Saturday, 11 October 2014

Economic warfare: The "Secret Deal" between U.S. and Saudi Arabia to manipulate oil markets and hurt Russia and Iran

Two weeks ago, we revealedone part of the "Secret Deal" between the US and Saudi Arabia: namely what the US 'brought to the table' as part of its grand alliance strategy in the middle east, which proudly revealed Saudi Arabia to be "aligned" with the US against ISIS, when in reality John Kerry was merely doing Saudi Arabia's will when the WSJ reported that "the process gave the Saudis leverage to extract a fresh U.S. commitment to beef up training for rebels fighting Mr. Assad, whose demise the Saudis still see as a top priority."

What was not clear is what was the other part: what did the Saudis bring to the table, or said otherwise, how exactly it was that Saudi Arabia would compensate the US for bombing the Assad infrastructure until the hated Syrian leader was toppled, creating a power vacuum in his wake that would allow Syria, Qatar, Jordan and/or Turkey to divide the spoils of war as they saw fit.

A glimpse of the answer was provided earlier in the article "The Oil Weapon: A New Way To Wage War", because at the end of the day it is always about oil, and leverage.

The full answer comes courtesy of Anadolu Agency, which explains not only the big picture involving Saudi Arabia and its biggest asset, oil, but also the latest fracturing of OPEC at the behest of Saudi Arabia...

... which however is merely using " " to target the Cold War foe #1: Vladimir Putin.

To wit:

Saudi Arabia to pressure Russia, Iran with price of oil

Saudi Arabia plans to sell oil cheap for political reasons, one analyst says.

To pressure Iran to limit its nuclear program, and to change Russia's position on Syria, Riyadh will sell oil below the average spot price at $50 to $60 per barrel in the Asian markets and North America, says Rashid Abanmy,. The marked decrease in the price of oil in the last three months, to $92 from $115 per barrel, was caused by Saudi Arabia, according to Abanmy.

With oil demand declining, the ostensible reason for the price drop is to attract new clients, Abanmy said, but the real reason is political. Saudi Arabia wants to get Iran to limit its nuclear energy expansion, and to make Russia change its position of support for the Assad Regime in Syria. Both countries depend heavily on petroleum exports for revenue, and a lower oil price means less money coming in, Abanmy pointed out. The Gulf states will be less affected by the price drop, he added.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which is the technical arbiter of the price of oil for Saudi Arabia and the 11 other countries that make up the group, won't be able to affect Saudi Arabia's decision, Abanmy maintained.

The organization's decisions are only recommendations and are not binding for the member oil producing countries, he explained.

Today's Brent closing price: $90. Russia's oil price budget for the period 2015-2017? $100. Which means much more "forced Brent liquidation" is in the cards in the coming weeks as America's suddenly once again very strategic ally, Saudi Arabia, does everything in its power to break Putin.

As most of the world has duly noted, Canada under the neo-Conservative Harper regime has been a front-runner in supporting Israel in its racial apartheid policies in Israel. Also recently a discussion comparing South Africa's apartheid system with that of Israel has occurred with South African testimony indicating that while they are not the same, they are very similar, and in some circumstances, Israel's apartheid is worse. What is not seen is Canada's role in modeling apartheid for South Africa under the Afrikaner-dominated National Party. Canada's role in developing these systems of apartheid has been seldom noted academically, and is given very little attention either domestically or internationally.

It is generally recognized that North America was a series of colonies from Great Britain, France, Spain, and Russia with a few Dutch thrown into the mix. The first 'discoverers' of America, the Norse Vikings, died out through their lack of ability to adapt to the climatic changes that overtook them. The later colonial settlers survived in part because they did accept the graciousness of the indigenous peoples in assisting them, from which Canada and the U.S. derive their respective national holiday, Thanksgiving.

However, right from the start, these colonial-settler immigrants created myths that allowed them to overrun the native populations without too many qualms about the abuses they perpetrated. Religion, race, and government policies all had a great deal to do with this. The two main myths directed at the Indians of North America can be located elsewhere in the world where colonial-settler populations have invaded. The first myth is that North America was a vast empty land filled with riches to be exploited by the newcomers. Somewhat in contradiction to that is the myth that the Indians were primitives, needing to be civilized, a notion that included religion, land ownership, and the rule of white man's law.

The reality of history is much more disconcerting for those concerned about human rights and the nature of our societies, as they were, and as they exist today. I will not deal with the history of the natives population in the U.S., although it is interrelated with that of Canada. It is generally recognized that after the era of glorious movie westerns celebrating the settlement of the empty plains and mountains, the reality is that of a steady policy of genocide, racism, and warfare against the native people while capitalist ownership of land subjugated the landscape.

Canada's native history

Canada's story is a bit different, especially as perceived in comparison to that of the U.S. It is true we do not have the same degree of violent history over the native population, but it is a history that nonetheless is still violent, genocidal, and racist. Current events reflect that it is still violent, if of a different form, and still very much racist, although covered over with all sorts of ignorant platitudes. Unfortunately as well, the vestiges of apartheid still hang on within Canadian governance, never described as such, with the blame for its human rights abuses being blamed mainly on the recipients of that abuse - racism at its most civilized.

These thoughts all coalesced this summer while I was travelling across Canada. Somewhere along the line (literally - I went by train) I bought a powerful, damning critique of Canadian government policy during the era of Canada's colonial settlement years across Canada's vast resource rich prairie region. Clearing the Plains - Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life, (University of Regina Press, 2013), written by James Daschuk, is a study of the Canadian settlement in relation to the early fur trade up to the time when the railroads opened up the plains for the large settler populations from Europe, most from eastern Europe. The title is very indicative of the content, and as I read it I was also reminded of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies (Norton & Company, 1999).

It is Diamond's middle term, germs, that plays a significant role in Canada's history, although guns and steel had their fair share, and all were tied into political policies of the day.

By the time the fur traders arrived in the Prairie region of Canada, epidemics of European origin had already swept through many of the tribes, decimating a population that had not previously been exposed to them. While this is an attribute of all peoples not previously exposed to particular microbes, the problem in Canada was significantly increased by both a lack of interest in native health - other than for labour for harvesting the beaver pelts - and later a government official policy of 'near starvation.'

Without their historical access to food as the buffalo herds were decimated as a foodstock for the early traders and settlers, and without reliable water resources as the beaver population was decimated for the leisure class in Europe, the natives were highly susceptible to foreign microbes as malnutrition compromised their immune systems. As the fur trade progressed in its many facets, then died out to be replaced by the railroads and settlements, the vectors for transmission of disease increased. As the vectors increased, so did the government policies of starvation and apartheid.

Our current neo-Conservative government loves to promote the achievements of Sir John A. Macdonald, considered the 'father of confederation.' It is perhaps not surprising then that their current attitudes towards the native population are reminiscent of their political heritage. It was Sir John A. MacDonald who said, "We cannot allow them to die for want of food....[We] are doing all we can, by refusing food until the Indians are on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense."

The Liberals were not significantly different as opposition to the government. They were

"an important factor in constraining the government expenditures on the Indian population....the prime minister pre-empted criticism by promising to keep the hungry from dying, but assuring the House that his government would be "rigid, even stingy" in the distribution of food."

This pretence of financial responsibility was of course part and parcel of the countries policy of settlement of the prairies. Along with this simple policy of starvation were several other factors (such as the lack of immunities mentioned above) that were part of Canada's racial apartheid policy.

Reservations

Today, much of Canada has no recognizable Indian territories other than the small parcels of land allocated to the various remaining band populations under the Indian Act (1876). This Act purportedly provided the Queen's protection for the natives including the enforcement of the various treaties that ceded huge swaths of territory to the Canadian government. These reservations have a history of being revoked, resettled, cut-off, redrawn, leaving mostly small remnants of generally poorer geographical areas for native use.

The treaties themselves were and are generally treated as inconveniences for the government and were not much more than lip service for their underlying articles for rights and assistance. The Indian Act placed the native population under the care of the 'crown', the government, and has been used as a device to control and limit native power rather than to uphold treaty obligations: "To Canadian officials, the widespread occupation of reserves had another benefit: it greatly facilitated their control of the population." This was managed in several ways along with the official policy of starvation.

Agricultural practices were one factor. Although encouraged to settle and take up farming, the government controlled agricultural practices,

An order in council was passed to forbid the inhabitants of reserves from "selling, bartering, exchanging or giving any person or persons whatsoever, any grain, or root crops, or any other produce grown on any Indian Reserve in the Northwest territories [as the prairie regions was then called]." The move was intended to preserve locally grown food for the communities that produced it, but it also had the effect of barring reserve farmers from participating in the commercial economy of the northwest.

