The AC/DC current wars make a comeback

The Tesla vs Edison battle of electric current 

14 September 2017
Alan Finkel

The decisive battle took place in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair. On one side, the celebrated inventor Thomas Edison. On the other, his former employee Nikola Tesla.

And what were they fighting over – love, religion, territory? None of the above. They were fighting over alternating current (AC) versus direct current (DC).

A quick explainer: current in metal wires is the flow of electrons, pushed along by a voltage. If the voltage is sourced from a battery, the electrons flow in one direction only. We call this direct current, or DC.

However, batteries are not a primary source of energy. For that, we often use coal or natural gas. Their chemical energy is released in a furnace as heat to create steam that turns the shaft of a generator. In the simplest case, the shaft spins a magnet inside a coil and through the principle of electromagnetic induction produces an electric current. The polarity switches from positive to negative and back many times per second as the generator shaft rotates, thus the current alternates in direction. We call this alternating current, or AC. Even though the direction of the current alternates, its effects do not cancel out. The current does useful things in both directions, such as heating the wires in a toaster.

Starting in the late 1880s, Edison developed a cost-effective means of generating DC electricity, and a suite of related devices, including motors and meters to measure DC energy consumed. However, there was a problem. There was no way back then to convert the DC voltage to higher or lower values. To be safe for use in homes and factories, the DC generators were designed to produce electricity at low voltages. The downside was that this meant the losses during transmission from the generator to the consumer were high. Edison judged that to be an acceptable compromise, but it limited the distance between the generator and consumers to less than a kilometre or two.

In the other camp, Tesla had a secret weapon known as the transformer. It is a simple arrangement of iron cores and copper windings that allows voltage to be converted up or down. The limitation is that transformers only work with AC electricity.

With transformers, Tesla could boost the generator output to thousands of volts for low-loss transmission over long distances then cut the voltage down again to safe values for final delivery to the consumer.

There was a lot at stake, including patent royalties and the right to electrify the cities of the United States. The raging battle was called the War of the Currents.

Feeling the tide of battle swinging against him, Edison changed tactics and launched a misinformation campaign to argue that AC current was dangerous. To prove his point he arranged the public electrocution of stray dogs, cats and horses.

These skirmishes continued during the lead up to the Chicago event, till victory was declared for the Tesla AC camp. They were awarded the contract to electrify the Fair. From there it was all AC, with the definitive stake in the ground being the 1896 electrification of street lights in the city of Buffalo with AC power supplied from hydroelectric generators at Niagara Falls.

AC distribution of electricity has reigned supreme for more than 100 years. But a quiet insurrection is taking place in our midst. Our computers, machines, LEDs and electric cars all run on DC. And at the extremes of high power – distributing electricity thousands of kilometres from one region to the other – engineers have discovered that the losses from a million-volt transmission line are lower if it carries DC current rather than AC current.

Once again, the transformer is the secret weapon, but this time operating on DC. These new transformers take the form of electronic circuits that convert DC currents up and down the spectrum from a few volts to a million or more. Lighter and smaller than traditional ones, DC transformers make it easier to integrate wind and solar electricity into the grid, and they reduce the likelihood of failures cascading from one electricity generation region to another.

In the coming decades, we may see the DC insurrection take hold. Not through warfare this time – I predict no public electrocutions of stray cats. Instead, it will be a subtle, gradual process. But by the turn of the next century Edison may well have the final victory.

Alan Finkel is an electrical engineer, neuroscientist and Chief Scientist of Australia.

This column by Alan Finkel is an excerpt from the next print edition of Cosmos magazine – available in all good newsagents and museums in October.

The story of Tesla and Edison’s battle will also be told in a movie, The Current War, starring Katherine Waterston and Benedict Cumberbatch, that will be in cinemas in time for the holiday season.

The Current War - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Current_War

The Current War is a 2017 American historical drama film inspired by the 19th-century competition between Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse over which electric power delivery system would be used in the United States. Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon and written by Michael Mitnick, the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Edison, Michael Shannon as Westinghouse, Nicholas Hoult as Nikola Tesla, and Tom Holland as Samuel Insull…

• Directed by: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
• Produced by: Timur Bekmambetov, Basil Iwanyk, Harvey …

• Music by: Volker Bertelmann, Dustin O'Halloran
• Written by: Michael Mitnick

• Plot · Production · Release · Reception

'The Current War' Official Trailer (2017) Benedict ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxtJ_kwDs6Y

2:31

2017-09-07 · Watch the trailer for biographical drama "The Current War," starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Katherine Waterston, Tom Holland, Tuppence Middleton, Matthew Macfadyen ...

