to us and apologised to us earlier on," Daisy Ward said.

 

[oneofmany]

'If I didn't confess to 7/7 bombings MI5 officers would rape my wife,'

'If I didn't confess to 7/7 bombings MI5 officers would rape my wife,' claims torture victim​

A British man spoke publicly for the first time yesterday to accuse MI5 officers of forcing him to confess to masterminding the July 7 bombings.

Jamil Rahman claims UK security officers were behind his arrest in 2005 in Bangladesh.

He says he was beaten repeatedly by local officials who also threatened to rape him and his wife.

Mr Rahman, who is suing the Home Office, said a pair of MI5 officers who attended his torture and interrogation would leave the room while he was beaten.

He claims when he told the pair he had been tortured they merely answered: 'They haven't done a very good job on you.'

Mr Rahman told the BBC: 'They were questioning me on the July 7 bombings, showing me pictures of the bombers.

'They showed me maps, terrains ... they asked me to draw things out and write names next to pictures.

'They threatened my family. They go to me, "In the UK, gas leaks happen, if your family house had a gas leak and everyone got burnt, there's no problems, we can do that easily".'

He says he eventually made a false confession of involvement in the July 7 bomb plots.

The extraordinary allegations will add to pressure on UK ministers to come clean over the way Britain's intelligence agencies have been allowed to gather evidence around the world in the eight years since the September 11 attacks.

Jamil Rahman, a former civil servant from south Wales, is a British citizen who moved to Bangladesh in 2005 and married a woman he met there. He returned to the UK last year.

He said: 'It was all to do with the British. Even the Bengali intelligence officer told me that they didn't know anything about me, that they were only doing this for the British.'

Mr Rahman, 31, says he was released after three weeks but re-arrested and mistreated repeatedly over the next two years.

He described how two men he believes were British agents would leave the room for 'a break' while he was beaten.

They often asked: 'We're not torturing you, are we?' and recorded his confirmations that they were not, he alleges.

'The first time they tried to be friendly, they came in trying to show they were my friends, calm and relaxed, nothing wrong.

'I tried to demonstrate my innocence. I thought this is wrong, because they were British I might get some justice.'

He added: 'They showed me hundreds of pictures. Black, white, Chinese, bearded non-bearded, woman, man, young and old. Every time, they came for a new session, same pictures with new ones.

'The main thing they wanted me to be is a witness against another British man in Bangladesh. They pressured me so much to be a witness against this guy in court.

Mr Rahman denies being a terrorist, although he admits attending meetings in Britain of the radical Islamist group al-Muhajiroun - claiming he later rejected their extremist ideology.

A Home Office spokesman said: 'We firmly reject any suggestion that we torture people or ask others to do so on our behalf.
'Mr Rahman has made a lot of unsubstantiated allegations. They have not been evidenced in any court of law.'

Jamil Rahman is one of a number of former detainees who accuse the British Government colluded in their torture abroad.

His account echoes that of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, who said he was tortured in Pakistan and Morocco with MI5's knowledge.

The 30-year-old Ethiopian says he was beaten and deprived of sleep to try to make him confess to an Al Qaeda 'dirty bomb' plot, and his treatment is now the subject of an unprecedented police investigation into MI5's conduct.

 

[oneofmany]

U.S. eugenics legacy: Ruling on Buck sterilization still stands

U.S. eugenics legacy: Ruling on Buck sterilization still stands​

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Paul Lombardo hadn't planned on a three-decade detour when he stopped at a greasy-spoon restaurant for breakfast in February 1980. Lombardo, then a graduate student at the University of Virginia, picked up a newspaper to read as he ate his bacon and eggs.

And the rest is history, literally and figuratively. For almost 30 years, Lombardo has tried to uncover the full story of the wrongs he read about that day.

