Shalom, we celebrated the feast of dedication with the children at Elroi Children Home 🏡. It was a blessing to be able to Donate, Dance and Play Games with the Children. We fed the Children Spaghetti 🍝😋 and brocoli 🥦, it was amazing. All praises to TheMostHigh Ahayah. AHAYAH WILLING, we are looking forward to celebrating another feast day with another children home 🏡
Shalam, We are travelling to Orphanages in Kenya and we are celebrating Holy Biblical Feast days with them. We are spending time with the children and raising donations to donate to these children homes 🏡. In addition we are having a Feast at Elroi Children Home on December 5th Most High Ahayah Willing! If you would like to donate or participate and help out at the Event, just Email us and PayPal us at Godfamilynation@keemail.me
Orphanage Name: Elroi Hope Center
Location: Komarock Sector One Rd, Nairobi
Please see below a list of things you can donate to the orphanage.
1) Clothes
2) Shoes
3) Blankets
4) Food stuff
— Maize n all purpose flour
— Cereal foods ; beans, lentils, maize, rice etc
— Cooking oil
— Salt and sugar
5) Toiletries
— Sanitary pads
— Soap; powder and bar soaps
— Toilet paper
— Oral hygiene items
— Body lotions
6) School material
— Pens, pencils and erasers
— Writing material
— Novels and storybooks
Anybody thats not in Africa and will like to donate to our orphanage ministry For Egypt 🇪🇬 and Kenya 🇰🇪 . Just Kindly donate to our PayPal account godfamilynation@keemail.me or
message me to see about shipping items to Africa.
All praises to The Most High AHAYAH, he provided an Donor to donate Beds, Desk and tables.
AHAYAH allowed us to put together an event for Sky Light Center children Home Last month and that same day he provided a donor for them. All praises to The Most High AHAYAH!
Send donations towards the orphanage ministry @paypal godfamilynation@keemail.me email me about shipping items over to Kenya.
(Kenya) 8th day for The Feast of Tabernacles
GOD Family Nation extends it’s ministry throughout the world with our main focus for outreach being located in Kenya and Egypt. Last week we observed The Feast of Tabernacles and our Kenya team carried out an amazing work at a local orphanage, assisted by minster Palal and our brothers and sisters in Kenya. “We got them breakfast and cook them lunch. Lamb stew and rice and cabbage” wrote Ahch Palal.
Palal also added “We were able to feed all 50+ children and some adults yesterday for the 8th day of feast of #tabernacles”
Send donations towards the orphanage ministry @paypal godfamilynation@keemail.me email me about shipping items over to Kenya.
BY THE DAILY EXPOSE ON • ( 50 COMMENTS )1x-33:47
In March 2020 the British people were told that they must “stay at home” in order to “protect the NHS” and “save lives”. They were also told that the authorities needed just “three weeks to flatten the curve”.
Why were the British people instructed to stay at home? Because of the threat of a new and emerging virus which we’re told originated in the city of Wuhan, China. A virus which has claimed the lives of 128,000 to date in the United Kingdom, or so we’re told.
But what if we could prove to you that you’ve given up fifteen months and counting of your life due to a lie? But not just any lie, a lie that has involved prematurely ending the lives of thousands upon thousands of people, who you were told died of Covid-19. A lie that has involved committing one of the greatest crimes against humanity in living memory. A lie that has required three things – fear, your compliance, and a drug known as Midazolam…
Authorities state that Covid-19 is an infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus dubbed SARS-CoV-2. The World Health Organisation (WHO) tell us that “most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment”. However they state that “older people, and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness”.
We’re told that serious illness in Covid-19 presents pneumonia and accompanying respiratory insufficiency. Therefore typical symptoms include breathlessness, cough, weakness and fever. We’re also told that people who suffer deteriorating respiratory failure and who do not receive intensive care, develop acute respiratory distress syndrome with severe breathlessness.
Pneumonia is an inflammation of one or both lungs, usually caused by an infection. It causes the alveoli (air sacs) inside the lungs to fill with fluid, making it harder for them to work properly. The body sends white blood cells to fight the infection, and while this helps kill the germs it can also make it harder for the lungs to pass oxygen into the bloodstream.
Pneumonia is not a new condition that has appeared due to Covid-19. In 2019 alone, the year prior to the alleged emergence of Covid-19, 272,000 people were admitted to hospital with pneumonia. According to the British Lung Foundation in 2012, 345 people per every 100,000 had one or more episodes of pneumonia. This equates to around 225,000 people suffering pneumoni at least once.
The British Lung Foundation also show us that the majority of cases of pneumonia occur in those who are aged 81 and over. For instance in 2012 1,838 people in every 100,000 people over the age of 81 developed pneumonia, this equates to around 60,000 people over the age of 81 in today’s numbers based on there being around 3.2 million people over the age of 80 in the UK.
They also tell us that In 2012 there were 28,592 deaths from pneumonia, which equates to 5.1% of all deaths that occurred that year.