• Author: Moviefone

• Views: 35K

Reptiles threatened by online trade
Scientists call for greater international regulation.


Pythons are traded in high volumes. Credit: Olivier Born / Getty Images

Nearly 4000 species of reptile – a third of those known – are being traded online with very little international regulation, contributing to the “ever-widening biodiversity crisis”, according to a new study in the journal Nature Communications.

A whopping 90% of traded reptile species and half the total number of individuals are captured from the wild, the study found. Most come from hotspots in Asia, particularly Vietnam, to satisfy consumer demand in Europe and North America.

Many satisfy a lust for owning rare items, which the researchers note is particularly concerning. As long ago as 2008, the British Federation for Herpetologists estimated that reptiles were more popular as pets than dogs.

Traded species tend to be endangered or critically endangered or have restricted ranges, such as the Chinese and Vietnamese Cyrtodactylus and Goniurosaurus cave geckos, which are limited to a single hill.

Some entire wild populations, such as Goniurosaurus luii, are thought to have been collected for the pet trade, and the study found that some species are exploited shortly after being described.

“The impact is so widespread that even the most diverse parts of the planet have half their species in trade,” says senior author Alice Hughes from the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

It is seriously impacting chance of survival in 70% of species, she adds, given that most are taken from the wild.

Despite this, only Madagascar and New Zealand protect more than half of their species. In other regions like Africa, most countries had vast numbers of species with no IUCN assessment of their conservation status.

The researchers were alerted to immense knowledge gaps in wildlife trade at the 2019 CITES meeting in Geneva. Hughes says she was “shocked” to find that vulnerable groups like Asian songbirds and tropical fish were deemed “too expensive to add”.

“The majority of discussions for animals in CITES was on high value species with sustained demand,” she says, “largely excluding species traded at lower levels or with lower value”.

Listed reptiles include alligators (Alligator), caiman lizards (Caiman), pythons (Python), crocodiles (Crocodylus) and monitor lizards (Varanus), which are traded in high volumes, chiefly for fashionable leather. Others are sold for food, decoration and medicines.
Credit: Alice Hughes

While crocodiles are mostly bred in captivity, 50% of snakes and tortoises and 70% of lizards come from the wild. However, only 9% of reptile species are monitored, which is concerning given that CITES is the key source of data involving international trade of endangered species.

To glean a true picture of the situation, Hughes and colleagues accessed 25,000 webpages of commercial trade based on nearly 65,000 keywords in five languages covering scientific and common names of more than 11,000 species, which they cross-checked with the CITES trade portal and the LEMIS dataset of wildlife imports to the US.

Their analysis explored how trade had changed since 2000, identifying an overall slight increase in number of species traded annually and new species appearing each year. The authors suggest it likely underestimates the extent of the problem, as it doesn’t cover all species, websites or social media, another avenue for wildlife trade.

The shocker is that it’s legal to trade wildlife species if they aren’t listed by CITES or protected by national laws. Hughes says this puts neglected species at risk of extinction and calls for a new approach to turn this around.

“The status quo needs to be reversed, so instead of legislating what we can’t trade, or control trade for a subset of species, international trade of wildlife should only be permissible when enough data exists to show that it will not impact species survival.”

Similar approaches have been taken to prevent exotic bird imports in the US and Europe, Hughes notes, calling for that to be expanded to protect wildlife globally.

COSMOS
Natalie Parletta is a freelance science writer based in Adelaide and an adjunct senior research fellow with the University of South Australia.

Study: Having Pets Linked to Better Mental Health, Reduced Loneliness During COVID-19 Lockdown

 

THEY ARE COMPANIONS; 

THEY ARE LA FAMLIA, LA FAMILIARAIRE 

2020-09-29 13:30:00

Jill Murphy, Assistant Editor www.pharmacytimes.com

A new survey showed that sharing a home with a pet appeared to act as a buffer against psychological stress during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown.

The survey, which was taken between March 23 and June 1, 2020, found that having a pet was linked to maintaining better mental health and reduced loneliness, with 90% of the 6000 participants from the UK saying they had at least 1 pet. In addition, 96% of the participants said their pet helped to keep them fit and active.

