Maybe we’re all going a little lock down crazy but it seems like the people in positions of responsibility don’t know the difference between right and wrong. The Beacon CEO providing vaccines to the staff of St Gerard’s Catholic School in Bray, where his children attend, not only stunk of nepotism but also of total disregard for the thousands of people who could have more easily been offered the doses. It leaves you begging the question if anyone in power is motivated by the common good anymore, or are the all corrupt to the bone? 

One of the worst things about this incident is that the Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, appeared on the six one news and declared there would be no consequences here, as blocking the HSE from delivering the vaccine to the Beacon would be like cutting off our nose to spite our face. Again doing the right thing hurts sometimes, it’s tough love, and for a minister to appear on the national broadcaster and state that a little corruption is needed to grease the wheels is probably one of the most outlandish things you can hear in a western country, this alone should have consequences. Sometimes we’re more like Craggy Island than a sophisticated member of the EU. The morning after, perhaps after he realised what he said out loud, or maybe he got an ear wagging from the Co-Taoiseach, Donnelly issued a statement announcing that he’s asked the HSE to suspend vaccine operations at the Beacon.

The episode didn’t wash well with people though; it holds a mirror up to Irish society, in what Sinn Fein TD John Brady called ‘privilege looking after privilege’. Needless to say it has resonated with people and there were hundreds of tweets yesterday expressing opinions, here are some of those messages:

Anyone saying that the alternative was to dump them can absolutely get in the sea. There are Cohort 4 cancer patients being treated in the hospital who have not been vaccinated. This is beyond despicable. @Julie_ODonoghue 

Honestly can’t wrap my head around how not one of the people involved in those Beacon vaccinations didn’t stop for two seconds and think ‘Hmmm, this isn’t right.’ That’s what you pay for, I guess @SineadOCarroll  
 
“Leftover” vaccines is the PR spin word rich people use when they “steal” vaccines from those that desperately need them @paddycosgrave 

Really interested to see what Board members of the Beacon hospital think of the scandal. They include former Taoiseach Brian Cowen and former AIB boss Colm Doherty. Let’s see what they have to say. @ipkehoe 

Beacon hospital could try google maps? - Schools (at least 2 special schools en route) - GP surgeries with lists of vulnerable patients - Dental Surgeries (many dentists have not yet been vaccinated) @sharonlambert0 

They are treating the vaccines like All Ireland tickets @SamDeBrun 

Just heard a TD’s office got a call today from a 77-year-old, offering to give up his own vaccine in favour of his 73-year-old wife who is a cancer patient. The HSE told him, “that’s not how it works.” The Beacon story today has people apoplectic. @gavreilly 

My mother is in category 4 and is a patient in the Beacon hospital undergoing ongoing treatment for cancer. They’ve been unable to give us any information on when she’ll get the vaccine. @aoifstokes  

St Gerard's School is 10km from the Beacon Hospital, as the crow flies. There are 10 schools for children with special needs that are closer to the Beacon, than St Gerard's in Bray. There are over 21 nursing homes closer to the Beacon, than St Gerard's in Bray @KieranCuddihy
 
The vaccine situation in the beaconhospital is akin to a stolen life-ring or stolen defibrillator. For the elderly and vulnerable who are still holding out for their turn a stolen vaccine could very easily become a stolen life @FoghornMurphy 

Mortified if I was a teacher from St Gerards school and I took the vaccine @minnyshell

Another good article by Ciara Kelly on drink culture in Ireland

Ireland's relationship with drink is very like America's relationship with guns. We won't give it up no matter how much harm it does us

The hard fact is we've up to three alcohol related deaths per day here. Can you imagine if that was the figure for road deaths or suicide? There'd be an outcry. We mainly drink irresponsibly, with only the minority having a healthy relationship with alcohol. Three-quarters of the poor drink excessively and three-quarters of the rich do too. It's across the board. Four out of ten of us binge regularly and three quarters of all alcohol consumed here is consumed during a binge.