So as you can see deaths due to pneumonia have not just suddenly started to happen because of the alleged emergence of a new disease called Covid-19, we’ve been living with them all of our lives, they just haven’t been thrust in front of you 24/7 on the television, or the front page of every newspaper like they have with alleged Covid-19 deaths.
But for us to prove to you that you given up fifteen months of your life due to a lie that involved prematurely ending the lives of thousands upon thousands of people we first need you to understand which age group has been most affected by Covid-19 according to official statistics.
The above graph is a heat map showing deaths within 28 days of a positive test for SARS-CoV-2 by date of death and age of the person. This data can be seen at the UK Gov’s. coronavirus dashboard here. Whats pretty clear from this data is that the most alleged Covid deaths have occurred in people aged 90+. The next age group with the most deaths being 85 – 89, then 80 – 84 and so on and so on. There’s a general decrease in the number of deaths up to about the 65-69 age group but then we see a dramatic fall to pretty much zero in anyone aged under about the age of 60.
This heat map shows that there have generally been no more than 9 deaths in a single day of anyone aged between 60 – 64. In the 65-69 year old group there have been no more than 20 deaths a day. In the 70-74 year old group no more than 27 deaths in a day. In the 75-79 group no more than than 48 deaths in a day, at it’s highest. It isn’t until we get to the 85-89 year old group that we start to see a large increase in the number of alleged Covid deaths. 179 deaths in a day at its highest. Then we have the 90+ age group which has seen no more than 379 deaths in a single day at it’s highest.
So what we’re seeing here is that is a negligible amount of “Covid” deaths in anyone under the age of 60. But we’re really not seeing very many “Covid” deaths in anybody aged between 60 and 80. What we are seeing is a much higher amount of “Covid” deaths in people aged over 85. But what’s so strange about that?
Well nothing when we consider the average life expectancy in the UK is 81 years of age. Plus the fact this is also in line with what we have seen in cases / deaths due to pneumonia in previous years. Don’t forget serious illness in Covid-19 presents pneumonia and accompanying respiratory insufficiency.
Which begs the question of why the entire nation has had to stay at home, social distance, wear a mask, wash their hands, and live under dictatorial tyranny for fifteen months because people who have lived longer than the average life expectancy in the UK have died or are dying? Dying of pneumonia from which we see tens of thousands of deaths every year.
We cannot deny that 2020 did see excess deaths, and you would believe this is due to the hospitals being overwhelmed? Except they weren’t.
NHS data shows us that during the height of the “first wave” between April and June 2020 there were 58,005 beds occupied which equated to 62% occupancy. This is 30% down on the same time frame in the previous year.
It also shows us that A&E attendance during the height of the first wave was 57% down on the previous year.
Which begs the question of what exactly were we protecting the NHS from? It seems to have had a holiday.
But there were 41,627 more deaths than the five year average up to the 1st May 2020, and the vast majority of these occurred in April. An April which saw A&E attendance down 57% compared to the previous year and bed occupancy down 30% compared to the previous year. 33,408 of these excess deaths mentioned Covid-19 on the death certificate, the vast majority of which occurred in those over the age of 85.
However data taken from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows us that during April 2020 there were 26,541 deaths that occurred in care homes, an increase of 17,850 on the five-year average. This is half the amount of alleged Covid-19 deaths during the same period.
Why did so many people die in care homes when hospitals were far from overwhelmed? Surely if they have developed serious complications due to Covid-19 they would require urgent medical attention and hospital treatment?
Because don’t forget we’re told that serious illness in Covid-19 presents pneumonia and accompanying respiratory insufficiency. Therefore typical symptoms include breathlessness, cough, weakness and fever. We’re also told that people who suffer deteriorating respiratory failure and who do not receive intensive care, develop acute respiratory distress syndrome with severe breathlessness.
Why were these people in care homes and not in hospital?
They were in care homes because Matt Hancock gave the order to put them there…
On the 19th March a directive was sent out to the NHS which required them to discharge all patients who they deemed to not require a hospital bed. They declared that transfers from the ward must happen within one hour of that decision being made to a designated discharge area, and that discharge from hospital should happen within 2 hours. NHS trusts were told that “they must adhere” to the new directive.
This was done to allegedly free up beds, of which they estimated would amount to an extra 15,000 free beds within just one week of the directive being implemented.
It freed up so many beds that bed occupancy during April – June 2020 was 30% down on the previous year. Why on earth would these people already be in a hospital bed if they did not need to be? You attend hospital because you require medical treatment, not because you want a lie down and a good nights sleep.
This directive meant that people who required medical treatment and attention were discharged into Care homes in the thousands.
But Matt Hancock’s abandonment of the elderly and vulnerable didn’t end there. Whilst the NHS was busy discharging patients who required medical treatment into care homes under his directive, Matt Hancock and the Department of Health were busy trying to source them all a certain drug known as midazolam.
Midazolam is a commonly used drug in palliative care and is considered one of the four essential drugs needed for the promotion of quality care in dying patients in the United Kingdom. Think of it as diazepam on steroids.
Midazolam is also a drug that has been used in executions by lethal injection in the USA, combined with two other drugs. Midazolam acts as a sedative to make the prisoner unconscious. The other drugs then stop the lungs and heart working. However it has been the source of controversy as several prisoners took a long while to die and appeared to be in pain when midazolam was used.