As usual the excuse for the action and the intended effect are contradictory. The ultimate idea "was not that the Indian should become self-supporting. He was only to be kept quiet till the country filled up when his ill will could be ignored."

Settlements

With the arrival of the railways, sections of land were given to immigrants in order to establish an agricultural economy. This was done through providing the railways themselves with enormous tracts of land, and relocating the natives.

The most significant relocation was the forced removal of communities from their chosen reserves in the Cypress Hills after the decision to build the Canadian Pacific Railway along the southern prairies....In doing so, the Canadian government accomplished the ethnic cleansing of southwestern Saskatchewan of its indigenous population.

Starvation was a tool within this policy as "Rations were deliberately withheld until the chief capitulated."

Another factor of control was the institution of a pass system. With a pass, the natives were given certain rights subject to the Indian Act and ultimate control by the government. It was "perhaps the most onerous regulation placed on the Indians after the rebellion,"...implemented to limit the mobility of treaty Indians, keeping them on their reserves and away from European communities."

Culture

Once the land was removed - and the land is essential to any indigenous people's culture - the cultural attributes of the indigenous people were attacked. Foremost among these efforts were the Residential schools controlled mainly by the Catholic and Anglican religions (paid for by the government) that followed the white man into the prairies. Native languages and religious rituals were forbidden, visitations were limited, the program of minimal nourishment and lack of health care continued, the latter contributing to many unrecorded deaths among the native children. Along with these limitations and prohibitions, the religious orders created a situation ripe for sexual abuse and assault. These institutions existed until as late as 1996 when the last one was closed down.

Beyond the residential schools, band based religious practices were forbidden. Indigenous rights to access courts were forbidden. The right to vote did not arrive fully until 1960; before then if a native were to vote, their treaty rights - such as they were - were revoked, another means to control the reserve populations.

Disease continues

Racism was easily inculcated into the settlers across the prairies as by the time they arrived in the late Nineteenth Century, they were witness to the nadir of native health and culture. What they saw was a population decimated by disease, incapable of supporting themselves, unkempt and "uncivilized". They did not know or care to know the conditions that had reduced the once self-sufficient and culturally whole tribes to a state of haggard dependency on an uncaring government.

The Indian Act still controls the reserve system and is still used and abused by the government to control the native population. While outright starvation is not a serious problem, modern diseases - AIDS, diabetes, alcoholism, suicide - are significantly higher in native populations than in the rest of Canada.

Education is still used as a tool to manipulate both the native people and the opinions of the non-native population. The latter is managed by the latent racism that is not far below the surface of many Canadians of all political stripes, very clearly seen in response to protests or demonstrations, especially with the "Silent no more" actions.

Economic activity is another tool used to manipulate the current native populations. Individual economic agreements with bands are attempts to both divide the populations in the bands as well as get around Treaty requirements and other Federal or Provincial regulations in many aspects of the economy from agriculture to mining and forestry. Money is still used as a manipulator, with promises and conditions being put forward that overall are attempts by the government to destroy the resurgence in native culture, to destroy its ability to use constitutional law against the government.

The Canadian apartheid system is still alive. It is not as demonstrative or obvious as that of Israel or formerly of South Africa, but it still exists as a construct within Canadian governance. As concluded by Daschuk,

While Canadians see themselves as world leaders in social welfare, health care, and economic development, most reserves in Canada are economic backwaters with little prospect of material advancement and more in common with the third world than the rest of Canada.

Apartheid in South Africa

As I indicated above, I will not discuss the relationships, differences, and commonalities between South Africa and Canada and Israel. There are two recent works that discuss Israeli apartheid in comparison to South African apartheid that I have read: Battle for Justice in Palestine (Haymarket Press, 2014) and The Anatomy of Zionist Apartheid (Porcupine Press, SA, 2013). Both provide the obvious evidence for the state of apartheid in Israel, with valid comparisons to South Africa.

There is however a Canadian link. Officially Canada opposed South Africa's apartheid system, but underneath trade and economic business carried on as usual. Canada only went against it when popular opinion became too strong to resist as a political platform. The real tie to South African apartheid is not at this level, but comes from South Africa modelling the Canadian reserve system and its instruments in order to implement apartheid in South Africa.

Notwithstanding this self-congratulatory revisionism, Canada mostly supported apartheid in South Africa. First, by providing it with a model. South Africa patterned its policy towards Blacks after Canadian policy towards First Nations. Ambiguous Champion [University of Toronto Press, 1997] explains, "South African officials regularly came to Canada to examine reserves set aside for First Nations, following colleagues who had studied residential schools in earlier parts of the century.

More recently Thomas Mulcair, as opposition leader to the current neo-Cons, commenting after the passing of Nelson Mandela,

makes a fairly direct comparison between South Africa's apartheid regime and Canada's treatment of the First Nations, Inuit and Métis people. He's not wrong, either - in fact, the apartheid system was based on Canada's Indian Act. Our residential schools, Indian Reserve and many other deeply racist systems inspired South Africa's oppressive regime. I'm glad that at least one of our federal leaders has (somewhat) acknowledged this in their remarks on Mandela's death.

Thus for all of Canada's rhetoric about apartheid in South Africa and its rhetoric in support of Israeli and therefore its apartheid, there is a strong linkage demonstrating the positive role Canada has had in creating and maintaining the apartheid systems.

Israel's apartheid

Apartheid in Israel is obvious to anyone reading about how the overall cultural-geopolitical landscape is managed. Accompanying apartheid, ethnic cleansing has also occurred, on a scale probably larger and more violent than occurred in Canada; genocide has not been a significant factor in Israel yet (other than used as an ongoing excuse for being the global victim of ethnic hatred), but was a considerable factor in Canada.

Certainly there are similarities and differences. Israel, like Canada, is a colonial-settler country, with the original Zionist philosophers clearly recognizing the problem of an already existing population in Palestine. Theodore Herzl recognized it clearly, advocating the ethnic cleansing of the region,

"Spirit the penniless population across the frontier by denying it employment... Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." Theodore Herzl, founder of the World Zionist Organization, speaking of the Arabs of Palestine, Complete Diaries, June 12, 1895 entry.

Ben Gurion also warned in 1948 after the independence war and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their villages and towns, "We must do everything to insure they ( the Palestinians) never do return." Assuring his fellow Zionists that Palestinians will never come back to their homes, "The old will die and the young will forget."

The lie of denial of an existing population, reminiscent of North America's 'unoccupied' lands is frequently quoted from Golda Meier: "How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to." Golda Maier, March 8, 1969; "There was no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed." Golda Maier, Israeli Prime Minister, June 15, 1969.

Cultural apartheid

Apartheid is a construct that includes both cultural and geographical elements. The idea of ethnic cleansing and the denial of existence as above is one such factor. There are many others.

Strangely enough, the idea of starvation as a manipulator of populations has been one of the more recent manifestations of Israeli policy, most particularly as directed against Gaza. Dov Weisglass, advisor to Ehud Olmert stated, "The idea," he said, "is to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger." Sounds strangely familiar to Canada's policy of the Nineteenth century.

Canada somehow calculated what it thought were minimal survival rations for its indigenous populations, and it appears that Israel carried that forward with even more mathematical precision,

While the health ministry determined that Gazans needed a daily average of 2,279 calories each to avoid malnutrition - requiring 170 lorries a day - military officials then found a host of pretexts to whittle the number down to a fraction of the original figure.

The reality was that, in this period, an average of only 67 lorries - much less than half of the minimum requirement - entered Gaza daily. This compared to more than 400 lorries before the blockade began.

Other cultural factors

Racism, ethnic cleansing, starvation are manifestations of cultural policies that support apartheid and its purposes. The purpose in Israel, unlike Canada, is the great demographic fear of the burgeoning Arab population within Israel and cantonized Palestine.

There are many other cultural factors that come into play, similar in several respects to Canada's apartheid system.

Education is controlled centrally, and the knowledge base allowed for Palestinian education ignores completely the 'nakba' and its ethnic cleansing and instances of mass murder. Islam is obviously an ongoing religious base for the Palestinians, but it is increasingly demonized as an ideology of evil, resulting in the ever present rhetoric of an existential threat. Many laws are discriminatory, with rulings on land ownership, residency, marriage, mobility, and other facets of civilian life being restricted by Israeli courts.