The article he had stumbled across was about two sisters sterilized in the 1920s by the state of Virginia for being "feeble-minded." The younger sister hadn't even known she'd had a tubal ligation. She didn't learn until she was in her late 60s that the surgery hadn't been for appendicitis. The older, more famous sister — Carrie Buck — was the subject of the now infamous lawsuit over the legality of the operation, Buck v. Bell, that was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

He read that although Carrie Buck was the first victim of a 1924 sterilization law, 8,300 Virginians had involuntary sterilization until the practice was stopped in the 1970s. The law itself was repealed in 1974. "It was startling," says Lombardo, 59, now a legal historian at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

He had not known of eugenics — the "science" of human improvement through controlled breeding — as more than a vague concept. Learning that there had been many eugenics programs in the United States in the 20th century and that the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Buck's sterilization amazed him.

"Three generations of imbeciles are enough," Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in the 1927 ruling. Lombardo says: "This woman got railroaded. And one of the giants of the Supreme Court was driving the train."

In the years that followed, Lombardo's Ph.D. dissertation focused on the attorney who fought to have Buck sterilized. In 1985, he published more research in the New York University Law Review, saying that key "facts" of the Buck case were simply not true and that Buck never received any real legal representation.

He has written journal articles and made many speeches on the subject, finding himself returning to the details of the story again and again. The case was "part of my intellectual life for so long that in some senses it was my … 'hobby' is not the right word," Lombardo says. " 'Obsession' would probably be closer."

Last fall, his book Three Generations, No Imbeciles was published. In February, he traveled to Rome to speak on the dangers of eugenics at a Vatican conference. He is working on a book titled 100 Years of Eugenics: From the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Project.

Lombardo has no plans to abandon his fight to publicize the terrible history of eugenics. With genetics playing an increasingly important role in science, Lombardo and other bioethicists fear the lessons of the eugenics debacle matter more than ever.

University of Maryland historian Steven Selden worries about how we will handle the ethical questions of possible genetic "improvements" to humanity. "We're going to revisit all the ethical conundrums that were inherent in the eugenics movement as we move forward."

The story of Carrie Buck

Buck was born and raised in Charlottesville, then became pregnant near her 17th birthday. Her foster parents had her institutionalized as a "feeble-minded moral delinquent," despite her claims that she had been assaulted by their nephew. When she gave birth, her child was given to her foster parents, who adopted her, and Buck was sent to the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded in Lynchburg. Buck's mother had already been committed to the colony.

With three generations available for examination, colony superintendent Albert Priddy felt confident that he could prove the Buck women were defective. He sought to have Carrie Buck sterilized under Virginia's new law authorizing surgery on epileptics, the feeble-minded, imbeciles and the socially inadequate.

The case went to court, and as it worked its way through the legal system, Priddy died and John Bell took his place at the colony. By virtue of his new position, Bell became the official defendant in the case, known thereafter as Buck v. Bell.

Aubrey Strode, the legislator who had written the Virginia law, became the lawyer representing the colony in the fight to sterilize Buck. Strode and Buck's appointed attorney, Irving Whitehead, were childhood friends. Whitehead, a longtime supporter of sterilization, had been a founding director of the Virginia Colony.

Even for a small town half a century ago, the connections felt suspect to Lombardo. The whole process, from Buck's institutionalization to the Supreme Court decision that the state could legally sterilize her, seemed cruel and arbitrary to him. Buck was indeed sterilized after the high court's ruling and was later paroled from the colony.

In his research, Lombardo found report cards for Carrie and her daughter Vivian. Buck had been passed on each year with "very good" marks in deportment and lessons. Vivian had made the honor roll. There was nothing to suggest any mental deficiency in either of them.

The child died at age 8 from measles and an intestinal infection.

Buck. v. Bell has never been overturned.

The aftermath

Though he hadn't discovered Carrie Buck or eugenics before living in Charlottesville, Lombardo had inadvertently landed in the perfect place to study both. Bastions of eugenics lay farther north, in New York and Massachusetts, but Virginia and its university had their own deep ties to the movement, which aimed to improve the human race much as livestock is bred. Eugenic schemes included immigration restriction, laws against interracial marriage, and sterilization of those considered "defective."