Midazolam can also cause serious or life-threatening breathing problems such as shallow, slowed, or temporarily stopped breathing that may lead to permanent brain injury or death.
UK regulators state that you should only receive midazolam in a hospital or doctor’s office that has the equipment that is needed to monitor your heart and lungs and to provide life-saving medical treatment quickly if your breathing slows or stops.
A doctor or nurse should watch you closely after you receive this medication to make sure that you are breathing properly because midazolam induces significant depression of respiration. Your doctor should also be made aware if you have a severe infection or if you have or have ever had any lung, airway, or breathing problems or heart disease.
Midazolam is also used before medical procedures and surgery to cause drowsiness, relieve anxiety, and prevent any memory of the event. It is also sometimes given as part of the anesthesia during surgery to produce a loss of consciousness.
Midazolam is also used to cause a state of decreased consciousness in seriously ill people in intensive care units who are breathing with the help of a machine.
Midazolam should be used with extreme caution in patients who have chronic renal failure, impaired hepatic function, or impaired cardiac function. It should also be used with extreme caution in obese patients, or elderly patients.
What are some of the most important points you should take from this?
Serious illness in Covid-19 presents pneumonia and accompanying respiratory insufficiency. Therefore typical symptoms include breathlessness, cough, weakness and fever. We’re also told that people who suffer deteriorating respiratory failure and who do not receive intensive care, develop acute respiratory distress syndrome with severe breathlessness.
Midozalam induces significant depression of respiration.
Knowing that would you use midazolam to treat people who were suffering pneumonia and respiratory insufficiency allegedly due to Covid-19?
Well Matt Hancock and friends certainly seem to think so as you can see in the following video…https://www.youtube.com/embed/s-dqiRr-o5A?version=3&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent
The above exchange took place in a parliamentary committee meeting on the 17th April 2020 between Matt Hancock and Dr Evans, who is a fellow Conservative MP.
The following is an extract from an article which confirms the United Kingdom purchased two years worth of Midazolam in March 2020 and were looking to purchase much more –
Supplies of the sedative midazolam have been diverted from France as a “precaution” to mitigate potential shortages in the NHS caused by COVID-19, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has told The Pharmaceutical Journal.
A spokesperson from Accord Healthcare, one of five manufacturers of the drug, told The Pharmaceutical Journal that it had to gain regulatory approval to sell French-labelled supplies of midazolam injection to the NHS, after having already sold two years’ worth of stock to UK wholesalers “at the request of the NHS” in March 2020.
The DHSC said the request for extra stock was part of “national efforts to respond to the coronavirus outbreak”, which included precautions “to reduce the likelihood of future shortages”.
Why on earth would the United Kingdom need to purchase two years worth of Midazolam, a drug associated with respiratory suppression and respiratory arrest, to treat a disease that causes respiratory suppression and respiratory arrest?
This document produced by the NHS states that Midazolam should be used for comfort at end of life care due to Covid-19 to ease fear, anxiety and agitation. Source
This NHS document states that midazolam should be used for sedation prior to the patient requiring mechanical ventilation, something we know has been required in hospitals for people who have developed severe pneumonia, of which we are told is due to Covid-19. However it also states that midazolam should only be used if 1st line and 2nd line drugs do not provide adequate sedation, but does include the caveat that midazolam alone can be added to 1st line drugs to reduce Propofol infusion rates. Source
This NHS document states that midazolam should be used for sedation prior to having a operation. Source
The same document also provides confirmation that midazolam has the potential to impair the respiration system, particularly in the presence of disease or old age. It clearly states that dosage should be kept to a minimum and shoud be within the manufacturer’s guidelines.
The document also provides a helpful table confirming dosage of midazolam for the elderly or unwell should be no more than 0.5mg – 1 mg, side effects include cardiorespiratory depression and the drug should be used with caution in those suffering respiratory disease.
This article confirms that over 2 million operations were cancelled at the end of March 2020 to free up beds for at least three months for “coronavirus” patients. – Source
Can you see the contradictions here? A policy that has been in place prior to the alleged emergence of Covid-19 clearly states that midazolam can be used for sedation, however dosage should be reduced to 0.5mg in the elderly or unwell due to possible side effects which include cardiorespiratory depression, and extreme caution should be used in administering midazolam to patients suffering respiratory disease.
However a policy created for treating patients allegedly suffering anxiety due to Covid-19, which we’re told is a respiratory disease, clearly states to treat said patient with a starting dose of 2.5mg of Midazolam, or 1.25mg if the patient is “particularly frail”, but to bump this up to 5 – 10mg if the patient is “extremely distressed”. Even the starting dose for the particularly frail is 0.25mg higher than the maximum recommended to administer to the elderly or unwell in sedation guidelines.
Who is responsible for making this decision and publishing these guidelines? And why is nobody holding them to account?