Most Palestinians live under military rule where civilian law simply does not exist. Movement of any kind, and daily life can all be controlled at the whim of regional military personnel and/or Shin Bet.

Geographical apartheid

The reality of apartheid however is the physical setting. Racism and ethnic hatred can spread throughout cultural systems and can support apartheid, but they are not apartheid itself. Israel is clearly an apartheid state from its actions on the ground. These have been well explained in many, many books and articles over the past several decades.

The physical landscape of apartheid is clearly visible in Israel. The euphemistic 'wall' is one of the larger barriers, supposedly to keep out 'terrorists' but in reality enclosing prime settlements, agricultural lands, and water sources. The settlements are designed to capture and hold prime landscapes for demographic control as well as resource control, physically grabbing land and effectively denying the validity of a two state solution with a contiguous Palestinian state. Roads are built that bypass Palestinian settlements, providing both a barrier to Palestinian movement and a continuous web of encroachment and encirclement of Palestinian villages and farmlands. The indiscriminate destruction of Palestinian housing on various trumped up civilian rules and on military authorizations to evict resistance fighters slowly clears land to be later incorporated into Israeli settlements using various laws concerning land usage and residency.

Gaza

Looking at a map of areas 'controlled' by Palestine reveals a largely diminished and fragmented series of bantustan style areas remaining. The West Bank is ostensibly under the rule of Abbas, but its apartheid nature is still clear from the descriptions given above. Gaza is the largest indicator of Israeli apartheid, and an indicator of the viciousness of Israeli apartheid.

Starvation as a policy is directly applied - and acknowledged - as a control mechanism for Gaza. Gaza is technically not occupied but all of its land, sea, and air space is controlled by Israeli military force. It is in essence a large concentration camp, completely controlled in all its physical aspects by Israel.

The ultimate purpose of Israeli apartheid is similar to that of Canada, the Palestinians are "to be kept quiet till the country filled up when his ill will could be ignored." That purpose cannot be realized without much violence: Canada's indigenous population is very small in comparison the overall population; Gaza in particular and the Palestinians in general are about on par with the Israeli population, but with a higher birth rate that, as always, gives the big demographic threat to the idea of a unitary theological state called Israel.

Partners in apartheid

Apartheid in Israel is a process used to try and eliminate as many Palestinians through emigration as possible, and perhaps the same conditions as in Canada: starvation leading to malnutrition, compromised immune systems, especially among the young, and an eventual and inevitable outbreak of some epidemic.

Fortunately for the Palestinians, the world is watching. Drastic actions, including the past three invasions of Gaza by Israel, are openly observed by the world. The result of all these actions has been an increase in support for Palestinians and a much more critical view of Israel and its national intentions. The boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement have strengthened and Israel is increasingly recognized globally as a threat to Middle East peace.

Canada remains in the forefront of countries supporting Israel. This devolves from Canada's history of Christian Zionism, its support of Britain's colonial systems, and its current neo-Conservative government with its fundamentalist evangelical mythology. On the surface the Harper neo-Conservatives argue in terms of human rights, democracy, the rule of law, and the evil of terror perpetrated by "Islamicism" (Harper's coined term to try and create a pejorative view of Islam). Underneath lies the religious fundamentalism combined with strong support for non-democratic corporate control of governance. Canada has distinct problems with human rights, the ongoing problems with the Indian communities and reserves being the largest, its ongoing support of Israel and its apartheid policies being another.

Final word to Canada's indigenous population

Grand Chief Matthew Coon Come, attending the World Conference on Indigenous Peoples (WCIP), an historic two-day meeting, that began on Sept. 22 at the UN General Assembly in New York, summarized Canada's position,

For years, the Harper government has refused to consult indigenous rights-holders on crucial issues, especially when it involves international forums. This repeated failure to consult violates Canada's duty under Canadian constitutional and international law.

In his opening remarks, Ban declared to indigenous peoples from all regions of the world, "You will always have a home at the United Nations." Yet in our own home in Canada, the federal government refuses to respect democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

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Ketogenic diet helps weight loss, epilepsy, MS, Alzheimer's and starves cancer

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The low carb, high-fat ketogenic diet has been shown to accelerate weight loss, enhance performance for endurance athletes and manage diseases such as epilepsy, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis and cancer.

Ketogenic diet aids weight loss, diabetes, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and starves cancerCancer researcher Dr. Dominic D'Agostino

The ketogenic diet has a variety of health benefits that extend far beyond its popular application as a weight loss tool, cancer scientist Dr. Dominic D'Agostino said on a podcast with Nourish Balance Thrive.

For the past four years, D'Agostino's lab has researched the use of the ketogenic diet to prevent epileptic seizures and "starve" cancer. He found the low carb, high-fat diet can protect brain health for epilepsy patients and for people who experience traumatic brain injury, such as football players who suffer concussions.

"The ketogenic diet seems to work for a variety of different seizure types, so I like to say it's neuroprotective," said Dr. D'Agostino, an assistant professor at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine in the department of molecular pharmacology and physiology. "Its neuroprotective properties are linked to its ability to supply ketones as a form of energy to the brain."

Cancer researcher Dr. Dominic D'Agostino

© Unknown

Ketogenic diet aids weight loss, diabetes, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and starves cancer

Since 2007, D'Agostino has worked with the Office of Naval Research to assist the Navy SEALs by developing ketogenic diet strategies to protect them from the undersea environment. He told me in an exclusive interview the ketogenic diet prevented Navy SEALs from getting seizures during rigorous underwater training exercises.

The ketogenic diet has also been shown to prevent and even reverse multiple sclerosis. Dr. Terry Wahls, a professor at the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, reversed her multiple sclerosis by following a ketogenic-style Paleo diet.

Wahls, a physician who was diagnosed with MS in 2000, has managed her multiple sclerosis for the past seven years with her own personalized ketogenic-style Paleo diet, which she detailed in her bestseller, .

Dr. Wahls said her MS improved dramatically - without drugs - after she switched to a ketogenic-style Paleo diet. "The results stunned my physician, my family and me," she said. "Within a year, I was able to walk through the hospital without a cane and even complete an 18-mile bicycle tour."

Wahls' dramatic story inspired Chad Vaccarino of the duo to treat his multiple sclerosis with a similar low carb, high-fat Paleo diet. These results aren't surprising to Dr. Eric Westman, co-author of , who said the ketogenic diet has proven health benefits.

The low carb ketogenic and Paleo diets have become mainstream after celebrities such as LeBron James (who lost 25 pounds in 67 days) touted the weight loss benefits of their low-carb diets, but D'Agostino's research suggests the ketogenic diet can also starve cancer. This is because cancer cells thrive on sugar and cannot survive on ketones.

"When we restrict carbs in our diet, we can prevent pro-inflammatory spikes in blood glucose and blood insulin," D'Agostino told me in an exclusive interview. "Suppression of blood glucose and insulin spikes can be very helpful when managing many chronic diseases."

According to Dr. D'Agostino, we are only as healthy as our mitochondria, which are the power sources of all our cells, so if we keep our mitochondria healthy, we can stall the onset of cancer and other age-related chronic diseases, such as Alzheimer's and heart disease.

An effective way to inhibit the growth of cancer cells is to follow a ketogenic diet, he said. "Most cancer scientists have historically thought cancer was a genetic disease, but only five to 10 percent of cancer is hereditary," said D'Agostino, who has a Ph.D. in physiology and neuroscience.

D'Agostino's research showed ketogenic diet therapy prolongs survival in mice with aggressive metastatic cancer. These same anti-cancer properties have also been observed in human cancer patients and reported in published studies.

D'Agostino's colleague, Dr. Thomas Seyfried of Boston College, told me in an exclusive interview the ketogenic diet can replace chemotherapy and radiation for many cancers. Seyfried's decades of research indicate that cancer is a metabolic - not a genetic - disease. And the best way to treat a metabolic disorder is through diet, not by pumping a patient full of toxic radiation, he said.

The problem with the traditional treatment of cancer, said Seyfried, is that the cancer community has approached it as a genetic disease, so much of the research efforts have gone into gene-focused studies, which he says does not address the root of the problem.

Dr. Seyfried, widely considered the godfather of the nutritional treatment of cancer, joins a growing number of researchers who say the ketogenic diet can treat many forms of cancer.

