CDC Warns of New Outbreak of Polio-Like Illness in Children Later This Year in US

The United States has issued an alert to parents and healthcare providers for an expected outbreak of the polio-like disease acute flaccid myelitis in the next four months, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a release on Tuesday.

“Parents and doctors should suspect AFM [the polio-like disease acute flaccid myelitis] in patients with sudden limb weakness, especially during August through November. Recent respiratory illness or fever and the presence of neck or back pain or any neurologic symptom should heighten their concern”, the release said, repeating a warning in the agency’s latest 'Vital Signs' reports.

AFM is a medical emergency and patients should seek immediate medical care, even in areas with high novel coronavirus incidence. Because of physical distancing measures to fight the coronavirus disease, this year's outbreak could be delayed beyond August and in a best-case scenario, AFM cases could be fewer than expected, the release said.

The neurological disease that causes paralysis has surfaced every two years since 2014, with the largest outbreak in 2018 sickening 238 people in 42 states, nearly 95 percent of them children, the release added.

“Pediatricians and frontline providers in emergency departments and urgent care centres should be prepared to quickly recognize symptoms of AFM and immediately hospitalize patients. Timing is critical at each step - prompt AFM recognition leads to optimal medical management”, the release went on to say.

While there is no cure or treatment for the disease, early diagnosis increases the effectiveness of measures to treat symptoms, including physical therapy to help victims regain the use of paralyzed arms and legs, according to the CDC.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202008041080060905-cdc-warns-of-new-outbreak-of-polio-like-illness-in-children-later-this-year-in-us/

They can't themselves

Beirut Blast Shockwaves Will Be Felt by Hezbollah for a Long Time

Massive damage could reopen public debate on storing weapons in population centers as port shutdown comes at a time when Lebanon needs every dollar

Cellphone videos of horrifying scenes from Tuesday’s explosion at the port of Beirut predictably fueled speculation about who was behind the incident and why.

Initially, the story was that a warehouse containing several tonnes of fireworks slated for use in festivities had blown up. Then official military sources said the warehouse housed flammable or explosive material, further specifying that it was ammonium nitrate, which was stored in a warehouse for six years.

But even as the Lebanese authorities were feverishly investigating, some of the public were quick to suggest that this wasn’t the result of an accident or negligence, but a terror attack reminiscent of the bombings that rocked Lebanon in the 1980s, or the huge bombing that killed Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 as he traveled in a guarded convoy. The implication was that it was a bombing perpetrated by Lebanese actors.

Fingers were also pointed at Israel, accompanied by the explanation that the bombing at the port was part of Israel’s campaign against Iran. Lebanese pundits cited the fire that erupted on Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr a few weeks ago, an incident attributed to Israel, as well as other recent fires in Iran.

https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/.premium-beirut-blast-shockwaves-will-be-felt-by-hezbollah-for-a-long-time-1.9047044

The Samson Option: Israel's nuclear arsenal and U.S. foreign policy

Seymour Hersh, the reporter who in 1969 first revealed the horror of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam - and won a Pulitzer Prize for his work - is one of North America's finest investigative journalists. In books and in articles, mainly for the New York Times, he has probed such issues as the United States bombing of Cambodia, domestic spying by the Central Intelligence Agency, the excesses of Panama's Manuel Noriega, the power of Henry Kissinger, and the U.S. cover-up in the shooting down of a Korean airliner in Soviet airspace.

In his new book, The Samson Option, Hersh brings the same investigative skills, eye for intrigue, and meticulous footnoting to the story of Israel's emergence as a nuclear power.

The book has already gained a measure of notoriety as a result of the sudden and mysterious death of Robert Maxwell, the British newspaper magnate, while cruising in his luxurious yacht off the Canary Islands.

At the time of his death, Maxwell was suing Hersh over suggestions in the book that Maxwell was acting as an agent, official or otherwise, of the Israeli government or its intelligence service in 1986 when he ordered his London Sunday Mirror to discredit an expose of Israel's nuclear program that was about to be published in a rival paper, the Sunday Times.

The disinformation campaign that Maxwell orchestrated was effective. Other news organizations ignored the Sunday Times exclusive. A few days before publication, the paper's informant, an Israeli defector named Mordecai Vanunu, was lured out of Britain by a female agent of the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. She took him to Rome where he was drugged, transported by ship to Israel, put on trial and sentenced to 18 years in jail.

The Maxwell affair is just one small episode in a fascinating, and well balanced, study of scientific determination, duplicity and international intrigue.

For 40 years, Israeli leaders lied to the world about their country's determination to build nuclear weapons. They lied to their own people about the scientific and financial resources ($ 500 million a year by the mid-1960s) they were pouring into their nuclear processing facilities at Dimona in the Negev desert.

https://www.sott.net/article/135819-Book-review-The-Samson-Option-Israels-nuclear-arsenal-and-US-foreign-policy

Full text of "The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal & American Foreign Policy"

https://archive.org/stream/Sampson_Option/Sampson_Option_djvu.txt