In all, more than 30 states passed legislation supporting sterilization as part of a eugenic program. The official numbers of surgeries exceeded 65,000, and targeted groups included — as they did in Virginia — epileptics, the "feeble-minded," "imbeciles" and the "socially inadequate." Nazis on trial at Nuremberg after World War II cited the influence of American eugenics programs on their policies and mentioned Buck v. Bell in their testimony.

The passion for eugenics faded after the war as news of the Nazi atrocities came to light. But sterilization is still proposed from time to time as a remedy to a social problem.

In 2006, Virginia state Sen. Emmett Hanger, who would represent Buck if she were alive today, introduced a bill to offer castration to some sex offenders in exchange for release into the community after serving their sentences. His efforts to date have been unsuccessful.

Hanger calls Virginia's eugenics history "reprehensible" but says he does not fear that provisions for government-sanctioned sterilization will be misused.

"I have no concerns that there would be any return to the past," he says.

On Monday, North Carolina officials unveiled a historical marker in Raleigh that notes the sterilization of more than 7,600 people "by choice or coercion" in the name of eugenics.

Lifelong effects

Lombardo met Buck shortly before her death in 1983 at 76.

She was living in a residence for poor senior citizens in Waynesboro. Lombardo found her sitting frail and hunched in her wheelchair. He talked with her a bit, and then asked if it were true that she had been assaulted. She said yes. And then she confirmed that she had gone to school and been promoted through several grades. Lombardo asked about her sister, Doris Figgins, who had recently died. He didn't feel comfortable going much further.

"She was happy to have a visitor. It was clear, though, that she still felt the shame. What was done to her affected her in a bad way her whole life."

In 2002, the Virginia Legislature passed a resolution specifically recognizing the mistreatment of Carrie Buck. That year Lombardo paid more than $1,200 for the posting of a historical marker in front of a Charlottesville community center to commemorate the 75th anniversary of Buck v. Bell.

The infamous state Colony for Epileptics and Feeble-minded underwent several name and mission changes in the years after Carrie Buck was released. It is now called the Central Virginia Training Center and focuses on providing services to the mentally retarded.

But Lombardo is not optimistic that most Americans will remember Carrie Buck's story. Historian Selden hopes they do. "The moral issues do not go away," he says. "They get transformed. They change. But they come back to us again."

Carrie and Vivian are buried in Charlottesville's Oakwood Cemetery, Vivian next to her adoptive parents, who reported on her death certificate that they did not know the name of her birth mother.

 

[oneofmany]

ID cards for India: 1.1 billion citizens

ID cards for India: 1.1 billion citizens will go into second largest citizens' database​

India is planning to provide its 1.1 billion-plus citizens with ID cards.

Entrepreneur, Nandan Nilekani has been chosen to lead the ambitious project which will be the second largest citizens' database in a democracy, with China being the biggest.

The government believes the scheme, which will be finalised over three years, will aid the delivery of vital social services to the poorest people who often lack sufficient identification papers.

It also sees the scheme as a way to tackle increasing amounts of identity fraud and theft and, at a time of increased concern over the threat of militant violence, to boost national security and help police and law officials.

Like Britain's £5billion ID cards plan, due to roll out in 2011/12, India's scheme is not without controversy.

Observers have raised questions including how the cards will actually improve the delivery of services and also concerns that the scheme could be disruptive.

In an interview in The Independent today associate fellow of the Asia programme at Chatham House, Charu Lata Hogg, said: 'It cannot be denied that the system of proving identity in India is complicated and confusing.

'But a system of national ID cards can technically introduce a new route to citizenship.

'This could be used as a security measure by the government which leaves migrant workers, refugees and other stateless people in India in limbo without access to public services, employment and basic welfare.'

 

[oneofmany]

Rwanda denies sterilisation

Rwanda denies sterilisation plans​

Rwanda has strongly denied reports that its parliament is considering a draft law which would forcibly sterilise people who are mentally disabled.