Two years worth of Midazolam was purchased in March 2020, however at the same time operations were cancelled for a minimum of three months, therefore Midazolam was not required for use in sedation prior to operations. Guidelines published prior to the alleged pandemic clearly state that Midazolam should be used in extremely low doses in the elderly or unwell, and should be used with extreme caution in those suffering respiratory disease due to side effects which include respiratory depression. We’re told Covid-19 is a respiratory disease and complications present pneumonia and severe respiratory distress. Therefore considering all of this the purchase of two years worth of Midazolam seems to be an awful waste of money, doesn’t it? As there doesn’t seem to be much they could possibly use it for within the guidelines
Well we can confirm it was definitely used as we have seen the prescription data.
But we’d just like to remind you of the important warning applied to Midazolam courtesy of the US National Library of Medicine –
Midazolam injection may cause serious or life-threatening breathing problems such as shallow, slowed, or temporarily stopped breathing that may lead to permanent brain injury or death. You should only receive this medication in a hospital or doctor’s office that has the equipment that is needed to monitor your heart and lungs and to provide life-saving medical treatment quickly if your breathing slows or stops. Your doctor or nurse will watch you closely after you receive this medication to make sure that you are breathing properly.
So can Matt Hancock explain why during April 2020 out of hospital prescribing for Midazolam was twice the amount seen in 2019?
According to official data in April 2019 up to 21,977 prescriptions for Midazolam were issued, containing 171,952 items, the vast majority being Midazolam Hydrochloride. However in April 2020 45,033 prescriptions for Midazolam were issued, containing 333,229 items, the vast majority being Midazolam Hydrochloride. That is a 104.91% increase in the number of prescriptions issued for Midazolam and a 93.85% increase in the number of items they contained. But these weren’t issued in hospitals, they were issued by GP practices which can only mean one thing, they were issued for end of life care.
The above is a graph displayed on the UK Government website displaying deaths within 28 days of a positive test result for Covid-19 by date of death.
The following graph has been created using data on the amount of Midazolam solution produced each month from January 20219 through to March 2021.
Can you spot the difference? We couldn’t either because there isn’t one.
The spikes in production of Midazolam solution match the spikes of alleged Covid deaths within 28 days of a positive test.
April 2020 – huge surge in Midazolam prescriptions out of hospital and huge surge in production of Midazolam solution.
April 2020 – huge surge in alleged Covid deaths.
January 2021 – huge surge in production of Midazolam solution.
January 2021 – huge surge in alleged Covid deaths.
We’re told that serious illness in Covid-19 presents pneumonia and accompanying respiratory insufficiency. Therefore typical symptoms include breathlessness, cough, weakness and fever. We’re also told that people who suffer deteriorating respiratory failure and who do not receive intensive care, develop acute respiratory distress syndrome with severe breathlessness.
Midazolam Hydrochloride is associated with respiratory depression and respiratory arrest, especially when used for sedation in noncritical care settings. In some cases, where this was not recognized promptly and treated effectively, death or hypoxic encephalopathy has resulted. Intravenous midazolam hydrochloride should be used only in hospital or ambulatory care settings.
NHS policy prior to the emergence of Covid-19 states –
Dosage should be reduced to 0.5mg in the elderly or unwell due to possible side effects which include cardiorespiratory depression, and extreme caution should be used in administering midazolam to patients suffering respiratory disease.
NHS policy after the emergence of Covid-19, an alleged respiratory disease states –
Hospitals beds in April 2020 30% were down compared to the previous year.
A&E attendance was 57% down in April 2020 compared to the previous year.
Care home deaths were 205% up in April 2020 compared to April 2019.
The vast majority of alleged Covid deaths are people over the age of 85.
Can you not see a strong correlation here between the over prescribing of Midazolam and the seemingly premature ending of life, with the associated deaths being put down as Covid-19?
Did you really believe there’s a virus so clever that it knows to kill people who are disabled? Just look at the ONS statistics. Three in every five alleged Covid-19 deaths occurred in those who suffered learning difficulties and disabilities (see here).
In relation to deaths of people with learning difficulties the ONS said – ‘the largest effect was associated with living in a care home or other communal establishment.‘
Having a learning difficulty and being in care doesn’t mean you are more likely to die of Covid-19. What it means is that you are much more likely to have a DNR order placed on you without informing yourself or your family, which Carers / NHS staff then use as permission to put you on end of life care, which involves the administration of Midazolam.
We know this happened because an Amnesty report and CQC report said so.
The amnesty report states that –
‘Care home managers and staff and relatives of care home residents in different parts of the country told Amnesty International how, in their experience, sending residents to hospital was discouraged or outright refused by hospitals, ambulance teams, and GPs. A manager in Yorkshire said: “We were heavily discouraged from sending residents to hospital. We talked about it in meetings; we were all aware of this.”’
‘Another manager in Hampshire recalled:
There wasn’t much option to send people to hospital. We managed to send one patient to hospital because the nurse was very firm and insisted that the lady was too uncomfortable and we could not do any more to make her more comfortable but the hospital could. In hospital the lady tested COVID positive and was treated and survived and came back. She is 92 and in great shape.
