Davao River contaminated with polio virus

[Tommy T.]

1 hour ago, Arizona Kid said:

Maybe you should be President of the world, and I will be the Vice President. You are much more articulate than me!

Sorry... but I may be a jerk..... But I am not an a**h*le...... Okay... well maybe not everyone on earth thinks I am an a**h*le but????

Probably my turn to apologize, AK. And I was a bit sarcastic with my comments... Peace!!! I may come off as a nice guy, but I have also some very strong feelings regarding the environment. But I don't want to contaminate this thread with this now, so I will just let it go...

I happen to do that too... sorry...

I would like to think we could, as a race (humans) try to improve this planet and leave it in better shape than we have found it. I am not convinced we are willing and able to do that... That is my simple statement here... so I will just let it slide... I am just upset with seeing the state of the rivers here and don't want to see people get sick... plain an simple... sorry for my rant...and I am a bit drunk...

Edited September 27, 2019 by Tommy T.

[Jollygoodfellow]

5 hours ago, Arizona Kid said:

I've seen the TV commercials with celebrities saying we should ban plastic straws because of the hazard to marine life. Really?

Well there must be someone listening as most fast foods here have a no straw policy now.

[BrettGC]

2 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

Well there must be someone listening as most fast foods here have a no straw policy now.

Free plastic shopping bags are banned in QLD Australia now.  Drinking straws, coffee cup lids and similar are also very high on the list along with water bottles and something else I can't remember that made me raise my eyebrows.

[Arizona Kid]

17 hours ago, Jollygoodfellow said:

Well there must be someone listening as most fast foods here have a no straw policy now.

I think it's because they are out of stock sir!

[Mike J]

On 9/27/2019 at 10:38 PM, Jollygoodfellow said:

Well there must be someone listening as most fast foods here have a no straw policy now.

McDonalds here in Moalboal no longer has straws.  That also saves them the cost of a plastic lid when you dine in.  I think McD has done this to save money as opposed to keeping plastic out of the environment, but every little bit will help regardless of motivation.  I wonder if those little plastic ketchup packets will be next?

[GeoffH]

One local Jollibee in Cagayan De Orohad paper straws with the cups, another had no straws and the Chow King still had plastic straws last week *shrug*.

Edited September 29, 2019 by GeoffH

[Mike J]

Getting back to the original post.  This latest article says 11 percent of mothers in Manila refused polio vaccine for their children last month. 

https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/01/19/11-percent-of-moms-in-manila-refused-polio-vaccines-for-kids-doh

MANILA - "A lot" of mothers are refusing to vaccinate their children, a health official warned Tuesday, with about 11 percent of moms in Manila refusing to participate in an immunization campaign against polio last month.

Health Assistant Secretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said most of the mothers who refused to vaccinate their children come from the "poor sector of the society."

"It has been reported ever since 2016 that a lot of mothers are already refusing vaccination. We don’t know why, we have asked some, of course there would be this controversy, others would be not believing these vaccines," she told ANC's Early Edition.

Last month, the Department of Health announced that the country has recorded its first cases of polio after 19 years of being declared polio-free due to plummeting immunization coverage. A student in Manila had also died of diphtheria, while government earlier declared a national dengue epidemic and measles outbreak.

Chickenpox, mumps, pertussis: Doctor warns of more disease outbreaks as vaccine rates plummet
Vergeire said the agency conducted an immunization campaign against polio last month in the nation's capital, where "about 11 percent" of the mothers refused the vaccine.

"The mothers were saying they don’t need it. The mothers were saying the child already had the vaccination before. These kinds of reasons have been given to us when we went to the city of Manila," she said.

Vergeire, however, said children up to 5 years old must be given the vaccine.

"We are going to provide immunization irrespective of their immunization status. It has no side effects, no bad taste for this oral polio vaccine. It is safe and has been used ever since the 1970s," she said.

Vergeire, meantime, said dengue cases are "becoming manageable."

"We are comparing it with the epidemic and alert thresholds that we have and we can see cases are really going down," she said.

There was also a rise in vaccination against measles, following the DOH's campaign against the illness due to the outbreak, she added.

[Gary D]

We are seeing a similar drop in vacation in the UK, I think largely due to the internet cranks.

[Tommy T.]

On 9/24/2019 at 5:35 PM, Arizona Kid said:

see how much plastic trash is floating in the oceans and give me your opinion. It;s disgusting

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/environment/ocean-cleanup-ship-sweeps-first-pacific-plastic/ar-AAI9VHx?li=BBUPk4T

'Ocean Cleanup' ship sweeps first Pacific plastic

7 hrs ago

A special ship designed to clean the oceans has harvested its first plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch since setting sail from San Francisco last month, its Dutch inventor said Wednesday.

© JOSH EDELSON Ocean Cleanup's ship finally sailed from San Francisco on September 9 for trials on cleaning the patch

The project by The Ocean Cleanup, a Dutch non-profit group, involves a supply ship towing a floating boom that corrals marine plastic with the aim of cleaning half of the infamous patch within five years.

"Today we announce that our cleaning system in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been catching plastic for the first time," Boyan Slat, the 25-year-old Dutch CEO and founder of The Ocean Cleanup, told a press conference in Rotterdam.

© JOSH EDELSON Slat came up with the idea seven years ago, and the system has been undergoing tests for the past year

"It's the first time actually anyone harvests plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. So we think that we can actually clean the oceans."

Slat came up with the idea seven years ago, and the system has been undergoing tests for the past year.

The Maersk Launcher ship finally sailed from San Francisco on September 9 for trials on cleaning the patch, a floating trash pile twice the size of France that swirls in the ocean halfway between California and Hawaii.

It was towing a 600 metre(2,000-foot)-long boom device designed by Slat dubbed System 001, aimed at containing floating ocean plastic so it can be scooped up and recycled.

The system includes a tapered three-metre skirt to catch plastic floating just below the surface.

[Clermont]

On 10/2/2019 at 10:57 AM, Mike J said:

MANILA - "A lot" of mothers are refusing to vaccinate their children, a health official warned Tuesday, with about 11 percent of moms in Manila refusing to participate in an immunization campaign against polio last month.

 

14 hours ago, Gary D said:

We are seeing a similar drop in vacation in the UK, I think largely due to the internet cranks.

A couple of years ago Australia went through the same thing, cranks misinforming the public about immunization. Australia fixed its problem by cutting off all government childcare allowances if a current immunization card couldn't be produced, it worked, except for a few extremists, their children are not allowed in childcare centres.

Very little incentives for the PI people to follow Australia's example as there is no welfare benefit to forfeit. Maybe an expulsion from schooling if no vaccine evidence can be produced, that's one thing a half educated PI wants, their children with a decent education, maybe something like that might work, but they'll get there. 

As for you Poms, I shake my head in disbelief, don't tell me the do gooders have got you's bluffed.