Damascene Ntawukuriryayo, deputy speaker of parliament, was responding to a call by US-based activists Human Rights Watch to scrap the proposed law.

He also told the BBC that plans for HIV testing before couples get married are strictly voluntary, not compulsory.

Mr Ntawukuriryayo said the lobby group should check before releasing reports.

He said he had never seen a bill or provision which proposed forcible sterilisation.

Earlier, HRW's Joe Amon had said: "Provisions in the current bill that increase stigma, rely on coercion and deny... reproductive rights should be removed."

Forced sterilisation is regarded as a crime against humanity by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

Rwanda has successfully managed to lower the spread of Aids in recent years thanks to its HIV campaign, according to World Bank figures.

"While Rwanda has made notable progress in fighting stigma and responding to the Aids epidemic, and has pledged to advance the rights of persons with disability, forced sterilisation and mandatory HIV testing do not contribute to those goals," said Mr Amon, the health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch.

"These elements of the bill undermine reproductive health goals and undo decades of work to ensure respect for reproductive rights."

 

[oneofmany]

Professional Perspectives: Fluoride in Tap Water

Professional Perspectives: Fluoride in Tap Water

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[oneofmany]

Countries plan for mass vaccinations against swine flu

Countries plan for mass vaccinations against swine flu​

The "unstoppable" swine flu pandemic Tuesday raised fears of millions of cases by next year and countries talked about mass vaccinations, while South America sought a united front to combat the disease.

Italy predicted it may have dealt with between three and four million cases of swine flu by March 2010, the country's deputy health minister Ferruccio Fazio said Tuesday.

He added that by the end of this year some 8.6 million Italians would have been vaccinated against the A(H1N1) virus, with the most vulnerable and those working in the emergency services given priority.

His comments came a day after the World Health Organisation said all countries were going to need vaccines against the virus because the swine flu pandemic was now unstoppable.

Italy with a total of 224 infections so far has not reported any deaths. Elsewhere in Europe Tuesday Croatia reported three new swine flu infections while Turkey said the number of swine flu cases has more than doubled in less than two weeks, reaching 95.

Talk of mass vaccination campaigns was reported around the globe with Germany saying it envisioned having to order some 25 million doses of a vaccine now under development to immunise nearly a third of its population.

Australia, the Asia-Pacific region's worst-hit country, was bracing to immunise the entire population against swine flu and has already placed an advance order for 21 million courses of a vaccine.

Federal chief medical officer Jim Bishop, expressing hope that the government could launch a nationwide immunisation drive by October, warned that the "hard-edged" virus was now infecting young and healthy people.

Six people younger than 40 who had otherwise been healthy remained on life support in Sydney after swine flu severely damaged their lungs, officials said.

Australia is already in the southern hemisphere winter, and officials fear the consequences if swine flu mutates into something deadlier in combination with the regular strain of influenza.

With the global death toll from A(H1N1) now reaching at least 429, WHO director of vaccine research Marie-Paul Kieny said Monday that a swine flu vaccine should be available as early as September.

At the same time, WHO chief Margaret Chan Tuesday warned that poverty will prevent some countries from gaining access to swine flu vaccines, as she criticised a bias in favour of richer nations.

"Manufacturing capacity for influenza vaccines is finite and woefully inadequate for a world of 6.8 billion people, nearly all of whom are susceptible to infection by this entirely new and highly contagious virus," she told delegates attending a World Intellectual Property Organisation conference in Geneva.

"The lion's share of these limited supplies will go to wealthy countries. Again we see the advantage of affluence. Again we see access denied by an inability to pay," she said.

In South America, health ministers from six countries will meet Wednesday to seek a coordinated response to fighting the epidemic, which Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has called "the worst in 50 years".

Argentina, which alone has reported at least 94 flu-related deaths, will host the meeting of ministers from Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay.

Elsewhere on the continent, now in its winter season, Ecuador reported Tuesday the disease has spread to 14 of the country's 24 provinces, with the total number of infections at 264 with three deaths.