However, 68% of pet owners reported having been worried about their animals during the lockdown, for reasons such as restrictions on access to veterinary care and exercise or not knowing who would take care of the pets if the owner became sick, according to the researchers.

“Findings from this study also demonstrated potential links between people's mental health and the emotional bonds they form with their pets: measures of the strength of the human-animal bond were higher among people who reported lower scores for mental health-related outcomes at baseline,” said study author Elena Ratschen, MD, from the Department of Health Sciences University of York, in a press release.

Ratschen added that the researchers also discovered the strength of the emotional bond with pets did not statistically differ by animal species.

Study co-author Daniel Mills, from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Lincoln, noted that this analysis is particularly important during COVID-19 because it indicates how having a companion animal in your home can provide a buffer against some of the psychological stress associated with the lockdown.

“However, it is important that everyone appreciates their pet’s needs, too, as our other work shows failing to meet these can have a detrimental effect for both people and their pets,” Mills said in a press release.

REFERENCE
Having pets linked to maintaining better mental health and reducing loneliness during lockdown, research shows. University of York. 

https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2020/research/pets-survey-lockdown-loneliness/#:~:text=The%20study%20%2D%20from%20the%20University,had%20at%20least%20one%20pet. 

Published September 25, 2020. Accessed September 28, 2020.

 THE BUSH DOCTRINE 

 BARBARA BUSH

GOES FURTHER THAN ANY MALE POLITICIAN, EVER

1. The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty by Susan Page. At the end of the fifth interview, however, Bush finally granted Page full access to the personal diaries she had kept since 1948, which no one other than George H.W. Bush biographer Jon Meacham had seen previously
2. Susan Page’s Barbara Bush bio revisits a remarkable life ...https://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/article/Susan-Page-s-Barbara...2019-04-02 · “The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty,” Susan Page’s new biography of Bush, arrives with no shortage of political and …

3. The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American ...

   https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39938832-the-matriarch

   Susan Page has done a good job with the biography of Barbara Bush. The book is well written and researched. Page had access to Bush’s private diaries and papers. She also had multiple interviews with BB as well as her family, friends and colleagues.

   • 4.1/5
   • 
     

   • Reviews: 431

4. 
   

5. Journalist Susan Page Talks Barbara Bush, Subject of Her ...

   https://therivardreport.com/journalist-susan-page-talks-barbara-bush...

   The Matriarch: Barbara Bush and the Making of an American Dynasty by Susan Page. At the end of the fifth interview, however, Bush finally granted Page full access to the personal diaries she had...

6. New biography explores the ‘underestimated’ Barbara Bush ...

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pOvpFtUm-o

   

   7:18

   2019-04-12 · Published on Apr 12, 2019 It has been nearly a year since the death of Barbara Bush. Now, Susan Page’s new biography of the former first lady, “The Matriarch,” reveals the heartache and happiness...

   • Author: PBS NewsHour

   • Views: 4.3K
7. I

 

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Republicans disrespect the legacy of Ruth Bader Ginsburg with craven politicking over her empty seat

Updated 10:27 AM; 29/9/2020

CLEVELAND.COM 

By Other Voices

What could be more disgustingly disrespectful than Republican buzzards circling the sadly empty U.S. Supreme Court seat just minutes after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became known?

Instead of decency and respect, they have chosen craven political bullying, tarnishing our democracy. Hypocrites exalt in self only; the Constitution withers.

Andrea Lyn,

South Euclid

Cleveland, OH

Schiller Live In Tehran 2017 Official Version Genre : Electronic, Instrumental Tracklist : 01. Nachtflug 02. Ultramarin 03. Schiller 04. The Fture III 05. Once Upon A Time 06. Das Glockenspiel 07. Tiefblau 08. Berlin Moskau 09. Leben...I Feel You 10. Denn Wer Liebt 11. Polarstern 12. Ruhe

 

David King—the graphic designer who printed his mark on the left

Yuri Prasad rates a new compilation of David King’s work which shows how he influenced the revolutionary left—and the commercial world beyond it

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An Anti Nazi League poster from the 1970s, designed by David King

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David King, the designer, photographer and researcher, gave the British radical left its graphical language.