This is because nearly all the healthy cells in our body have the metabolic flexibility to use fat, glucose and ketones to survive, but cancer cells lack this metabolic flexibility and require large amounts of glucose and cannot survive on ketones. So by limiting carbohydrates (as the keto diet does) we can reduce glucose and insulin, and thus restrict the primary fuel for cancer cell growth.

While this idea may sound new, scientists have been aware of this for the past 80 years. This phenomenon was first observed in the 1920s by German physiologist Otto Warburg, who won a Nobel Prize in 1931 for discovering that cancer cells have defective mitochondria and thrive on sugar.

The "Warburg effect" can be exploited by the ketogenic diet, but so far this approach has not been used to fight cancer. However, the tide may soon be turning. Today, there are about a dozen studies that are investigating the use of the ketogenic diet to manage all kinds of cancer.

Dr. Seyfried says the time has come for the medical community to publicly acknowledge the viability of the ketogenic diet as an inexpensive, non-toxic way to treat cancer. "The standard of care has been an abysmal failure for cancer," said Seyfried. "The ketogenic diet may one day replace the standard of care for most cancers."

The $70 Trillion Problem Keeping Jamie Dimon Up At Night

Yesterday, in a periodic repeat of what he says every 6 or so months, Jamie Dimon - devoid of other things to worry about - warned once again about the dangers hidden within the shadow banking system (the last time he warned about the exact same thing was in April of this year). The throat cancer patient and JPM CEO was speaking at the Institute of International Finance membership meeting in Washington, D.C., and delivered a mostly upbeat message: in fact when he said that the industry was "very close to resolving too big to fail" we couldn't help but wonder if JPM would spin off Chase or Bear Stearns first. However, when he was asked what keeps him up at night, he said non-bank lending poses a danger "because no one is paying attention to it." He said the system is "huge" and "growing."

Dimon is right that the problem is huge and growing: according to the IMF which just two days earlier released an exhaustive report on the topic, shadow banking (which does not include the $600 trillion in notional mostly interest rate swap derivatives) amounts to over $70 trillion globally.

What he is very much wrong about is that nobody is paying attention to shadow banking: Zero Hedge has been covering the topic since early 2009.

Which is why we urge anyone who is curious to catch up on the issues surrounding non-bank lending, to read our 1,000+ articles on the topic.

However, for those who are time-strapped, here is a recent take from Bloomberg summarizing the IMF's 192-page report on Shadow Banking released last wee titled "Risk Taking, Liquidity, and Shadow Banking."

In a summary of the report, the IMF estimated the shadow banking industry at $15 trillion to $25 trillion in the U.S.; $13.5 trillion to $22.5 trillion in the euro area; $2.5 trillion to $6 trillion in Japan; and about $7 trillion in emerging markets.

Not included in the summary were estimates of the size of shadow banking in countries including the U.K., and Gelos said later at a press conference said the industry globally exceeds $70 trillion, citing figures from the Financial Stability Board.

One can see why Dimon is concerned.

“Shadow banking can play a beneficial role as a complement to traditional banking by expanding access to credit or by supporting market liquidity, maturity transformation and risk sharing,” the IMF said in the report. “It often, however, comes with bank-like risks, as seen during the 2007-08 global financial crisis.”

The report urges policy makers to address shadow banks with “a more encompassing approach to regulation and supervision that focuses both on activities and on entities and places greater emphasis on systemic risk.”

“Shadow banking tends to take off when strict banking regulations are in place, which leads to circumvention of regulations,” Gaston Gelos, chief of the IMF’s global financial analysis division, said in a statement accompanying portions released today of its Global Financial Stability Report. The full report is scheduled to be released Oct. 8.

Non-traditional lending “also grows when real interest rates and yield spreads are low and investors are searching for higher returns, and when there is a large institutional demand for ‘safe assets’” such as insurance companies and pension funds, he said.

Shadow banks include money-market mutual funds, hedge funds, finance companies and broker-dealers. They pose a risk to the broader financial system because they rely on short-term funding, “which can lead to forced asset sales and downward price spirals when investors want their money back at short notice.”

Below are the main findings reported by the IMF regardign shadow banking. Note: those following our periodic updates on the state of the US and global shadow banking system know all of this.

Although shadow banking takes different forms around the world, the drivers of shadow banking growth are fundamentally very similar: shadow banking tends to flourish when tight bank regulations combine with ample liquidity and when it serves to facilitate the development of the rest of the financial system. The current financial environment in advanced economies remains conducive to further growth in shadow banking activities.

Most broad estimates point to a recent pickup in shadow banking activity in the euro area, the United States, and the United Kingdom, while narrower estimates point to stagnation. Whereas activities such as securitization have seen a decline, traditionally less risky entities such as investment funds have been expanding strongly.

In emerging market economies, shadow banking continues to grow strongly, outstripping banking sector growth. To some extent, this is a natural byproduct of the deepening of financial markets, with a concomitant rise in pension, sovereign wealth, and insurance funds.

So far, the (imperfectly) measurable contribution of shadow banking to systemic risk in the financial system is substantial in the United States but remains modest in the United Kingdom and the euro area. In the United States, the risk contributions of shadow banking activities have been rising, but remain slightly below precrisis levels. Our evidence also suggests the presence of significant cross-border effects of shadow banking in advanced economies. In emerging market economies, the growth of shadow banking in China stands out.

In general, however, assessing risks associated with recent developments in shadow banking remains difficult, largely because of a lack of detailed data. It is not clear whether the shift of some activities (such as lending to firms) from traditional banking to the nonbank sector will lead to a rise or reduction in overall systemic risk. There are, however, indications that, as a result, market and liquidity risks have risen in advanced economies.

Overall, the continued expansion of finance outside the regulatory perimeter calls for a more encompassing approach to regulation and supervision that combines a focus on both activities and entities and places greater emphasis on systemic risk and improved transparency. A number of regulatory reforms currently under development try to address some of these concerns. This chapter advocates a macroprudential approach and lays out a concrete framework for collaboration and task sharing among microprudential, macroprudential, and business conduct regulators

The main risks surrounding shadow banking per the IMF:

Run risk: Since shadow banks perform credit intermediation, they are subject to a number of bank-like sources of risk, including run risk, stemming from credit exposures on the asset side combined with high leverage on the liability side, and liquidity and maturity mismatches between assets and liabilities. However, these risks are usually greater at shadow banks because they have no formal official sector liquidity backstops and are not subject to bank-like prudential standards and supervision (see Adrian 2014 for a review).

Agency problems: The separation of financial intermediation activities across multiple institutions in the more complex shadow banking systems tends to aggravate underlying agency problems (Adrian, Ashcraft, and Cetorelli 2013).

Opacity and complexity: These constitute vulnerabilities, since during periods of stress, investors tend to retrench and flee to quality and transparency (Caballero and Simsek 2009).

Leverage and procyclicality: When asset prices are buoyant and margins on secured financing are low, shadow banking facilitates high leverage. In periods of stress, the value of collateral securities falls and margins increase, leading potentially to abrupt deleveraging and margin spirals (FSB 2013b; Brunnermeier and Pedersen 2009).

Spillovers: Stress in the shadow banking system may be transmitted to the rest of the financial system through ownership linkages, a flight to quality, and fire sales in the event of runs (see Box 2.1 and the section “Systemic Risk and Distress Dependence”). In good times, shadow banks also may contribute substantially to asset price bubbles because, as less regulated entities, they are more able to engage in highly leveraged or otherwise risky financial activities (Pozsar and others 2013).

And for the visual learners, here is the chart breakdown:

Much more in the usual place

CERN People: The Everyday Humans That Smash Particles and Capture Antimatter

The European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, can seem like a sort of mythic place. This is where antimatter is created and captured, where the most elusive particles known to humans are produced from colliding beams of protons moving at just a hair under the speed of light, and it's where the internet as we know it was born. Also: the Higgs boson.

CERN is also full of people, with some 2,500 regular staff members and a rotating cast of visiting fellows now numbering upwards of 12,000, representing 608 universities and research facilities from 113 different countries.

A recently-released series of short films, called CERN People, aims to give the lab a human face, showing what it's like to be a physicist at the leading edge of high-energy research at one of the most expensive science projects in human history. Much of the series, directed and shot by American filmmaker Liz Mermin, hinges around the discovery of the Higgs boson, and all the stresses and anxieties that came with it.

There are 23 videos in the series, with some of those consisting of multiple parts. They're all pretty short; at two or three minutes long they're more what you'd consider vignettes. I haven't watched the whole series yet, but this is a favorite so far:

People kept complaining this restaurant sucked, look what they found out...

