2020-03-21: News Headlines

Steve Topple (2020-03-21). The BBC's latest coronavirus article is full-on Tory propaganda. thecanary.co The BBC has published a shocking article on coronavirus. And it's essentially as well-timed piece of propaganda for the Tory government. But what's more, the BBC has changed the article since it was first released. Not that we should be surprised by any of this.The BBC: did it really just say that?: In the

thelancet (2020-03-21). [Department of Error] Department of Error. thelancet.com Hoffman MK, Goudar SS, Kodkany BS, et al. Low-dose aspirin for the prevention of preterm delivery in nulliparous women with a singleton pregnancy (ASPIRIN): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Lancet 2020; 395: 285—93—In the appendix to this Article, Umesh S Charantimath, MS Ganachari, Narayan V Honnungar, Avinash Kavi, Yogesh Kumar Shashikanth, Sunil S Vernekar, Ashalata A Mallapur, and Umesh Y Ramadurg should have been included in the ASPIRIN Study Group. This correction has been made to the online appendix as of March 19, 2020.

Edward Curtin (2020-03-21). The Coronavirus Is Not the Plague: The Plague Is US. dissidentvoice.org Two categories of propaganda must be distinguished. The first strives to create a permanent disposition in its objects and constantly needs to be reinforced. Its goal is to make the masses 'available,' by working spells upon them and exercising a kind of fascination. The second category involves the creation of a sort of temporary impulsiveness …

teleSUR (2020-03-21). China Approves Human Trials of Covid-19 Vaccine. telesurenglish.net China's Defense Minister announced that Chinese scientists developed a Covid-19 vaccine that has already been tested on a group of infected monkeys, which responded effectively and were immune. | RELATED: | "The quality of the vaccine will be controlled during the production process. We are ready to start formal clinical trials at any time," Chen Wei, a Military Academy of Medical Sciences researcher, who is recognized worldwide for her st…

Andrew Korybko (2020-03-20). Iran's IMF Request Shows Just How Desperate Tehran has Become. globalresearch.ca The combination of crippling American sanctions, the compliance with the aforesaid by the US' "comprehensive global strategic partner" India (formerly one of Tehran's top energy partners) out of fear of so-called "secondary sanctions", the uncontrollable outbreak of COVID-19 in the …

Edward Curtin (2020-03-20). The Coronavirus Is Not "The Plague": It Is the U.S. globalresearch.ca "Two categories of propaganda must be distinguished. The first strives to create a permanent disposition in its objects and constantly needs to be reinforced. Its goal is to make the masses 'available,' by working spells upon them and exercising a …

Alan Macleod (2020-03-18). China's Damning US Human Rights Report May Be Propaganda, but It's Not Wrong. mintpressnews.com China just released a 13,000-word report on the state of human rights in the United States. While the report clearly has an agenda, it's not inaccurate.

Alan Macleod (2020-03-18). Big Tech Firms are Using Automation to Censor News About the Coronavirus. mintpressnews.com Social media is awash with people angry that their posts have been removed for no legitimate reason. MintPress was no exception, with a story about Cuba's response to the coronavirus flagged and blocked.

Lucas Koerner (2020-03-15). Corporate Media Condone Destruction of Venezuela's Voting Machines. fair.org The vast majority of Venezuela's voting machines were incinerated on March 7 in a fire that engulfed the main warehouse of the National Electoral Council. Corporate outlets followed the familiar script of blaming the victim, repeating the US State Department talking point that the Venezuelan electoral system is "rigged" and floating outlandish conspiracy theories.

Joel Hellewell, Sam Abbott, Amy Gimma, Nikos I Bosse, Christopher I Jarvis, Timothy W Russell, James D Munday, Adam J Kucharski, W John Edmunds, Centre for the Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases COVID-19 Working Group, Sebastian Funk, Rosalind M Eggo (2020-02-28). [Articles] Feasibility of controlling COVID-19 outbreaks by isolation of cases and contacts. thelancet.com In most scenarios, highly effective contact tracing and case isolation is enough to control a new outbreak of COVID-19 within 3 months. The probability of control decreases with long delays from symptom onset to isolation, fewer cases ascertained by contact tracing, and increasing transmission before symptoms. This model can be modified to reflect updated transmission characteristics and more specific definitions of outbreak control to assess the potential success of local response efforts.