She explained that:
There was a presumption that people in care homes would all die if they got COVID, which is wrong. It shows how little the government knows about the reality of care homes.‘
‘The son of one care home resident who passed away in Cumbria said that sending his father to hospital had not even been considered:
From day one, the care home was categoric it was probably COVID and he would die of it and he would not be taken to hospital. He only had a cough at that stage. He was only 76 and was in great shape physically. He loved to go out and it would not have been a problem for him to go to hospital. The care home called me and said he had symptoms, a bit of a cough and that doctor had assessed him over mobile phone and he would not be taken to hospital. Then I spoke to the GP later that day and said h would not be taken to hospital but would be given morphine if in pain. Later he collapsed on the floor in
the bathroom and the care home called the paramedic who established that he had no injury and put him back to bed and told the carers not to call them back for any Covid-related symptoms because they would not return. He died a week later.
He was never tested. No doctor ever came to the care home. The GP assessed him over the phone. In an identical situation for someone living at home instead of in a care home, the advice was “go to hospital”. The death certificate says pneumonia and COVID, but pneumonia was never mentioned to us.’
‘A care home manager in Yorkshire told Amnesty International:
In March, I tried to get [a resident] into hospital—the ambulance had employed a doctor to do triage but they said, “Well he’s end of life anyway so we’re not going to send an ambulance” … Under normal circumstances he would have gone to hospital … I think he was entitled to be admitted to hospital. These are individuals who have contributed to society all their lives and were denied the respect and dignity that you would give to a 42-year-old; they were [considered] expendable.‘
The CQC felt it necessary to issue a statement in August 2020 addressing the issue of innapropriate DNR’s being placed on care home residents without informing the resident or their family –
‘It is vitally important that older and disabled people living in care homes and in the community can access hospital care and treatment for COVID-19 and other conditions when they need it during the pandemic … Providers should always work to prevent avoidable harm or death for all those they care for. Protocols, guidelines and triage systems should be based on equality of access to care and treatment. If they are based on assumptions that some groups are less entitled to care and treatment than others, this would be discriminatory. It would also potentially breach human rights, including the
right to life, even if there were concerns that hospital or critical care capacity may be reached.’
That statement was issued because the CQC found that 34% of people working in health and social care were pressured into placing ‘do not attempt cardiopulmonary resuscitation’ (DNACPR) orders on Covid patients who suffered from disabilities and learning difficulties, without involving the patient or their families in the decision.
The evidence is all there to see in the public domain and thankfully, a team of people are gathering said evidence and analysing it, so that justice can be sought for the people that have had their lives ended prematurely via the use of inappropriate DNR orders, used as permission to start end of life treatment which included a drug called Midazolam. A drug that is associated with respiratory depression and respiratory arrest, the exact same symptoms of complications due to the alleged Covid-19 disease, especially when used for sedation in noncritical care settings.
A drug which was ordered by UK authorities in March 2020 at a quantity to cover a usual two year supply. A two year supply that seems to have been depleted by October 2020 according to NHS documents –
But once replenished the stocks were again depleted by the beginning of February 2021 according to official NHS documents –
It was decided in 2013 after a review that the ‘Liverpool Care Pathway‘ was to be abolished. The Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) was a scheme that we’re told intended to improve the quality of care in the final hours or days of a patient’s life. It’s alleged aim was to ensure a peaceful and comfortable death. The LCP was a guide to doctors, nurses and other health workers looking after someone who was dying on issues such as the appropriate time to remove tubes providing food and fluid, or when to stop medication.
The reason it was decided it should be abolished is that the review found hospital staff wrongly interpreted its guidance for care of the dying, leading to stories of patients who were drugged and deprived of fluids in their last weeks of life.
The government-commissioned review, headed by Lady Neuberger, found that poor training and a lack of compassion on the part of nursing staff was to blame. Harrowing stories from families revealed they had not been told their loved one was expected to die and, in some cases, were shouted at by nurses for attempting to give them a drink of water. Nursing staff had wrongly thought, under the LCP guidance, that giving fluids was wrong.
The review made 44 recommendations, including the phasing out of the LCP over six to twelve months as individual care plans for the dying were brought in. It stated that only senior clinicians must make the decision to give end-of-life care, along with the healthcare team, and that no decision must be taken out of hours unless there is a very good reason.
The evidence suggests that the Liverpool Care Pathway returned with a vengeance in April 2020 under the direction of the Health Secretary Matt Hancock, Government Advisors and NHS Chiefs, and it looks as if it was used to manipulate you into giving up over one year of your life under the pretence that you were staying at home, to protect the NHS and save lives. But the evidence suggests that in reality you were ordered to stay at home, to protect the NHS, so that they could prematurely end the lives of the elderly and vulnerable and tell you that they were Covid deaths.
Midazolam. It should be the word that is on everyone’s lips. We’re sure it will be now.
Former police officer Mark Sexton reports the government to police for murder and crimes against humanity over deadly vaccines and PCR tests that are deliberately contaminated with a cancer-causing agent.
You can now add the University System of Maryland to the growing list of universities that will require students to have COVID-19 vaccines this Fall. Below is a statement made on the school’s website.