LAURA KNIGHT-JADCZYK AND JOE QUINN

Since the 9/11 attacks, no book has provided a satisfactory answer as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately responsible for carrying them out - .

BUY IT NOW!

ANDREW M. LOBACZEWSKI

Scientists living under an oppressive regime decide to clinically study the founders and supporters of evil regimes to determine what common factor is at play in the rise and propagation of man's inhumanity to man.

GET A COPY!

At the moment, the Ebola virus is ravaging three countries - Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone - where it is doubling every few weeks, but singular cases and clusters of them are cropping up in dense population centers across the world. An entirely separate Ebola outbreak in the Congo appears to be contained, but illustrates an important point: even if the current outbreak (to which some are already referring as a pandemic) is brought under control, continuing deforestation and natural habitat destruction in the areas where the fruit bats that carry the virus live make future outbreaks quite likely.

Ebola's mortality rate can be as high as 70%, but seems closer to 50% for the current major outbreak. This is significantly worse than the Bubonic plague, which killed off a third of Europe's population. Previous Ebola outbreaks occurred in rural, isolated locales, where they quickly burned themselves out by infecting everyone within a certain radius, then running out of new victims. But the current outbreak has spread to large population centers with highly mobile populations, and the chances of such a spontaneous end to this outbreak seem to be pretty much nil.

Ebola has an incubation period of some three weeks during which patients remain asymptomatic and, specialists assure us, noninfectious. However, it is known that some patients remain asymptomatic throughout, in spite of having a strong inflammatory response, and can infect others. Nevertheless, we are told that those who do not present symptoms of Ebola - such as high fever, nausea, fatigue, bloody stool, bloody vomit, nose bleeds and other signs of hemorrhage - cannot infect others. We are also told that Ebola can only be spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected individual, but it is known that among pigs and monkeys Ebola can be spread through the air, and the possibility of catching it via a cough, a sneeze, a handrail or a toilet seat is impossible to discount entirely. It is notable that many of the medical staff who became infected did so in spite of wearing protective gear - face masks, gloves, goggles and body suits. In short, nothing will guarantee your survival short of donning a space suit or relocating to a space station.

There is a test that shows whether someone is infected with Ebola, but it is known to produce false negatives. Other methods do even worse. Current effort at "enhanced screening," recently introduced at a handful of international airports, where passengers arriving from the affected countries are now being checked for fever, fatigue and nausea, are unlikely to stop infected, and infectious, individuals. They are akin to other "security theater" methods that are currently in vogue, such as making passengers take off their shoes and testing breast milk for its potential as an explosive. The fact that the thermometers, which agents point at people's heads, are made to look like guns is a nice little touch; whoever came up with that idea deserves Homeland Security's highest decoration - to be shaped like a bomb and worn rectally.

It is unclear what technique or combination of techniques could guarantee that Ebola would not spread. Even a month-long group quarantine for all travelers from all of the affected countries may provide the virus with a transmission path via asymptomatic, undiagnosed individuals. And even a quarantine that would amount to solitary confinement (which would be both impractical and illegal) would simply put evolutionary pressure on this fast-mutating virus to adapt and incubate longer than the period of the quarantine.

Treatment of Ebola victims amounts to hydration and palliative care. Transfusions of blood donated by a survivor seem to be the only effective therapy available. An experimental drug called ZMapp has been demonstrated to stop Ebola in non-human primates, but its effectiveness in humans is now known to be less than 100%. It is an experimental drug, made in small batches by infecting young tobacco plants with an eyedropper. Even if its production is scaled up, it will be too little and too late to have any measurable effect on the current epidemic. Likewise, experimental Ebola vaccines have been demonstrated to be effective in animal trials, and one has been shown to be safe in humans, but the process of demonstrating it effectiveness in humans and then producing it in sufficient quantities may take longer than it would for the virus to spread around the world.

The scenario in which Ebola engulfs the globe is not yet guaranteed, but neither can it be dismissed as some sort of apocalyptic fantasy: the chances of it happening are by no means zero. And if Ebola is not stopped, it has the potential to reduce the human population of the earth from over 7 billion to around 3.5 billion in a relatively short period of time. Note that even a population collapse of this magnitude is still well short of causing human extinction: after all, about half the victims fully recover and become immune to the virus. But supposing that Ebola does run its course, what sort of world will it leave in its wake? More importantly, now is a really good time to start thinking of ways in which people can adapt to the reality of a global Ebola pandemic, to avoid a wide variety of worst-case outcomes. After all, compared to some other doomsday scenarios, such as runaway climate change or global nuclear annihilation, a population collapse can look positively benign, and, given the completely unsustainable impact humans are currently having on the environment, may perhaps even come to be regarded as beneficial.

I understand that such thinking is anathema to those who feel that every problem must have a solution - or it's not worth discussing. I certainly don't want to discourage those who are trying to stop Ebola, or to delay its spread until a vaccine becomes available, and would even help them if I could. I am not suicidal, and I don't look forward to the death of roughly half the people I know. But I happen to disagree that thinking about what such an outcome, and perhaps even preparing for it in some ways, is necessarily a bad idea. Unless, of course, it produces a panic. So, if you are prone to panic, perhaps you shouldn't be reading this.

And so, for the benefit of those who are not particularly panic-prone, I am going to trot out my old technique of examining collapse as consisting of five distinct stages: financial, commercial, political, social and cultural, and briefly discuss the various ramifications of a swift 50% global population collapse when viewed through that prism. If you want to know all about the five stages, my book is widely available.

Financial collapse

Our current set of financial arrangements, involving very large levels of debt leading to artificially high valuations placed on stocks, commodities, real estate, and Ph.D's in economics, is underpinned by a key assumption: that the global economy is going to continue to grow. Yes, global growth started stumbling around the turn of the century, stopped for a while during the financial collapse of 2008, and has since then remained anemic, with even the most tentative signs of recovery having much to do with unlimited money-printing by the world's central banks, but the economics Ph.D's remain ever so hopeful that growth will resume. Nevertheless, this much is clear: halving the number of workers and consumers would not be conducive to boosting economic growth.

Quite the opposite: it would mean that most debt will have to be written off. Likewise, the valuations of companies that would supply half the demand with half the workers would be unlikely to go up. Nor would the houses, half of which would stand vacant and dilapidated, increase in value. If the supply of oil suddenly outstrips demand by 50%, then this would cause the price of oil to drop to a point where it no longer covers the cost of producing it, and oil producers will be forced to shut down. This would not be a happy event for those countries that are heavily dependent on energy exports in order to afford imports of food to feed their populations. Nor would such developments spell a happy end for those countries that need to continuously roll over trillions of dollars of short-term debt in order to continue feeding their populations via government hand-outs (the United States comes to mind).

"But what about wealth preservation?!" I hear some of my readers screaming in anguish? "How do I hedge my portfolio against a sudden 50% global population drop?" Well, that's easy: you need to be short all paper. Short it all: currency, stocks, bonds, debt instruments, deeds on urban real estate. Get out of most commodities: energy, obviously, but also precious metals, because you can't eat gold. Go long people (who will be in ever-shorter supply) and arable land (because people have to eat) and stockpile everything else that they will need to learn to feed themselves. If they are sufficiently grateful for all you help, they will feed you too. Alternatively, you can just sit on your paper wealth as it dwindles to nothing, and wait for the torches and the pitchforks to come out. Since wealthy people squander a disproportionate amount of wealth on themselves and their families, killing them off is a good wealth preservation strategy - for the rest of us, so feel free to do your part.

Commercial collapse

It would be a challenge to keep global supply chains in operation while commodity prices plummet in value, credit becomes unavailable, and other knock-on effects of financial collapse make themselves felt. Since a lot of production depends on overseas suppliers, it would shut down shortly after international credit becomes unavailable. Countries that have food security, strong central control, many state-owned companies and long-term barter agreements with other countries (Russia and China come to mind) may find it possible to switch their economies into the old command and control mode, so that the few products that are key for keeping the survivors alive remain available.

It should be expected that certain forms of production - those particularly capital intensive - would disappear entirely. Examples might include integrated circuit manufacturing, pharmaceutical industry, offshore oil drilling, satellite technology and so on. Certain long-lasting forms of technology, such as manual printing presses, manual typewriters and solar panel-powered shortwave radios, would remain in use, treasured and passed along as technological heirlooms.