His style mixed bold sans serif headlines, with blocks of red placed at angles, and super tight picture cropping. It became a defining feature of many publications and posters in the era that followed the revolutionary year of 1968.

In the mainstream too, King’s style felt new and fresh, especially when he was working for the Sunday Times magazine during its ten-year heyday from the mid-1960s.

His juxtapositions of oppressed and oppressors, and causes and consequences, combined well with others with a similar inclination, including photographer Don McCullen and writer Francis Wyndam.

It apparently played less well with the magazine’s marketing department who wanted something easier on the eyes.

Perhaps that’s why King’s work really came into its own in the service of the revolutionary left.

He designed the red arrow logo of the Anti Nazi League that speared the far right and the carnival posters of Rock Against Racism.

He produced brilliantly dynamic graphics for the anti-apartheid movement.

Part of his skill was to understand what the left needed by virtue of being part of its extended family. Anti-racism and revolution were hardwired into him.

An interview with David King

  Read More

He also knew that his posters would be printed on low tech, older machines. So he devised work that stretched our printers to the limit, but not beyond them. He often used coarse printing screens so that images were rendered in large dots. And he combined black and red inks to colourise images and give them depth.

In his design work, King freely acknowledged his debt to the Russian Constructivist School that emerged from the 1917 revolution. It was fascination with the revolution—and of its hero, Trotsky—that drove him on.

King and Wyndam produced the first pictorial biography of Trotsky in 1972. It charted him from a child thorough the years of repression in pre-revolutionary Russia, to his life as head of the Red Army, and finally into exile.

Many of the images had never been seen before, and curated this way, were a challenge to then the still-dominant Stalinism on the left.

He collected thousands of photographs and paintings from Russia in the 1920s and 30s and compiled them into indispensable books of documentary.

His book The Commissar Vanishes is a forensic demolition of Stalin’s attempt to air-brush out leading Bolsheviks from the revolution’s pictorial history.

King places original and doctored images side by side and recounts in terrible detail the comrade’s fate.

Later books explored the art of the revolution and led to major exhibitions at Tate Modern.

At the opening of one that I was at, he told the audience that he needed to be careful of what he said because “the boss is watching”.

He then pointed to a 1923 portrait of Trotsky by Sergei Pichugin that for generations had laid hidden from Stalin deep in the walls of the artist’s house.

This new book is a vital addition to the King collection, assembling for the first time work from across his fields. It is a link, through the artist and archivist, to a history that continues to inspire today.

David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor. Published by Yale University Press, £30. Available from bookmarksbookshop.co.uk

David King—reclaiming the Russian Revolution of 1917

by Jackie Shellard

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David King, the photographer and designer who died last week, was best known for his collections of posters, images and artefacts from the Russian Revolution.

King’s interest in the Russian Revolution was not purely academic.

As art editor of the Sunday Times magazine, he went to Russia in 1970 to research an article on the centenary of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin’s birth.

He soon found that a lot of the material he collected there had been doctored or falsified.

Leon Trotsky and other leading revolutionaries central to the 1917 Russian Revolution had effectively been removed from history.

Much of his work from this point was dedicated to reclaiming the revolution and recreating a world that was lost when Joseph Stalin rewrote the history books.

Records

King’s books are not simply photographic records, but are designed to guide the reader to a true understanding of the period.

In The Commissar Vanishes—the Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia, he reveals how photographs were retouched in an attempt to change history.

For instance, he placed a 1918 photograph of the Council of People’s Commissars—the revolutionary cabinet—beside a 1970 version of the same photo.

The original 33 members have been reduced to 4 as many of these commissars, including the revolutionary leader Trotsky, were murdered during the Stalinist period.

Although the design of his beautifully produced books is integral to them, King was interested in content far more than in form.

In oppressive regimes, he said, “design doesn’t much matter. The horrors of the regime are what matter”.

So with Nazi films he argued, “I don’t care how well it’s filmed or what the lighting’s like. It’s a disgusting Nazi rally”.

In the 1970s King designed anti-apartheid posters and posters and logos for the Anti Nazi League.

Political

He produced some of the most iconic political posters of the period.

His final book, John Heartfield—Laughter is a Devastating Weapon, is a collection of works by the radical German artist.

Heartfield used art as a weapon against the Nazis in his political montages of the 1930s.

A 1970 reproduction of a 1918 photograph of the Council of People’s Commisars (below).