Vaccine Exemption
For Fall 2021, the University System of Maryland and UMBC are requiring a COVID-19 vaccination for all students, faculty, and staff who are on a Maryland campus.
For UMBC, this includes all UMBC operated property, including but not limited to UMBC’s campus, the Columbus Center, the Lions Brothers Building, Choice satellite offices, and bwtech@UMBC North and South. This also includes UMBC students, faculty, and staff at the Universities at Shady Grove.
The University will provide medical and religious exemptions to this vaccination mandate, as provided for under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Medical Exemptions will be granted to an individual whose physician documents a diagnosis of one of the conditions the CDC considers a contraindication for the COVID-19 vaccination. Contraindications include a severe allergic reaction after a previous dose or to a component of the COVID-19 vaccine, an immediate allergic reaction of any severity to a previous dose or a known (diagnosed) allergy to any component of the vaccine. If there is difficulty or delay in obtaining written documentation because of pandemic-related circumstances, an explanation of the difficulty and authorization to speak with the healthcare provider may be provided.
Please keep in mind that the CDC recommends that individuals with most pre-existing conditions receive the vaccine to protect their health and safety. More information from the CDC is available here.
If you would like to submit a request to be granted a medical exemption, please download this form. Both you and your physician will need to complete and sign the appropriate sections. When it is complete, please upload using the button below.
UMBC is committed to building an inclusive and welcoming campus environment.
If you object to immunization because it conflicts with your sincerely held religious beliefs and practices, you may apply for a religious exemption.
Your religious exemption request should include why you are seeking a religious exemption, the religious principles that guide your objection to immunization, and to indicate whether you are opposed to all immunizations. If you are not, please provide the religious basis on which you object to COVID-19 immunization. You will have the opportunity to provide supporting materials.
If you would like to submit a request to be granted a religious exemption, please download this form. You will need to complete and sign the appropriate sections. When it is complete, please upload using the button below.
On Tuesday, the European Commission announced that the EU Digital Covid Certificate was finally live. At launch, seven E.U. countries are using the app and the other bloc countries will roll it out by July 1.
The free mobile app provides digital proof via a QR code that a traveler has been vaccinated against Covid-19, has recently tested negative for Covid-19 or has recovered from the illness.
A European Union spokesperson told CNN yesterday that the app could be extended to citizens from non-E.U. countries, including the United States. In principle, holders of the E.U. Digital Covid Certificate should be exempted from travel restrictions such as quarantine requirements.
“Right now if you’re an American, not living in the E.U., you could get the certificate if you ask the national authorities of a member state to give you that certificate based on some proof that you’ve been vaccinated, or had a recent Covid test,” said the E.U. spokesperson. The decision on whether to allow non-E.U. citizens to use the app would rest with each individual member state.
The Digital Covid Certificate just started rolling out. Each E.U. member state can launch the certificate on a voluntary basis provided it is ready to issue and verify certificates, and have the necessary legal base in place.
The commission is calling the month of June the “warm-up phase.” So far, only seven European member countries are using the pass. They are:
Sixteen other E.U. countries plus Switzerland have finished the testing phase and are technically ready to begin using the pass at any time. These include:
In addition, seven more countries — four in the E.U. and three outside the bloc — are currently in the testing phase.
The E.U. Digital Covid Certificate includes limited information such as the traveler’s name, date of birth and relevant information about the vaccine received, Covid test results or recovery from Covid. This data remains on the certificate and is not stored or retained by visited countries.
All three vaccines available in the United States—Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson—will be covered under the E.U. certificate.
Last month, the 27 ambassadors for European Union agreed to open their borders to vaccinated Americans and other non-EU citizens after more than a year of travel restrictions during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Some E.U. member states, including Greece, had already started allowing tourists to visit without quarantine requirements if they have been vaccinated.
Next week, Spain and France will open its borders to U.S. travelers on June 7 and June 9, respectively.
Original Article Here.
A team of scientists from the U.S., China, and Spain reported Thursday they have created the first embryos that were part human and part monkey and kept them alive for up to 20 days in laboratory dishes.
The ethically controversial creation of chimeras — containing cells from multiple species — is part of a drive to make experimental models to help scientists better understand early development, devise new treatments for human disease, and possibly find methods to grow organs for transplant inside other animals, such as pigs or sheep. Such chimeras can be used in experiments that can’t be done with human embryos, for example, but combining human cells with those of primates ushers in new and urgent ethical concerns.
To be clear, the work, published in the journal Cell, is in very early stages. The team did not create living, breathing part-human animals. They created very early embryos and never implanted them into the uterus of any animal. Concerns about human-animal chimeras center on what Stanford bioethicist and legal scholar Hank Greely calls “brains, balls, and beauty” — worries that an animal could look at all human, be born with a human brain, or be able to reproduce.
This experiment carried none of those risks, but makes it clear that the time to start discussing the ethics of human-animal chimeras is now. “It’s a first-in-kind experiment,” Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy at the Duke University School of Law who co-authored a perspective piece on the ethics of the research, told STAT. “Whenever you cross a major technological or biological hurdle like this one, it’s a good moment to stop and reflect.”