For many operations, different staffing arrangements would need to be put in place. For instance, ships would need to double their crews, in expectation that at least half the crew might drop dead during any given trip. This would not be as problematic as it sounds: during the age of discovery it was not unusual for half the crew to be lost during a voyage from causes ranging from blunt trauma to scurvy. The shift to double-staffing would be particularly important for operations that affect public safety in a major way, nuclear power plants in particular.

Political collapse

A 50% reduction in global population would no doubt accelerate the already speedy process by which nation-states fail and turn into ungovernable regions. Not a year goes by without one or two more countries joining their ranks: Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine... Several African countries may join this list before the year is out.

Especially at risk are those countries that would be unable to continue feeding their populations once oil prices plummet. Saudi Arabia, for instance, would be quickly wiped out as a country once the vast welfare state supported by the House of Saud ceases to function. As soon as that happens, Saudi Arabia would become a particularly soft target for the Islamic Caliphate, with very interesting consequences for the entire region.

There is one effect that would be common to all countries, or at least to those who have not yet undergone political collapse: since the population would become much younger, gerontocracy would become a thing of the past. The swift die-off would cause life expectancies to plummet, but we should expect the effect to be much more pronounced at the higher end of the spectrum. In many of the prosperous, developed countries in particular, there is currently a very large bulge near the geriatric end of the age spectrum. In these countries, people have been living longer and longer thanks to aggressive medical interventions: cancer surgeries, drug regimens and a variety of therapies. Many of these people are living longer but in increasingly poor health, and we should expect Ebola to carry them off in disproportionately large numbers. Organizations such as the US senate, with an average age over 60, would be expected to lose much more than half of their members - to most Americans' inordinate glee, if public survey numbers are to be believed.

For those countries that manage to remain stable, the disproportionately heavy die-off among the aged may pave the way to large-scale economic and political reforms. Older people tend to vote more than the young, and they tend to vote for the preservation of the status quo rather than for change. This pattern is particularly clear in some countries, such as the US, where older people vote to maintain the privileges that had accrued to them during prosperous times, thereby depriving their children and grandchildren of a viable future. The demographic projection where soon there will be just two working-age people supporting each retiree would be invalidated. Other types of rapid positive change may occur; for instance, many academic disciplines, in which nothing can change until the old guard dies, may begin to see rapid progress.

Social collapse

There would likely to be a wide spectrum of outcomes. Those communities that are ethnically homogenous, well-defended, strongly bound together by conservative and uniform social and religious traditions, with a history of favoring self-sufficiency and perseverance, would be likely to survive and recover. On the other hand, those communities that are ethnically diverse with a history of bigotry, racism and ethnic strife, with weak, optional, or nonexistent standards of public morality, which are integrated into the global economy in non-optional ways, and which are unaccustomed to hardship, are likely to perish.

Cultural collapse

The cultures most favored to survive would be those that can be preserved autonomously at a small scale. Particularly favored to survive would be those that have a strong oral tradition, teach their own children within families rather than submitting them to government-run schools, and insist on internal systems of jurisprudence and governance in defiance of any external interference. It is hard to imagine that the Roma of the Balkans or the Pashtuns of Waziristan would fail to pass on their culture just because half of them suddenly die. Such circumstances may sound dire to most of us, but to these long-suffering tribes it's a sunny day in the park and a boat-ride on the pond, and they would be sure to add a few epic poems about it to their repertoire once it's over.

At the other extreme are those cultures that depend entirely on book-learning, and have a writing system sufficiently abstruse to require many years of schooling just to achieve a basic level of literacy (English, Chinese). Education relies on transmitting information from those who are older to those who are younger, and as the die-off compresses the age spectrum toward its younger end, the number of teachers will dwindle. Coupled with other inevitable disruptions, formal schooling may become impossible in many areas, resulting, a generation or so later, in very low levels of literacy. Severed from its main mechanism for acquiring knowledge, the culture of the people in such areas would disintegrate. At the very far end of the spectrum are found roving bands of feral children, speaking a language that no adult is able to understand. It is at this point that we are able to conclude that cultural collapse has run its course.

Mitigation strategies

I have already mentioned that it may be a good idea to make arrangements through which survivors would be able to feed themselves, and provide them with the few other necessities for survival.

Beyond that, there are the basic mechanics of handling the pandemic. The current strategy treats it as a medical problem, best handled by doctors and nurses working in hospitals and clinics. This strategy only works for as long as the epidemic can be said to be under control; once it can be said to be out of control, the surviving doctors and nurses (medics are usually the first to be exposed - and to die) would be well advised to specifically refuse to handle Ebola patients.

In absence of any curative or preventive therapies, Ebola patients need shelter, hydration, hygiene, palliative care and, if and when they die, sanitary disposal of the remains. The goal is to do what is possible to give patients a chance to recover more or less on their own. To this end, it is very important to do all the things necessary to make sure that people are dying just from Ebola, and not from exposure, dehydration, or from any of the opportunistic diseases that thrive in disrupted circumstances, such as cholera and typhus. Sanitation is the most important aspect of the entire operation.

These services need not be provided by trained medics. The main two requirements for such service are: 1.psychological immunity to scenes of horrific suffering and death; and 2. immunity to Ebola. The first of these requirements comes down to natural talent; some have it, some don't. The second requirement is being provided free of charge by the Ebola virus itself, in cooperation with the survivors' immune systems.

English lacks a good word to describe this type of specialist, but we don't have to reach far to find one: the Russian word for it is "sanitar." A popular Russian saying goes "wolves are sanitars of the forest" because they take care of disposing of the sick, the weak and the lame, thus giving those that survive a better chance. A sanitar need not be medically trained, but some training is needed: in diagnosis, palliative care, sanitation procedures and corpse disposal.

A third requirement is one that applies to the sanitation service as a whole: the number of sanitars has to scale with the rate of infection. Since the number of those infected is increasing exponentially, the number of sanitars assigned to serve them has to be able to increase exponentially as well. It seems outlandish to think that sufficient numbers of people will spontaneously volunteer for the job, and this means that they have to be press-ganged into service. And a super-obvious way to do just that is to simply never discharge Ebola survivors: once you are in, you are in until the pandemic is over, or until you die, whichever comes first. If you recover, you are given a bit of training, and then you go to work.

If you don't like the mitigation strategy I am proposing, please feel free to propose your own. Keep in mind, however, that what you propose has to automatically scale with the increase in the rate of infection, which is exponential. Sure, you can propose setting a public health budget, but then it has to double every couple of weeks - and keep doubling until the number of patients is in the billions.

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While vaccine makers and drug companies are rushing to bring medical interventions to the market that might address the Ebola pandemic, there's already a technology available right now that can kill Ebola in just two minutes in hospitals, quarantine centers, commercial offices and even public schools.

It's called the Xenex Germ-Zapping Robot, and it was invented by a team of Texas doctors whose company is based on San Antonio. (And no, I didn't get paid to write this. I'm covering this because this technology appears to be a viable lifesaving invention.)

The Xenex Germ-Zapping Robot uses pulsed xenon-generated UV light to achieve what the company calls "the advanced environmental cleaning of healthcare facilities." Because ultraviolet light destroys the integrity of the RNA that viruses are made of, it renders viruses "dead." (Viruses aren't really alive in the first place, technically speaking, so the correct term is "nonviable.")

Ebola, just like most other viruses, are quickly destroyed by UV light. That's why Ebola likes to spread in dark places where sunlight doesn't reach. (Think of Ebola as a "vampire" virus that feeds off human blood but shuns sunlight...) The Xenex robot destroys Ebola on surfaces in just two minutes, zapping them with a specific wavelength of UV light at concentrations that are 25,000 times higher than natural sunlight.

Kill Ebola with electricity and UV light; no toxic chemicals needed

The reason I'm covering this medical technology is because I'm seriously impressed with the concept and the green technology behind it. The Xenex unit generates UV light using xenon -- one of the noble gases -- rather than toxic mercury. So there's no toxic mercury to deal with, even when disposing of the equipment after its useful life.

So many of the approaches to disinfection in hospitals today are based on harsh, toxic chemicals that pose a secondary risk to the health of hospital patients and staff. But UV light emitted by the Xenex robot leaves no chemical residue whatsoever and requires no chemical manufacturing plant to manufacture. This is truly "light medicine" because it disinfects using specific frequencies of light.