In Red Star Over Russia—a Visual History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Death of Stalin, King writes, “Even as a child I detested capitalism.

“When my uncle, who was a socialist, taught me about the true nature of the ruling class I agreed with him that it clearly had to be overthrown.

“I used to dream, like all children, how life would be in the 21st century.

 

 

“If anyone had told me that there would still be inequality, racism, kings, queens and religious maniacs stalking the planet I would have considered them crazy.”

King’s books and exhibitions stand as clear expressions of his political commitment.

 

How Trump and privatised health care left US exposed

The US is the richest country in the world, but has one of the worst responses to coronavirus. Sarah Bates looks at how a a broken system killed over 200,000

A testing site in Glenn Island Park, New York (Pic: New York National Guard)

Donald Trump promised on 26 February that the handful of US coronavirus patients were about to get better.

At least 205,000 deaths and 6.9 million cases later, he could not have been proven more wrong.

The US has just 4 percent of the world’s population but around 20 percent of confirmed Covid-19 cases. Led by a right wing administration intent on playing down the ­pandemic, it missed every opportunity to halt the spread.

Sheila Davis, CEO of the Partners in Health non-profit organisation, describes the approach as, “Get hospitals ready and wait for sick people to show.”

“Especially in the beginning, we catered our entire Covid-19 response to the 20 percent of people who required hospitalisation, rather than preventing transmission in the community,” she said.

Opioids in the US - a crisis prescribed by profit
Read More

The US is the richest country in the world.

Yet people are left queuing for hours in the baking sun to take a test and health workers are scrambling to get their hands on PPE protective kit.

“The number of people testing in Oregon is really low,” explained Sean Cummings, a socialist and Marx21 member in the state’s biggest city Portland. “To get a test you have to have a car or queue up for three hours.

“The rich will get tested but the poor won’t. You can see that in who’s dying, who it’s affecting the most—it’s working class people, it’s bus drivers, postal workers, health care workers and so on.”

The pandemic has smashed through a privatised health system that lets millions of people die every year while pharmacy fat cats and bloated providers count their profits.



The just-in-time delivery ­methods that led to empty supermarket shelves weren’t sufficient to keep hospital store cupboards stocked with masks and gloves either.

Poor planning on a federal level was also partly to blame. It was discovered too late that the Strategic National Stockpile, which is supposed to provide for just this type of emergency, was 100 million respirators and masks short.

They were used in the 2009 flu pandemic and simply never replaced.

In the US, people have to pay for their healthcare, usually through an employment-based insurance programme. And with 26 million people in the US now claiming unemployment benefits, even fewer people will have access to limited coverage.

Those who have suffered from coronavirus face eye-watering hospital bills. Michael Flor, a 70 year old Covid-19 patient who spent 62 days in hospital, was charged more than $1.1 million for his treatment.

“I feel guilty about surviving,” he said. “There’s a sense of ‘Why me? Why did I deserve all this?’ Looking at the incredible cost of it all definitely adds to that survivor’s guilt.”
Neither Republicans nor Democrats want change

Despite coronavirus cases rising in 21 US states and around 40,000 new cases every day, Donald Trump is refusing to accept reality.

In full electioneering mode ahead of the November’s presidential vote, he told supporters last week, “We have done a very good job.”

Trump isn’t solely responsible, but his failure to act is central to the high death rates and widespread misery.

And it’s hardly surprising that he’s ruled over the coronavirus crisis in this way.

In 2018 Trump disbanded the national pandemic response office.

He squandered any head start the US had and refused to build

extra capacity into the system by developing tests and manufacturing PPE. 

Joe Biden’s coronation will not bring real change
Read More

Instead, Trump banned people from entering the US from China.

It was an act of political theatre to appeal to his right wing base, rather than a serious attempt at halting Covid-19’s spread.

Since then he’s poured scorn on the science, joined calls for state governments to lift local lockdowns and rejected demands for a national approach to quashing the virus.

Yet Trump has faced little opposition from the Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Despite occasionally blasting Trump’s “lies and incompetence” Biden has put forward little on how to tackle the crisis.

Neither has the track record or the inclination to truly challenge the broken system.

But that doesn’t mean that ordinary people won’t. Beth Redbird is a sociologist who has conducted studies in how people were applying social distancing measures.

She pointed out that times of crisis lead to people questioning everything.

“Times of big social disruption call into question things we thought were normal and standard,” she said.