Simply put, Ireland's relationship with drink is very like America's relationship with guns. We won't give it up or restrict it adequately, no matter how much harm it's doing to us. No matter how many lives are damaged. We want it this way. From a distance we can see clearly what the US needs to do about guns. But from right up close we seem completely blind to our own problem.

Full text available at : http://www.independent.ie/opinion/ciara-kelly-no-cheers-for-our-seven-drunken-nights-34136629.html

Wayne and Cathy Justus have been raising quarter horses on their farm for quite some time without trouble. But come 1985, water fluoridation was introduced. Just two years after fluoridation began, Wayne and Cathy began to notice strange things happening to their horses.

At the time, what was wrong with the horses was a complete mystery, but in 2003, something in the horse’s behavior tipped them off. During the winter of 2003/2004, the Justus’s got a lot of snow. They keep a 100 gallon tank of the city’s fluoridated water outside for the horses to drink from, but once the snow came in, the horses virtually shunned the bucket of water. The bucket that was usually refilled every 24-36 hours was staying full for weeks at a time while the horses ate snow to get their water.

Interestingly enough, while the horses were eating snow and avoiding the tank of water, their symptoms began to disappear. But what happened when the snow melted away?

Cathy explains in an interview that a small ravine runs through their property when the snow is melting. In what appears to have been conscious attempts to avoid the fluoridated water, the horses began to dig small pools in which they would drink dirty, muddy water. They went out of their way to dig holes to get muddy water to drink in order to keep from drinking the city water.

Cathy and Wayne don’t consider it a coincidence that the horses that drank the most water were the ones that got sicker faster than the rest.

“Horses on average… will drink 10-12 gallons a day. A lactating mare can actually double that amount. Ironic is the horses that we had get the sickest the quickest were the mares that were lactating,” Cathy says.

Researchers determined that the horses had in fact been poisoned by sodium fluoride, and the only source of fluoride accessible to the horses on the entire farm was their drinking water.

Their symptoms included:

• crooked legs
• fluorosis
• hoof deformities
• reproductive issues
• hyperostosis and enostosis
• reduced bone resorption

“The foregoing clinical and morphological observations, together with the bone fluoride analyses, establish the diagnosis of chronic fluoride intoxication of horses in this study causes by consumption of artificially fluoridated drinking water.” (Lennart P Krook in a 2006 publication)

It had been confirmed. Fluoridated water killed Cathy and Wayne Justus’ 6 horses and possibly their 4 dogs. Not only did they lose their beloved animals, but each horse was worth around $500,000, making it a $3 million loss.

Cathy had been pushing the de-fluoridation of water to her water municipality, but was greeted with denial and ignorance, as they attempted to convince her that fluoride in the water was good (uh, what?). Fortunately, the citizens of Pagosa Springs rose up and demanded that fluoride be taken out of their drinking water. And in 2005, it worked.

The dangers of fluoride are not a mystery, nor a conspiracy. To put it into the simplest terms: drinking fluoride is not good for your body period.

Post by Josh Paniagua

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/12/youll-never-guess-killed-3000000-worth-horses.html

We sometimes laugh at our ‘first world problems’ without actually realising what a privileged society we live in. This speech by 91 year old Harry Smith is an absolute inspiration that really makes you reflect on our recent history, where we’ve come from, the everyday comforts we most often take for granted, and what exactly the public health care system means to us.

'I came into this world in the rough and ready year of 1923...it was a bleak time and it was an uncivilised time...if I close my eyes I can smell the poverty that oozes from the dusty tenement streets of my boyhood...I can remember extreme hunger and my parent’s undying love for me. In my heart I can still feel my Mum and Dad’s desperation as they tried to keep our family safe and healthy in the slum we called home...but the cards were stacked against them because common disease controlled our neighbourhood and snuffed out life like a cold breath on a warm candle’s flame...sadly rampant poverty and no health care were the norm for the Britain of my youth. That injustice galvanised my generation to become after the Second World War the tide that raised all boats...but my heart is also with the people of the present who because of welfare cuts and austerity measures are struggling once more to make ends meet, and who’s futures I fear for. Today we must be vigilant, we must be vocal...my life is your history and we should keep it that way.' Harry Smith