Posted on 09/18/2014 6:42:07 PM PDT by bd476
CARACAS, Venezuela—President Nicolás Maduro said he ordered the prosecution of doctors who had alerted the public to the recent deaths of nine people in a public hospital from an unidentified but possibly infectious disease.
"They wanted to impose a scheme of alarm, of psychological terrorism," Mr. Maduro said Wednesday in a speech broadcast on TV. "There is no other name for this, it's terrorism."
He said he had spoken with Attorney General Luisa Ortega "so that our organs of justice work with severity, with all the firmness and severity that the law permits. You have to punish these people."
Mr. Maduro's warnings come after doctors said publicly said that they suspected a possible outbreak of Chikungunya disease, which is carried by mosquitoes from victim to victim, in the city of Maracay just west of here. Mr. Maduro's government, which has lost support amid an economic crisis and soaring crime, hasn't said what it believes caused the deaths.
From Aug. 30 until Sunday, nine people—four of them children—died at the large Central Hospital of Maracay, medical personnel in the city said. Doctors and the family of the last victim, Franklin Fossi, 41, a truck driver who died on Sunday, said he and the other victims suffered from fevers, blisters on their skin and severe joint pain.
"We don't know what we are confronting," Angel Sarmiento, the president of the Medical College of Aragua state, told reporters last week.
Dr. Sarmiento was singled out by the president for his comments about the deaths. The doctor couldn't be reached for comment.
Dr. Douglas Natera, president of Venezuela's medical federation, which represents doctors, said the opaque nature of Mr. Maduro's government and its criticism of the medical establishment is generating anxiety in Maracay, where many people have gone to neighborhood clinics complaining of symptoms...
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Isn’t it amazing that doctors can be prosecuted and jailed for talking about a threat to the country? They also have strict controls on the media, although most of the media is now state-owned too
lol
Venezuela should do what?
You realize the whole country is basically in a government-forced depression, right? It is like something out of “Atlas Shrugs”.
The idea that Ven can be proactive is fighting this is ridiculous. They think the answer to food shortages is more restrictive import laws and fingerprinting shoppers.
Ping...
Isn’t it amazing that doctors can be prosecuted and jailed for talking about a threat to the country?
0bolaCare’s dream.
Thanks for the ping!
It is unfortunate with one side mentioning a possibility of a bio-terrorist attack and the other side alleges psychological terrorism.
Yet we also have our own politically active groups of physicians who are not all conservative, and who often appear to mix politics up with medical "findings" and at curious times.
You’re Welcome, Alamo-Girl!
Mosquitoes are a scourge. Here in Texas, we worry about getting West Nile. Now we have to worry about Chikingunya? Ugh.
I went to South Dakota several years ago to see Mt. Rushmore. We watched the fireworks on July 4th at Rushmore, which was awesome! Anyway ... back to mosquitoes. The mosquitoes in Texas are so small and fast. It’s difficult to catch or smack ‘em. When I was in SD, I noticed that the mosquitoes are big and slow. It almost seems like they’re in a drunken stupor. You can snatch ‘em right out of the air! True story.
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
Sadly, by the time a vaccine could be developed, it would not be of much help in this current Venezuelan outbreak A rapid, aggressive increase of local vector control might be the best hope for the nearly 29,000,000 people living in Venezuela.
The physical laws of this world has taught me that for every action there is a reaction. Insects' resistance to insecticides accompanies both the benefits and residual effects and complications from insecticide use. According to a survey from the World Health Organization, DDT is still used for vector control inside in interior spaces.
World Health Organization: Global Insecticide Use for Vector-Borne Disease Control 2002-2009
Vector control is an important element of strategies used to control major vector-borne diseases globally, and chemical control remains the most widely used approach.
In recent years, interventions using insecticides have been scaled up in many countries. The need to develop effective systems for pesticide management has been emphasized to ensure judicious use of insecticides, manage insecticide resistance, and reduce risks to human health and the environment, within the context of an integrated vector management (IVM) approach (WHO 2010a; Matthews et al. 2011; van den Berg et al. 2011; WHO 2011a).
...
2.3 Description of insecticides
Classes of insecticides
The following classes of insecticides are differentiated (WHO 2006):
• organochlorines, of which DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) is the only insecticide reportedly used in vector control;
• organophosphates, such as fenitrothion, malathion and temephos;
• carbamates, such as bendiocarb and propoxur;
• pyrethroids, such as alpha-cypermethrin, bifenthrin, cyfl uthrin, cypermethrin, cyphenothrin, deltamethrin, etofenprox, lambda-cyhalothrin and permethrin;
• insect growth regulators, such as difl ubenzuron, methoprene, novaluron and pyriproxyfen;
• bacterial larvicides, such as Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis and B. sphaericus
World Health Organization: Global Insecticide Use for Vector-Borne Disease Control 2002-2009
Well said! I agree completely. They truly are a scourge.
After I moved West I noticed a sudden decrease in mosquitoes and their bites, with the exception of an unfortunate three mile hike in the Sierra Nevadas a number of years ago. Half-way up a steep trail, I was suddenly swarmed by mosquitoes. They buzzed my face, were in my hair, on my neck, all up and down my sleeved arms, on my hands, on my jeans down to my hiking boots and I was miserable.
When we reached our higher altitude destination, despite it being July, there was still snow on the ground. I tried rolling in the snow to see if that would get them off of me. Oddly enough they stayed on me until we were half-way down the same trail and suddenly they flew off. It was the weirdest thing. They had swarmed me and left at approximately the same altitude and location. After returning from that venture I spent the next three days in bed with a fierce headache and nausea which I think was caused by the mosquito bites.
They have mosquito control programs here and despite many protests, they regularly spray to prevent West Nile virus.
Thanks for pinging your list. :)
"Bring up and quarter their dead in the elementary schools
of all our 57 states. Tuberculosis, swine flu, whooping cough,
measles, scabies, chicken pox, Ebola and Enterovirus D68
were just not enough."
Misleading headline. He didn’t call the outbreak of the disease “terrorism,” but used that word to describe the doctors’ warning about it.
That’s socialism for you. The truth is terrorism.
The Tiger Mosquito entered the US through Houston’s Ports in 1985 and has spread throughout the South. This mosquito is unique because it feeds on anything which is a dangerous vector for viruses that can infect more than one species of animal. Unchecked immigration has consequences.
Chikungunya disease? Man, if that is one tenth as bad as it sounds I want to go out and play in traffic before it has a chance to get me. Don’t mess with those people, they’ll just Chikungunya down.
Oh god no, not the Eastasia virus, please!
To anybody who's read The Gulag Archipelago, this has a certain ring to it.
Maduro is worse than Chavez in that while Chavez was a “gorilla” in the truest sense, he was politically adroit at imposing communism on Venezuela.
Maduro is a “super-gorilla” who rules by brute force. I think he is going to end up like Ceaucescu, Gaddafi and Saddam - shot, knifed, and hung, or all three at one time, hopefully.
Next: the mini-me Morales in Bolivia. Body to be thrown into a tin mine and never found. THUNK!
This jerk is trying HARD to outdo his late boyfriend, Chavez. Venezuela needs a Pinochet.There is no other name for this, it
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.