CounterSpin (2020-02-21). Paul Paz y Miño, Saqib Bhatti & Beverly Bell on Environmental Justice & Cross-National Solidarity. fair.org There will only be an increasing number of frontline struggles between extractive, climate-disrupting industry and those willing to stand up to it. Corporate media's inadequate attention, and unwillingness to truly call out the moneyed interests causing present and future harms, make them more often part of the problem than the solution.

Jinnong Zhang, Luqian Zhou, Yuqiong Yang, Wei Peng, Wenjing Wang, Xuelin Chen (2020-02-13). [Correspondence] Therapeutic and triage strategies for 2019 novel coronavirus disease in fever clinics. thelancet.com In December, 2019, numerous unexplained pneumonia cases occurred in Wuhan, China. This outbreak was confirmed to be caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), belonging to the same family of viruses responsible for severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).1 The SARS epidemic in 2003 was controlled through numerous measures in China. One effective strategy was the establishment of fever clinics for triaging patients. Based on our first-hand experience in dealing with the present outbreak in Wuhan, we have established the following clinical s…

Kiran Reddy, Cecilia O'Kane, Daniel McAuley (2020-02-07). [Comment] Corticosteroids in acute respiratory distress syndrome: a step forward, but more evidence is needed. thelancet.com Debate continues about the potential role of corticosteroids as therapy for acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).1—3 In The Lancet Respiratory Medicine, Jesús Villar and colleagues4 report the results from a multicentre, open-label, randomised controlled trial investigating prolonged dexamethasone treatment in patients with established moderate-to-severe ARDS, which adds important new data to this debate. In this study, patients in the dexamethasone group had reduced duration of ventilation and mortality compared with those in the control group;4 the primary outcome, ventilator-free days at 28 days, w…

Ole Haagen Nielsen, Casper Steenholdt, Carsten Bogh Juhl, Gerhard Rogler (2020-02-03). Efficacy and safety of methotrexate in the management of inflammatory bowel disease: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials. thelancet.com Current data support the efficacy of parenteral MTX monotherapy for maintenance of clinical remission in CD. MTX is not confirmed to be effective for treatment of UC or for induction of remission in CD. No evidence supports concomitant MTX to improve efficacy of IFX (no other biologics investigated).

Lorenzo Ball, Pedro L Silva, Patricia R M Rocco, Paolo Pelosi (2020-01-13). [Comment] A critical approach to personalised medicine in ARDS. thelancet.com Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is characterised by different pathogenetic pathways leading to similar clinical presentations. The mechanisms leading to ARDS are now better understood than ever; nevertheless, mortality remains high, probably due to biological heterogeneity, which hinders identification of an effective therapy.1 Therefore, recent studies have focused on identifying specific ARDS phenotypes in an attempt to improve diagnosis, optimise therapeutic interventions, and allow better selection of patients for future randomised controlled trials.

Pratik Sinha, Kevin L Delucchi, Daniel F McAuley, Cecilia M O'Kane, Michael A Matthay, Carolyn S Calfee (2020-01-13). [Articles] Development and validation of parsimonious algorithms to classify acute respiratory distress syndrome phenotypes: a secondary analysis of randomised controlled trials. thelancet.com ARDS phenotypes can be accurately identified with parsimonious classifier models using three or four variables. Pending the development of real-time testing for key biomarkers and prospective validation, these models could facilitate identification of ARDS phenotypes to enable their application in clinical trials and practice.

Jan J De Waele, Dylan W de Lange (2019-12-17). [Spotlight] Organising international research in critical care medicine: current challenges and potential solutions. thelancet.com During the first years of intensive care medicine, many of its treatments were introduced because they were thought to be beneficial to patients, despite there being a lack of evidence from high-quality research to support these premises. However, in the last 20 years intensive care medicine research has picked up the pace and countless randomised controlled trials have been performed, supplying clinical care with the much needed scientific foundation, discarding obsolete treatments, and saving lives.