Recap for the last week THE REAL PANDEMIC

This doesn't include the 100+ individual cases during this time

Child trafficking: 92 minor victims identified across Europe

Officers arrested 33 traffickers and identified 45 suspects of human trafficking during Europe-wide joint action days

https://www.europol.europa.eu/newsroom/news/child-trafficking-92-minor-victims-identified-across-europe

Phoenix-area law enforcement arrest 40 men after undercover child sex-trafficking operation

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-breaking/2021/07/13/39-men-arrested-after-undercover-phoenix-child-sex-trafficking-operation/7959810002/

38 arrested in human trafficking operation, 100 victims identified

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/38-arrested-human-trafficking-operation-21077477

18 arrested in Tennessee undercover child sex trafficking investigation

https://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/tennessee-undercover-child-sex-trafficking-investigation

8 arrested after human trafficking operation in Mississippi

https://www.wjtv.com/news/state/8-arrested-after-human-trafficking-operation-in-mississippi/

31 People Arrested in Statewide ‘Operation 24/7' Sex Offender Sting: NJ AG

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/31-people-arrested-in-statewide-operation-24-7-sex-offender-sting-nj-ag/3154684/

6 men, including 2 oil pipeline workers, arrested in northern Minnesota sex trafficking sting

https://www.twincities.com/2021/06/28/6-men-including-2-oil-pipeline-workers-arrested-in-northern-minnesota-sex-trafficking-sting/

Arrest of 72 people involved in human trafficking

https://libnanews.com/en/arrest-of-72-people-implicated-in-human-trafficking/

6 Transgender Persons Accused Of Castrating Boys, Trafficking In Assam

https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/6-transgenders-accused-of-castrating-boys-running-human-racket-in-assam-2485936?pfrom=home-ndtv_indiatrending

Anti-Human Trafficking Unit of Rachakonda Police Rescued 20 Child

https://www.latestly.com/socially/india/news/telangana-anti-human-trafficking-unit-of-rachakonda-police-rescued-20-child-latest-tweet-by-ani-2638313.html

Establishment-Backed GOP House Candidate Jen Kiggans Caught Plagiarizing Her Democrat Incumbent – Report

A researcher found just a one in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance that Kiggans hadn't lifted language from Luria

An establishment-backed GOP candidate for Congress in Virginia’s 2nd District, Jen Kiggans, was reportedly caught plagiarizing Democrat incumbent Elaine Luria, who she hopes to face off against in the November 2022 mid-term election, lifting phrases from a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Luria, and using them herself in a fundraising email sent to supporters.

According to the devastating report from The Daily Beast, Kiggans’ used the fundraising email to paint herself as the right choice to take on threats from an aggressive China, with the GOP primary race candidate sometimes parroting Luria’s just four-day-old op-ed “down to the very word.”

“Kiggans, a Virginia state senator, makes the same overall argument—many of them in strikingly similar language to Luria’s. She claims this stance sets her apart from elected Democrats who ‘don’t seem to share that perspective,’ while ignoring that Luria does, in fact, share that perspective. Sometimes down to the very word.”

In what the report calls the “most egregious example of potential plagiarism,” Kiggans reportedly used a phrase so uncommon, that when Google searched, it can only be traced back to Luria’s Wall Street Journal op-ed. When analyzed at Stanford University’s Literary Lab, a researcher found just a one in 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance that both candidates would have used the term on their own.

“…in the most egregious example of potential plagiarism, where the op-ed says, ‘China has an extensive ground-based conventional missile force,’ the Kiggans fundraising email states, ‘they have built extensive ground-based conventional missile forces.’That phrase is not a military term of art or commonly used expression. A closed-quote Google search for ‘extensive ground-based conventional missile force’ only returned one hit: Luria’s op-ed.”

When reached for comment by National File, Kiggans’ 2022 Republican Primary race opponent, Jarome Bell blasted her, highlighting her ties to the Republican establishment and labeling her campaign a knock-off of both Democrat Luria and her GOP establishment-backed predecessor, ex-Congressman Scott Taylor.

“Nothing about Kiggans is original,” Bell told National File. “She says she’s using Scott Taylor’s playbook, she has the same PACS as the establishment RINOs, and now she’s even using Democrat talking points on China. Why would any constituent want to be represented by a person without their own mind?”

In 2020, despite being embroiled in an election fraud scandal that saw staffers from his 2018 campaign face criminal charges, Taylor again sought office and again lost to Luria. Along the way, he came out in support of mail-in balloting and, after National File’s reporting on the matter, later denied he had ever done so.

“Kiggans indicated that she planned to go after Luria with the same playbook used by Luria’s 2020 challenger, former Congressman Scott Taylor,” reported The Washington Post in announcing Kiggans’ run, with the Taylor playbook consisting of trying to out-centrist the competition as opposed to embracing the America First platform championed by President Donald Trump and supported by the conservative base of the Republican Party.

https://nationalfile.com/establishment-backed-gop-house-candidate-jen-kiggans-caught-plagiarizing-her-democrat-incumbent-report/

Hospitals Charging Absurd 'Trauma' Fees To Treat Minor Injuries

Hospitals across the country have been charging ridiculous 'trauma alert' fees for patients requiring minimal treatment.

The fees, which can be upwards of $50,000 per patient, are billed when a hospital's top surgical specialists are summoned - typically for the most severely injured patients.

One such case, found within court filings from a 2017 trial, revealed that a 30-year-old man who arrived at a Modesto, California hospital for shoulder and back pain following a car accident was billed $44,914 by Sutter Health Memorial Medical Center, which included a $8,928 "trauma alert" fee. The man went home in less than three hours, according to CNN.

"Some hospitals are using it as a revenue generator," said registered nurse and medical claims consultant, Tami Rockholt, who appeared as an expert witness in the Sutter Health trial.

"It's being taken advantage of," she continued, adding that such cases are "way more numerous" in recent years. "If someone is not going to bleed out, or their heart is not going to stop, or they're not going to quit breathing in the next 30 minutes, they probably do not need a trauma team."

Tens of thousands of times a year, hospitals charge enormously expensive trauma alert fees for injuries so minor the patient is never admitted.

In Florida alone, where the number of trauma centers has exploded, hospitals charged such fees more than 13,000 times in 2019 even though the patient went home the same day, according to a KHN analysis of state data provided by Etienne Pracht, an economist at the University of South Florida. Those cases accounted for more than a quarter of all the state's trauma team activations that year and were more than double the number of similar cases in 2014, according to an all-payer database of hospital claims kept by Florida's Agency for Health Care Administration. -CNN

The underlying justification for the fees is that trauma centers should be able to recoup the cost of having a crack squad of doctors and nurses assembled when an ambulance crew reports an incoming patient who needs trauma care - even if said squad never actually swings into action.

"We do see quite a bit of non-appropriate trauma charges — more than you'd see five years ago," according to Pat Palmer, co-founder of Beacon Healthcare Costs Illuminated, which analyzes thousands of bills for insurers and patients. Palmer says that recently "we saw a trauma activation fee where the patient walked into the ER" and walked out shortly thereafter.

Between 2012 and 2020, Florida trauma activation team cases without an admission rose from 22% to 27% - with one facility, Broward Health Medical Center counting 1,285 trauma activation cases with no admission - nearly the same number of patients who were admitted without a trauma fee.

https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/hospitals-charging-absurd-trauma-fees-treat-minor-injuries