And in Peru, some 15,000 doctors have called for a nationwide protest on Wednesday to demand better prevention against swine flu, which has claimed at least five lives and infected around 2,000 people so far in that country.

"We demand addressing adequately the needs of hospitals in order to prevent further mistakes in the treatment of swine flu and to avoid more deaths," Leoncio Diaz, president of the Peruvian Medical Federation (FMP), told AFP.

An infant boy died in a Madrid hospital due to a medical error after his mother died from swine flu. She was Spain's first fatality from the disease.

Morocco's king announced Tuesday he will charter a plane to repatriate the remains as well as family members.

 

[oneofmany]

The school with 100 spy cameras: 'Big Brother' system watches pupils everywhere

The school with 100 spy cameras: 'Big Brother' system watches pupils everywhere​

A school has installed nearly 100 security cameras to monitor classrooms, corridors and play areas, it emerged yesterday.

The £60,000-a-year surveillance system at Stockwell Park High is believed to be the most extensive in a school.
Cameras also film lessons to help staff improve their technique and may be used to expose poor teaching.

The comprehensive intends to kit out every classroom with the technology because staff say it helps tackle truancy, indiscipline and false allegations against them.

Teachers' leaders last night warned against using the 'Big Brotherish' system.

Almost 100 schools have introduced similar in- class cameras while a quarter use some kind of CCTV, mainly for security reasons. But the average number of classrooms fitted with the technology is five, while Stockwell Park High, in South London, has two cameras in 28 classrooms - 56 in total.
In addition there are 40 cameras in corridors, stairwells and outdoor areas.

The school began by training CCTV cameras on its perimeter fences to deter intruders and then put them in classrooms to prevent damage to costly whiteboards.

Now it is taking advantage of major renovation work to install the hi-tech Classwatch system - which promises digital sound and images ' admissible in a court of law'.

The 985-pupil school, which serves disadvantaged areas, was rated 'outstanding' by Ofsted in 2006 with pupil behaviour described as 'good' and attendance 'satisfactory and improving'. It said the cameras were intended to help deal with 'rare' incidents and act as a deterrent to misbehaviour rather than tackle a particular problem.

However the use of cameras to identify and punish children who disrupt lessons and indulge in classroom pranks is not without controversy.

One primary school was criticised for using surveillance equipment to identify an eight-year-old girl who hid her friend's shoes.

Stockwell Park headmistress Judette Tapper said: 'We are very mindful of students' and parents' sensitivities.

'The system gives teachers a real sense of security and reassurance in the case of the rare disciplinary incidents in which a student disputes the teacher's account of events. It also helps to combat bullying and aggressive behaviour.

'We are finding the system is a useful tool in investigating and discouraging truancy.' Footage is stored for one month then destroyed. Access is strictly controlled and monitored by a member of the school's board of governors.

But Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: 'This all sounds very Big Brotherish.

'Schools should not have to resort to technology to fight bullying and bad behaviour. 'CCTV can be useful to monitor outside areas and may help cut down on vandalism, but we have grave concerns about using it as panacea for all the problems a school faces.'

Pupil Daniel Bryan said: 'Cameras can be useful but they are an invasion of your privacy and sometimes they make me feel uncomfortable.'

 

[oneofmany]

US buys 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine

US buys 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine​

US federal officials say the country has purchased 195 million doses of swine flu vaccine for its possible autumn vaccination campaign.

According to Reuters, the US A/H1N1 vaccine market is supplied by AstraZeneca's MedImmune unit, Australia's CSL Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline Plc, Novartis AG and Sanofi-Aventis SA.

Swine flu -- which originated in Mexico in April 2009 -- has so far claimed 700 lives worldwide and the World Health Organization (WHO) on June 11, 2009 lifted its pandemic alert level from phase 5 to 6, signaling the rapid spread of the virus around the globe.

According to Dr. Robin Robinson of the US Health and Human Services Department, a contract has also been made to get 120 million doses of adjuvant, a compound that increases the number of doses of vaccine needed.