Studies touted by the manufacturer appear to show extraordinary disinfection results spanning both bacterial superbugs and viral strains:

- 57% reduction in MRSA at Moses Cone

- 53% reduction in C.diff infections at Cooley Dickenson

- 50% reduction in bacterial contamination at Cambridge Health Alliance

- 30% reduction in C.diff at the MD Anderson Cancer Center

- 62% reduction in microbial load at the St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center

Already in 250 hospitals and growing...

The Xenex UV robot is already being used in about 250 hospitals. That number is likely to increase dramatically due to the current global Ebola outbreak.

The base price of the Xenex unit is around $100,000, and the unit pays for itself very quickly by preventing expensive infections. It can disinfect a typical hospital room in about 10 minutes, and it comes with organization and scheduling software that allows hospital staff to keep track of which rooms have been treated.

Learn more at www.Xenex.com

Ultraviolet light robot kills Ebola in two minutes

While vaccine makers and drug companies are rushing to bring medical interventions to the market that might address the Ebola pandemic, there’s already a technology available right now that can kill Ebola in just two minutes in hospitals, quarantine centers, commercial offices and even public schools.

It’s called the Xenex Germ-Zapping Robot, and it was invented by a team of Texas doctors whose company is based on San Antonio. (And no, I didn’t get paid to write this. I’m covering this because this technology appears to be a viable lifesaving invention.)

The Xenex Germ-Zapping Robot uses pulsed xenon-generated UV light to achieve what the company calls “the advanced environmental cleaning of healthcare facilities.” Because ultraviolet light destroys the integrity of the RNA that viruses are made of, it renders viruses “dead.” (Viruses aren’t really alive in the first place, technically speaking, so the correct term is “nonviable.”)

Ebola, just like most other viruses, are quickly destroyed by UV light. That’s why Ebola likes to spread in dark places where sunlight doesn’t reach. (Think of Ebola as a “vampire” virus that feeds off human blood but shuns sunlight…) The Xenex robot destroys Ebola on surfaces in just two minutes, zapping them with a specific wavelength of UV light at concentrations that are 25,000 times higher than natural sunlight.

Kill Ebola with electricity and UV light; no toxic chemicals needed

The reason I’m covering this medical technology is because I’m seriously impressed with the concept and the green technology behind it. The Xenex unit generates UV light using xenon — one of the noble gases — rather than toxic mercury. So there’s no toxic mercury to deal with, even when disposing of the equipment after its useful life.

So many of the approaches to disinfection in hospitals today are based on harsh, toxic chemicals that pose a secondary risk to the health of hospital patients and staff. But UV light emitted by the Xenex robot leaves no chemical residue whatsoever and requires no chemical manufacturing plant to manufacture. This is truly “light medicine” because it disinfects using specific frequencies of light.

Studies touted by the manufacturer appear to show extraordinary disinfection results spanning both bacterial superbugs and viral strains:

- 57% reduction in MRSA at Moses Cone

- 53% reduction in C.diff infections at Cooley Dickenson

- 50% reduction in bacterial contamination at Cambridge Health Alliance

- 30% reduction in C.diff at the MD Anderson Cancer Center

- 62% reduction in microbial load at the St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center

Already in 250 hospitals and growing…

The Xenex UV robot is already being used in about 250 hospitals. That number is likely to increase dramatically due to the current global Ebola outbreak.

Learn more at www.Xenex.com

The world stock markets' big see saw zig zags over the last few days seems to be a harbinger of more to come. Christine Lagarde has warned of a fresh pan-European recession and just this once she may actually have a point.

Not that the old continent ever left the 'old' crisis, but since so much time and money was inserted into the recovery hologram, and we're in a generous mood, let's pretend and play along: it's a new recession! That or a triple dip. The terminology is not the main point here; it's going to be too nasty to occupy ourselves with semantics.

As I was writing about the shame of putting millions of young Europeans into the dark hole of long-term unemployment yesterday in The Disgrace of Sacrificing a Generation, Europe's leaders met to discuss that very theme. Only, they didn't.

They went on and on again about wanting the freedom to spend more, either through support from Mario Draghi bond purchases or by simply violating EU budget limits. EU PM Renzi called those limits outdated: it's new world out there!

What they did say about the jobs issue was that more money was not needed, since there's an existing $82 billion fund for youth jobs, of which only 12% has been used ... That crazy detail tells us two things: Brussels and the European capitals don't care about their children, as the entire situation also makes clear enough.

It also tells us that they have no idea what to do. But that should never be an excuse. Go figure it out. Want to be a leader? That comes with responsibilities. Having 50% youth unemployment in Spain and Greece should have gotten you guys fired. Some things are simply not acceptable.

But of course all those young people can count on from now on is that they will be even more abandoned. Because the crisis is back. And Germany doesn't think the party with the biggest debt wins the contest. So southern Europe will drop further into the hole. Until someone steps off the train and decides to have a go at it alone.

And if the next move down is not enough to make that happen then maybe they all deserve each other. Still, looking at Europe now, it should be crystal clear to everyone what a failure the EU has become.

Which is one of the reasons our dear Ambrose had me laugh again today. When Evans-Pritchard starts drawing conclusions from what he hears and reads, strange things happen. This time Germany has drawn his ire. Next week it'll be someone else.

Ambrose thinks it's a crime not to bury a country in debt, if you have the opportunity. And he thinks the Germans are a bunch of criminals for not allowing the entire continent to bury its head in the quicksand either.

The words he uses are great: 'household fallacy', 'fiscal fetishism', 'the false god of fiscal balance', 'the corrosive psychology of ageing', 'lumpen-proletariat', 'contractionary vortex'.

German Model Is Ruinous For Germany, And Deadly For Europe

The Kaiser Wilhelm Canal in Kiel is crumbling. Last year, the authorities had to close the 60-mile shortcut from the Baltic to the North Sea for two weeks, something that had never happened through two world wars. The locks had failed. [..]It has been a running saga of problems, the result of slashing investment to the bone, and cutting maintenance funds in 2012 from €60m (£47m) a year to €11m.

This is an odd way to treat the busiest waterway in the world, letting through 35,000 ships a year, so vital to the Port of Hamburg. It is odder still given that the German state can borrow funds for five years at an interest rate of 0.15%.

There you go. That's what ultra-low rates do to people. It doesn't just make them get into debt, it makes them believe it's crazy not to.

Yet such is the economic policy of Germany, worshiping the false of god of fiscal balance. The Bundestag is waking up to the economic folly of this. It has approved €260m of funding to refurbish the canal over the next five years. Yet experts say it needs €1bn, one of countless projects crying out for money across the derelict infrastructure of a nation that has forgotten how to invest, sleepwalking into decline.

That is, a nation that has forgotten how to invest ... with borrowed money.

France may look like the sick of man of Europe, but Germany's woes run deeper, rooted in mercantilist dogma, the glorification of saving for its own sake, and the corrosive psychology of ageing.

"Germany considers itself the model for the world, but pride comes before the fall," says Olaf Gersemann, Die Welt's economics chief, in a new book, . Mr Gersemann says the Second Wirtschaftswunder - or economic miracle - from 2005 onwards has "gone to Germany's head".[..]

Marcel Fratzscher, head of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW), makes a parallel critique (more Keynesian in flavour) in his new book, , no translation needed. It is a broadside against the fiscal fetishism of finance minister Wolfgang Schauble, now written into the constitution as a balanced budget law from 2016 onwards...

Balanced budgets are just so 20th century. It's a new world out there. Ask the Italian PM. Ask Krugman. Ask Ambrose.

It is the self-deception of a country "resting on its laurels", prisoner of the "household fallacy" that economies are like family budgets, and falsely reassured by the misplaced flattery of foreigners who rarely look under the bonnet at the German engine below.

The German economy has already stalled. [..] Prof Fratzscher accuses Germany's elites of losing the plot in every important respect. Investment has fallen from 23% to 17% of GDP since the early 1990s. Net public investment has been negative for 12 years. Growth has averaged 1.1% since the beginning of the decade, placing Germany 13th out of 18 in the eurozone (or 156th out of 166 countries worldwide over the past 20 years).

I like that last bit, but I don't believe it for a second. Besides, I don't get how a 1.1% growth level since the beginning of the decade - which is 4 years - places you anywhere over the past 20 years. Sounds like apples and passion fruit to me.

Data from the OECD show that German productivity growth slumped to 0.3% a year in the period from 2007 to 2012, compared with 0.5% in Denmark, 0.7% in Austria, 0.9% in Japan, 1.3% in Australia, 1.5% in the US and 3.2% in Korea. Britain has been negative, of course, but that is no benchmark.