The report provides the scientific details of work that began several years ago in Spain and China and made waves after it was leaked to the El País newspaper in 2019. (The Covid-19 pandemic delayed the completion and publication of the work, the researchers said.)
In the experiment, researchers injected 25 of a specific kind of human pluripotent stem cell (called “pinnacle stem cells” because they can turn into any kind of cell, including extraembryonic cells such as placenta) into each of 132 6-day-old macaque monkey embryos. The researchers stained the human cells with an exceptionally bright red fluorescent protein called tdTomato so they would be detectable within the monkey embryo as it developed.
The scientists took advantage of a new technique that allowed them to grow monkey embryos outside the womb for up to 20 days, a stage where the embryos were still largely undeveloped, but had formed layers and cavities. Survival of the embryos declined during the experiment; after 10 days, 103 embryos were still developing, and by day 19, just three of the chimeric embryos remained alive. (After 20 days, monkey embryos grown outside the womb, even those that are not chimeric, simply collapse.)
Still, the researchers found a high number of human cells in the chimeric embryos that survived. On average, 3% to 4% of the cells in the embryos were human, and in one embryo, up to 7% were. “When we observed human cells were alive in monkey embryos, that was amazing,” Tao Tan, a principal investigator at the State Key Laboratory of Primate Biomedical Research and Kunming University of Science and Technology in Yunnan, China, and one of the paper’s lead authors, told STAT.
Work published earlier this year by a research group in France showed that human cells did not survive well in monkey embryos. The key to the success in the new paper may be the particular stem cells that were used, as well as the way they were cultured.
The work, other scientists said, is the most successful to date in keeping a relatively large number of human cells alive and healthy in a nonhuman embryo. “This paper is a dramatic demonstration of the ability of human pluripotent stem cells to be incorporated into the embryos of the cynomolgus monkey,” said Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a developmental biologist at Caltech whose lab first developed, in mice, the technique of growing embryos in lab dishes. Such work gained increasing attention with the announcement last month that Jacob Hanna, a developmental biologist at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, had kept mouse embryos alive and seemingly healthy for an extended period in an artificial womb.
The results published Thursday showed a far higher rate of survival for human cells in a nonhuman embryo than in previous experiments with sheep-human or pig-human chimeras, where sometimes just one in 100,000 cells were human.
It was those disappointing results that pushed the researchers to turn to monkeys, which are much more closely related to humans and have a similar developmental timeline, said the project’s leader, Salk Institute developmental biologist Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte. “Human cells do not robustly contribute to chimera formation in species evolutionarily distant to humans,” he said.
In monkeys, it was a different story. “We found the human and monkey cells cooperate with each other in building the embryo,” said Jun Wu, a research team member who is now an assistant professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, but was a staff scientist at the Salk when he worked on the project. Wu’s research has shown that when human cells are placed in culture with mouse cells, “we see the mouse cell actively kill the human cell, but when we place human and monkey cells together, there is no competition.”
Experiments such as this one cannot be funded with federal research dollars, though they break no U.S. laws. The work was conducted in China, not because it was illegal in the United States, the researchers said, but because the monkey embryos, which are difficult to procure and expensive, were available there. The experiment used a total of 150 embryos, which were obtained without harming the monkeys, “just like in the IVF procedure,” Tan said.
But such experiments, which combine human cells with those of animals, are nevertheless controversial. This work, and other work by Izpisua Belmonte, has moved so rapidly, bioethicists have had trouble keeping up.
“The complicated thing is that we need better models of human disease, but the better those models are, the closer they bring us to the ethical issues we were trying to avoid by not doing experiments in humans,” Farahany said. “Remarkable steps forward require urgent public engagement.”
In addition to considerations about research that may blur the line between humans and animals, the work on monkeys raises issues about both animal welfare and human consent. While many “de-identified” human cells can be used in research without consent for specific experiments, that may not be the best approach for highly controversial experiments such as this one, she said.
Izpisua Belmonte and the other researchers agreed that ethical debate and guidelines for such work is critical. They said they discussed the work with ethicists before proceeding and received extensive review and approval from all scientific institutions involved. The paper’s discussion section starts not with scientific findings as is usual in a research paper, but with a statement about ethical considerations.
The researchers say animal-human chimeras could prove a powerful tool in biomedicine and that the new research is important for helping understand what roadblocks stand in the way of merging human cells into animal embryos. Their hope is to understand the principles in monkey-human chimeras, which seem easier to create, and then try to apply that knowledge to the more technically challenging but ethically more acceptable pig-human chimeras.
The researchers, and other scientists STAT contacted for comment, said one of the most exciting things about the new paper was the discovery of “crosstalk” between human and monkey cells in the developing embryo, something that did not occur so readily in human-pig chimeras. “Human cells in pig tissue is akin to communications between two distant languages, such as Chinese and French, whereas human cells in macaques is like communications between two closely related languages, like Spanish and French,” said Izpisua Belmonte. “We do think understanding interspecific cross-talk could be the key for generating more successful chimeras.”