Talking at a meeting of Food and Drug Administration advisers, Robinson added that the decision was part of a HHS plan for a possible influenza pandemic.

"We thought manufacturers would probably get a low or poor yield. That has been borne out," he said.

He added that it would take until March 2010 to vaccinate all the country's 300 million people with two doses each.

The vaccine-making companies are expected to inform the FDA committee later Thursday about their findings obtained during their work with the deadly virus.

The WHO and US health officials have announced that they will vaccinate people against A/H1N1, alongside regular seasonal flu, in October.

While the FDA has to approve the vaccine, US officials said earlier on Thursday that they would like to accelerate the process.

 

[LennyNero1972]

Re: ID cards for India: 1.1 billion citizens

Would you trust this face?

 

[oneofmany]

You're right

Would you trust this face?

I sure wouldn't. Haha

 

[oneofmany]

Gardasil Causes 400 Percent More Deaths than Other Common Vaccine

Gardasil Causes 400 Percent More Deaths than Other Common Vaccine​

(NaturalNews) A federal report has concluded that the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil has a 400 percent higher rate of adverse effects than another comparable vaccine, the Menactra anti-meningitis shot.

"It is unusual for there to be such a big discrepancy between two vaccines used in similar populations involving serious and relatively rare life threatening adverse events and autoimmune disorders," the researchers from the federal Vaccine Events Reporting System wrote.

Gardasil, marketed by Merck, prevents againt the strains of HPV believed to be responsible for 70 percent of cervical cancer cases and 90 percent of genital warts cases. GlaxoSmithKline's competing Cervarix vaccine protects against the same cervical cancer-causing strains.

The researchers considered Gardasil and Menactra equivalent for the purposes of comparison because they are given to similar age groups at similar frequencies. Their study concluded that Gardasil was associated with twice as many emergency room visits, four times as many deaths, four times as many heart attacks, seven times as many "disabled" reports and 15 times as many strokes. All reported cases of blood clots and heart attacks associated with Gardasil occurred when the vaccine was given alone, not in conjunction with other drugs.

"Fainting, which has been attributed by doctors and health officials as 'fear' of needles in teenage girls, is reported six times as often ... after receipt of Gardasil than Menactra even though Menactra is also given to girls in the same age group," the researchers noted.

The report recommends that the government more thoroughly investigate reports of dangerous side effects from the HPV vaccine, that research be conducted into mechanisms by which the vaccine might cause these effects, and that patients and parents be more adequately warned of the risks before vaccination. It also recommends that Congress investigate how the vaccine was fast-tracked for approval in the absence of safety data on girls younger than 17.

 

[oneofmany]

Greece to vaccinate all population for flu

Greece to vaccinate all population for flu​

ATHENS: Greece will vaccinate its entire population of 12 million against the H1N1 swine flu pandemic which has swept around the world in weeks, killing hundreds of people, the country's health minister said on Friday.

The Mediterranean country, which receives about 15 million tourists every year, has confirmed more than 700 swine flu cases and no deaths, but world health experts say the true number of cases globally is far higher as only a few patients get tested.

"We decided that the entire population, all citizens and residents, without any exception, will be vaccinated against the flu," Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said after a ministerial meeting.

Greece has already earmarked 40 million euros for vaccines and has placed orders with Novartis, Glaxo and Sanofi for 8 million vaccine doses, to be received gradually by January.
Vaccine experts say people will likely need two doses of vaccine to be protected from H1N1 swine flu, so Greece would need a total of 24 million doses to vaccinate its entire population. Other countries are taking similar steps.

"Greece will order 16 million more doses from the same companies in the future," a health ministry official who declined to be named told Reuters. "We are only waiting for the European Union's approval to start vaccinating everyone."

The European Medicines Agency has begun reviewing pandemic flu vaccines under development, aiming to get them approved before the flu season starts, sometime in September.

The health ministry official said children, the elderly and ailing would be the first to be vaccinated.

About 800 people have died worldwide since the outbreak of the flu in April.