Prof Fratzscher says the chief effect was to let companies compress wages through labour arbitrage. Real pay has fallen back to the levels of the late 1990s. The legacy of Hartz IV is a lumpen-proletariat of 7.4m people on "mini-jobs", part-time work that is tax-free up to €450.

That's not great, but just about all countries hide a lot of unemployment that way. Nothing specifically German about it.

A fifth of German children are raised in poverty.

That's horrible, but again there's nothing specifically German about it. France, UK, US, you name them, the numbers will be similar.

Capital flows within EMU have been a form of vendor financing for buyers of German exports, but it should be obvious that such a structure must reach breaking point - for Germany as well as EMU - if France and Italy buckle to demands and follow Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland into wage deflation.

There's no such thing as 'wage deflation', but it's clear that wages in France and Italy will come under increased pressure (in Germany too). And it's clear that Germany has used the EU as its own backyard market. And the structure will indeed break.

Europe is already sliding slowly into a contractionary vortex, replicating the errors of the Gold Standard in the 1930s. Doubling down would be calamitous. Germany must move with great care. As Mr Gersemann argues in his book, it is enjoying the last days of a particularly powerful demographic dividend, soon to reverse with a vengeance.

The European Commission's Ageing Report (2012) said Germany's workforce will shrink by 200,000 a year this decade. The old age dependency ratio will jump from 31% in 2010, to 36% in 2020, 41% in 2025, 48% in 2030 and 57% in 2045, tantamount to national suicide.

Once more, nothing specifically German about it. Try Japan, China, most of northwest Europe, Italy. Whether every ageing society, every country with falling population numbers, is committing suicide, I don't know. They will change, and hugely, that's for sure.

This is a grave failure of public policy over decades. Tax policies and social structures have encouraged the collapse of the fertility rate. Lack of investment has compounded the error.

Wow, Ambrose. Really? Decades of tax policies have made people have less children? You just figured out what has puzzled scientists for all these years! You mean that if the Germans and Japanese and Chinese and Italians had only borrowed more money, and invested it in crumbling canals, we could have had 8 billion people on the planet instead of the measly 7 billion we have now? And our workforces wouldn't have shrunk, and we could have filled all the jobs we don't have?

Within five years it will surely become obvious to everybody that Germany is in deep trouble, and a balanced budget will not prove any defence.

The whole rich world in is deep trouble, not just Germany. You know why? Because they're drowning in debt. And you know who seem to be about the only people left who understand that? The Germans. A balanced budget won't check all problems at the door, but it's a lot better than having debt of 200% or 400% of your - rapidly shrinking - GDP. Which is what many nations face.

Within 10 years, France will be the dominant power of continental Europe.

And pigs will fly to Mars. And Marine Le Pen will be crowned Empress. And proudly parade all those fair-skinned but not blond babies down the Champs d'Élysées.

What all these countries will need to figure out is what to do when their economies have stopped growing. When they are shrinking instead. What to do with the huge debtloads piled up on top of them when everyone was still trying to borrow their way into growth. And how to divide what remains in such a way that they can keep themselves from blowing up in unrest and fighting and revolutions.

You really think Germany will do all that bad under those conditions? Worse than all the others?

Ultraviolet light robot kills Ebola in two minutes; why doesn’t every hospital have one of these?

Kill Ebola with electricity and UV light; no toxic chemicals needed

So many of the approaches to disinfection in hospitals today are based on harsh, toxic chemicals that pose a secondary risk to the health of hospital patients and staff. But UV light emitted by the Xenex robot leaves no chemical residue whatsoever and requires no chemical manufacturing plant to manufacture. This is truly “light medicine” because it disinfects using specific frequencies of light.

Studies touted by the manufacturer appear to show extraordinary disinfection results spanning both bacterial superbugs and viral strains:

- 57% reduction in MRSA at Moses Cone

- 53% reduction in C.diff infections at Cooley Dickenson

- 50% reduction in bacterial contamination at Cambridge Health Alliance

- 30% reduction in C.diff at the MD Anderson Cancer Center

- 62% reduction in microbial load at the St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center

Already in 250 hospitals and growing…

The Xenex UV robot is already being used in about 250 hospitals. That number is likely to increase dramatically due to the current global Ebola outbreak.

Learn more at www.Xenex.com

A person in Quebec with symptoms of the Ebola virus is being treated in a hospital in Abitibi-Témiscamingue. According to the regional health and social services agency, the patient was recently in contact with people who may have been exposed to Ebola. "I have to highlight that our suspicion is very weak," said Dr. Éric Lampron-Goulet, a regional public health official. "We did a test out of precaution." Lampron-Goulet said the patient has a fever and that, combined with having contact with West African travelers, is sufficient to merit tests. He said the patient has been isolated while the tests are underway. Tests have been sent to the public health laboratory in Quebec and results are expected within 24 to 36 hours. He also said Quebec's health system is prepared for Ebola is following the procedure for treating suspicious cases. - CBC

Brazil:

Fears are growing that the deadly Ebola virus has hit a new continent as a missionary in Brazil undergoes tests for the infection. If the Brazilian case is confirmed, it would mean the disease has spread to South America for the first time. The suspected patient is a 47-year-old man from Guinea, one of the African countries that have been ravaged by the disease. He has been described in local media as a missionary and he was taken in an air force plane from the southern state of Parana to the National Infectious Disease Institute in Rio de Janeiro on Friday morning. It came after he arrived at a health centre in the town of Cascavel with a fever the previous afternoon. The health ministry said today that the patient was 'in good shape' and his slight fever had now subsided. Minister Arthur Chioro noted that the patient had been in Brazil for the maximum incubation period for the Ebola virus of 21 days. The result of a test for the virus should be available by early Saturday, he said. - Mail

Czechoslovakia:

Czech Republic registers its first case of suspected Ebola, who returned from Liberia 22 days ago, Czech chief sanitary officer Vladimir Valenta said Thursday. The man, 56, has fever but no other Ebola symptoms, and was in isolation at Prague's Na Bulovce hospital, Xinhua quoted Valenta as saying. (Read: Ebola facts - frequently asked questions (FAQ))'As the only symptom has been fever so far, we hope that it might be another disease, for instance, malaria,' he said, adding that all people whom the patient has met since his return are being checked. Hospital sources said the results of tests conducted are expected Friday. - Health Site

France:

A French woman has been hospitalized with Ebola-like symptoms, which she was suspected of contracting while in Liberia. The patient was being confined in an isolation ward at Bichat Hospital in Paris, Xinhua cited news channel BFMTV as saying Friday. A building at Cergy-Pontoise in Paris northern suburbs was sealed off Thursday evening after two men of African origin had developed Ebola symptoms, including fever, muscle pain, vomiting and bleeding. However, the two men tested negative. On Sep 19, a French nurse working with Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) returned home after being infected with Ebola virus during a mission in Liberia. The nurse, the first Ebola case reported in France, left hospital last weekend. She was hospitalized in Begin Military Hospital near Paris where she received "experimental treatment." Since March the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 3,865 people and infected more than 7,400 others, according to the latest report of the World Health Organization (WHO). - Business Standard

Canada advises citizens to leave Ebola-hit countries:

The Canadian government advised its citizens to leave the West African countries hardest hit by Ebola, while taking measures at its own borders to screen for potentially exposed travelers. "We are asking Canadians living in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia to consider leaving by commercial means while they are still available," Health Minister Rona Ambrose said on Friday. The minister also said that anyone traveling to Canada from the countries affected by the epidemic will be screened at airports. Ambrose stressed that "the risk to Canadians here at home is very low," but said, as a precaution, quarantine officers will check those who may have been exposed to the hemorrhagic virus for fever and "determine whether additional public health measures are required." The West African Ebola outbreak erupted at the beginning of the year, killing nearly 4,000 people so far - roughly half of those infected. This week saw the first Ebola death in the United States, while a nurse in Spain is fighting for her life after being infected while treating an Ebola patient who died. The disease causes fever, diarrhea, vomiting and in some cases internal and external bleeding. It is spread by contact and the exchange of bodily fluids. - Yahoo News

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Ultraviolet light robot kills Ebola in two minutes

Kill Ebola with electricity and UV light; no toxic chemicals needed

Already in 250 hospitals and growing…

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Ultraviolet light robot kills Ebola in two minutes; why doesn’t every hospital have one of these?

Kill Ebola with electricity and UV light; no toxic chemicals needed

Already in 250 hospitals and growing…

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