One major goal, they say, is to find a way to grow human organs in pigs or other animals to ease the shortage for transplants. Currently, more than 100,000 Americans are awaiting organs for transplant. But some scientists question whether that goal is achievable given how hard the research has proven so far.
“How realistic is it to think that someday this line of research could actually be able to produce organs for transplants into human patients?” asked Paul Knoepfler, a stem cell scientist and professor at the UC Davis School of Medicine. “If that is extremely unlikely given technical challenges, even setting aside ethical considerations, how much further should this research be pushed just to advance our knowledge of human development?”
Knoepfler said the research posed a host of other questions as well. “Is there a point at which a chimera is “too human”? For instance, what if a monkey-human chimera ended up being more human than monkey, should special rules apply?” he asked. “What if there are many human cells in the developing brain of a chimera?”
The issue of the brain merits special consideration, in part because many consider the brain the organ that makes humans unique. Because of these considerations, the National Academy of Sciences convened a group to weigh in on the ethics and governance of the emerging field of neural organoids, transplants, and chimeras. The report, released earlier this month, stated that many ethical issues in the field could be addressed by existing mechanisms, but that it was critical to continually reassess concerns as the science developed.
The Cell paper is interesting, said the report committee’s co-chair, Joshua Sanes, a neuroscientist and professor of molecular and cell biology at Harvard, but it is not pertinent to a discussion about neural chimeras because the less-than-3-week-old embryos had not reached the point of having a nervous system. Still, he said the new work reinforced the committee’s urging that ethical conversations “get ahead of the curve.”
“It’s pretty clear the entire field is moving ahead with great rapidity,” Sanes said. “It’s not clear how fast it will go, or in which direction, but we do need to revisit these issues regularly.”
Work is already afoot to loosen internationally recognized ethical limits that prohibit scientists from growing any human embryo outside the body for longer than 14 days. The rule had been in place for decades, and was developed in a time when it was technologically impossible to keep embryos alive outside the body for more than a few days. But that’s changed dramatically in recent years, and with increased interest in powerful gene editing tools such as CRISPR to genetically modify embryos to cure disease, motivation is strong to push biological limits further — and to have clear guidelines about what may be going too far.
Said Knoepfler: “Leaving it up to every researcher and institutional ethics review board to entirely come up with their own rules on human embryo research seems to me like a recipe for big trouble.”
Original Article Here By Usha Lee McFarling
A megadrought in California is threatening to push food prices even higher. The state is already facing its worst water shortage in four years and the its driest season has only just begun, according to data from the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS).
As water levels continue to fall, farmers and ranchers will be unable to maintain key crops and feed livestock. As of Tuesday, nearly 75% of California was classified as in “extreme drought,” meaning the land does not have adequate water supplies to sustain agriculture and wildlife, according to the NIDIS.
While farmers have come to expect and prepare for droughts, this year has already been much hotter and drier than previous ones. Scorching California weather is drying up reservoirs, as well as the Sierra Nevada snowpack that helps supply them. The reservoirs are 50% lower than they should be in June, Jay Lund, co-director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California-Davis, told Associated Press.
The farmer’s plight could make products like almonds, avocados, and milk more expensive for shoppers as farmers struggle to produce crops of the state’s top exports. California produces over 25% of the nation’s food supply. California agriculture is a nearly $50 billion industry and is known for producing over 400 key commodities, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
Dave Kranz, a California Farm Bureau spokesperson, told Insider it’s too soon to tell whether the drought will have a significant impact on grocery prices, but it is sure to be a “catastrophic” year for farmers. He said he’s already seen several farmers scaling back their crops and prioritizing ones that rely less on water supplies.
“A lot of factors play into the prices people see at stores,” Kranz said. “The payment that farmers receive for their crops is a very small portion of the price shoppers pay. Most of it comes from transportation, packaging, and marketing.”
The last time the state faced a drought of this magnitude, experts said shoppers could expect prices to rise about 3% and predicted the Californian agriculture industry could be handicapped for years, Gannett reported. During the 2014 drought, experts told CNBC prices for top California exports like avocados, berries, broccoli, grapes, and lettuce could rise anywhere from 17 to 62 cents, depending on the product.
Any potential price increases do not occur immediately or all at once. They are often felt long after the drought has already wreaked havoc on local farm crops, Annemarie Kuhns, a member of the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research Service, told the Des Moines Register in 2015.
“It takes time before the effects are seen at the retail level,” Kuhns said. “Once you see drought conditions start to improve you’ll see these effects further down the road.”
Droughts are nothing new for California farmers, who use conservation practices that reduce water runoff and allow moisture to enter the soil. Farmers also focus on crops that require less water, though about 40% of the 24.6 million acres of farmland in California require irrigation, Reuters reported. Many farmers told the publication that they are planning to leave large portions of their land unseeded due to this year’s drought.
The farms are allocated some water from the state, but this year the California Department of Water Resources reduced farmers and growers to 5% of their expected water allocation in March. Last month, Chris Scheuring, California Farm Bureau senior counsel, said it appears the state will soon not be able to deliver even at the 5% level.
See Original Article Here
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