 

[oneofmany]

Parents are worried about the swine flu vaccine

Parents are worried about the swine flu vaccine​

Parents talking on the internet forums have expressed some concern about the H1N1 vaccine that will be offered to children and adults with underlying health conditions and pregnant women as priorities.

Fears raised include its safety for pregnant women, whether the vaccine has been tested enough and the fact one of them contains a controversial mercury preservative.

One mum posted: "Absolutely no way would I allow my son to be vaccinated, he's not a guinea pig."

Another said: "This strain seems to be mild but they are predicting that the second strain will be alot worse especially with it being flu season. Plus if it mutates we could be in serious trouble if we are not vaccinated."

Justine Roberts, Co-founder of mumsnet.com said: "Lots of mums on Mumsnet are questioning whether giving the swine flu vaccine to their children is a good idea. Some are worried about how well it's been tested, others about it's effectiveness and side effects."

The GlaxoSmithKline vaccine contains thiomersal which was linked to neurological disorders and autism in the 1990s but has since been extensive tested and no evidence of harm has been found.

Its use was phased out of most vaccines, however it is being used in the GSK vaccine to make it last longer and avoid wastage.

Prof David Salisbury, head of immunisation at the Department of Health, said the vaccines will arrive in vials containing about ten doses as it is not feasible to produce or store single-dose preloaded syringes on the scale needed to vaccine the 11m people who will be offered the vaccine between October and December.

He said, if only one or two doses in a vial are used on one day the GSK vaccine can be stored overnight in the fridge and the remaining doses used the next day. However the Baxter vaccine, which does not contain thiomersal, would have to be thrown away if the whole vial's contents were not used within three hours, he added.

Pregnant women on the forums had mixed views with some saying they are eager to be vaccinated against swine flu while others were circumspect.

Prof Salisbury said the vaccine will be offered to pregnant women who are at greater risk of complications if they contract flu, data from Britain and America has shown.

The European Medicines Agency will decide on whether the vaccine is offered to women at all stages of pregnancy or only in the second or third trimester when the risks of swine flu to both mother and baby are higher.

Prof Salisbury said concerns about vaccines during pregnancy are based on theorectical risks that a live virus vaccine could affect the feotus but extensive tested with the rubella vaccine had not found any evidence of this. He added that the H1N1 vaccines are not live anyway but contain an inactivated version of swine flu.

He said: "We are taking a sensible approach to vaccinate people who are at greatest risk from swine flu first. For people with risk factors the flu may not be mild at all."

He said the products are based on pre-pandemic vaccines using the H5N1 bird flu virus, which have been extensively trialled. The manufacturers have then switched the flu H5N1 flu strain for the current H1N1 swine flu change, in the same way as the seasonal flu vaccines are altered each year to match the current circulating strain.

In addition to this new trials are now beginning using the H1N1 vaccines covering all age groups.

A spokesman for GlaxoSmithKline said: "The World Health Organisation has recommended that for vaccines which come in multidose vials, manufacturers use a preservative to enable doctors to withdraw several doses from the same vial.

"There have been many studies conducted over decades of research which suggest that thiomersal has a good safety profile and is well tolerated. It is essential that a preservative is used in vaccines such as this to avoid wastage."

He said there was no alternative to thiomersal as a preservative for vaccines of this kind.

 

[Lamarr]

Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America


A warning that the new swine flu jab is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.

The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health, has been leaked to The Mail on Sunday, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.

It tells the neurologists that they must be alert for an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which could be triggered by the vaccine.

GBS attacks the lining of the nerves, causing paralysis and inability to breathe, and can be fatal.

The letter, sent to about 600 neurologists on July 29, is the first sign that there is concern at the highest levels that the vaccine itself could cause serious complications.

It refers to the use of a similar swine flu vaccine in the United States in 1976 when:

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ologists-25-deaths-America.html#ixzz0OJpRqxPO

* More people died from the vaccination than from swine flu.
* 500 cases of GBS were detected.
* The vaccine may have increased the risk of contracting GBS by eight times.
* The vaccine was withdrawn after just ten weeks when the link with GBS became clear.
* The US Government was forced to pay out millions of dollars to those affected.

Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects, especially on children, are unknown.

It is being developed by pharmaceutical companies and will be given to about 13million people during the first wave of immunisation, expected to start in October.

Top priority will be given to everyone aged six months to 65 with an underlying health problem, pregnant women and health professionals.

The British Neurological Surveillance Unit (BNSU), part of the British Association of Neurologists, has been asked to monitor closely any cases of GBS as the vaccine is rolled out.

One senior neurologist said last night: ‘I would not have the swine flu jab because of the GBS risk.’

There are concerns that there could be a repeat of what became known as the ‘1976 debacle’ in the US, where a swine flu vaccine killed 25 people – more than the virus itself.

A mass vaccination was given the go-ahead by President Gerald Ford because scientists believed that the swine flu strain was similar to the one responsible for the 1918-19 pandemic, which killed half a million Americans and 20million people worldwide.

Read more:

 

[oneofmany]

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show

DNA Evidence Can Be Fabricated, Scientists Show​

Scientists in Israel have demonstrated that it is possible to fabricate DNA evidence, undermining the credibility of what has been considered the gold standard of proof in criminal cases.

The scientists fabricated blood and saliva samples containing DNA from a person other than the donor of the blood and saliva. They also showed that if they had access to a DNA profile in a database, they could construct a sample of DNA to match that profile without obtaining any tissue from that person.

“You can just engineer a crime scene,” said Dan Frumkin, lead author of the paper, which has been published online by the journal Forensic Science International: Genetics. “Any biology undergraduate could perform this.”

Dr. Frumkin is a founder of Nucleix, a company based in Tel Aviv that has developed a test to distinguish real DNA samples from fake ones that it hopes to sell to forensics laboratories.

The planting of fabricated DNA evidence at a crime scene is only one implication of the findings. A potential invasion of personal privacy is another.

Using some of the same techniques, it may be possible to scavenge anyone’s DNA from a discarded drinking cup or cigarette butt and turn it into a saliva sample that could be submitted to a genetic testing company that measures ancestry or the risk of getting various diseases. Celebrities might have to fear “genetic paparazzi,” said Gail H. Javitt of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University.

Tania Simoncelli, science adviser to the American Civil Liberties Union, said the findings were worrisome.

“DNA is a lot easier to plant at a crime scene than fingerprints,” she said. “We’re creating a criminal justice system that is increasingly relying on this technology.”

John M. Butler, leader of the human identity testing project at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, said he was “impressed at how well they were able to fabricate the fake DNA profiles.” However, he added, “I think your average criminal wouldn’t be able to do something like that.”

The scientists fabricated DNA samples two ways. One required a real, if tiny, DNA sample, perhaps from a strand of hair or drinking cup. They amplified the tiny sample into a large quantity of DNA using a standard technique called whole genome amplification.

Of course, a drinking cup or piece of hair might itself be left at a crime scene to frame someone, but blood or saliva may be more believable.

The authors of the paper took blood from a woman and centrifuged it to remove the white cells, which contain DNA. To the remaining red cells they added DNA that had been amplified from a man’s hair.

Since red cells do not contain DNA, all of the genetic material in the blood sample was from the man. The authors sent it to a leading American forensics laboratory, which analyzed it as if it were a normal sample of a man’s blood.

The other technique relied on DNA profiles, stored in law enforcement databases as a series of numbers and letters corresponding to variations at 13 spots in a person’s genome.

From a pooled sample of many people’s DNA, the scientists cloned tiny DNA snippets representing the common variants at each spot, creating a library of such snippets. To prepare a DNA sample matching any profile, they just mixed the proper snippets together. They said that a library of 425 different DNA snippets would be enough to cover every conceivable profile.

Nucleix’s test to tell if a sample has been fabricated relies on the fact that amplified DNA — which would be used in either deception — is not methylated, meaning it lacks certain molecules that are attached to the DNA at specific points, usually to inactivate genes.