“If our institutions fail us here, in what ways are they failing elsewhere?

“And whom are they failing most?”

Double trouble as flu season looms

Health care workers in the US are gearing up for the winter flu season that could see an additional 500,000 people hospitalised.

“We have two pandemics coming at the same time and only one vaccine—for seasonal flu—guaranteed,” said Daniel Salmon.

He is director of the institute for vaccine safety at Johns Hopkins University.

“We need a national campaign with clear and consistent messaging about the community benefits,” he said.

Unless flu is treated like the oncoming emergency it is, US health care workers will shortly be battling a dual crisis.
No PPE for health staff

PPE protective kit guidelines aren’t based on science, but on chaotic and sustained shortages.

In March, federal officials advised healthcare workers to stop using the N95 respirator face masks and use looser paper surgical ones.

And, because they don’t have enough, some hospital managers lock up the N95 masks.

So healthcare workers are struggling to get hold of them in emergency situations.

As many as 58 percent of health workers who were surveyed said they didn’t have enough PPE.

Rich hospitals are coping with the inflated cost of supplying PPE.

But cash-strapped ones, invariably serving poor multiracial communities, are running out of masks and money.

This is having stark impacts.

As of early July, the coronavirus death rate for black people is more than twice that of whites


Sun 27 Sep 2020,Issue No. 2724

Women at risk in Trump’s migrant camps 

by Sophie Squire SWP

Protesters demanding an end to Trump's regime of deportations in 2019 (Pic: Charles Edward Miller/Flickr)

Are women held in a US immigration detention centre in Georgia being forced to have unnecessary hysterectomies?

That’s the question many are asking after a nurse from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre blew the whistle about terrible health conditions there.

Dawn Wooten, who worked at the Irwin county detention centre (ICDC), gave evidence to a 27-page report by the Project South organisation.

It details many cases of “jarring medical neglect”.

The part of the report that’s particularly alarmed ­anti‑­racists is the passage that “raises red flags regarding the rate at which hysterectomies are performed on immigrant women under ICE custody at ICDC”.

Project South says hysterectomies were carried out at “high rates” and that women who underwent the procedures “didn’t fully ­understand why they had to get a hysterectomy”.

At the very least this raises a question of whether patients gave “informed consent”.

Wooten’s account is backed by number of women detainees who have come forward to say they were subjected to forced hysterectomies.

Operated

A lawyer representing one of the women operated on spoke to the US news network NBC.

He said his client was told by a doctor that she had an ovarian cyst, but a biopsy to confirm this was never carried out. A hysterectomy was then performed on her. 

In 2019, Pauline Binam began having irregular periods.

She was 29 at the time and had spent the past two years in custody, awaiting deportation to Cameroon.

Resisting the US’s racist president
Read More

The detention centre’s gynaecologist said he would treat a cyst on her ovaries by removing tissue from her uterus, a fairly standard procedure.

But when she woke up from anesthesia, the doctor told her he had removed one of her fallopian tubes due to a clog and that she was now likely infertile.

In this privately-owned detention centre, a large number of hysterectomy procedures are said to have been performed by one doctor, Mehendra Amin.

Some women at the detention centre describe him as the “uterus collector”.

In response to these allegations, a group of angry protesters blocked the road in New York.

In a video shared on social media, the police kettled the 50 to 60 activists and arrested eight of them.

During the coronavirus pandemic, Trump has stepped up his hard line on migration. 

Those inside ICE detention centres report cramped conditions, no access to healthcare and some even say they have no access to water.

Wooten also wrote in her complaint that Irwin county detention centre had purposely under-reported Covid-19 cases, leaving detainees and staff at risk. 

The horrifying treatment of those trapped in ICE detention centres is part of a racist system that seeks to blame migrants for America’s growing economic crisis. 

Article Information International

Mon 21 Sep 2020 Issue No. 2723

Click here to download this weeks paper in PDF format, plain text format

Mexico asks U.S. to "clarify" alleged hysterectomies on migrant women

CBSNews

Whistleblower says ICE detainees were subjected to unwanted medical procedures

Mexico City — Mexico said Monday it had requested more information from the U.S. on medical procedures given to migrants in detention centers, after allegations that detained Mexican women were sterilized without their consent. Rights campaigners alleged two weeks ago that a number of hysterectomies had been carried out at a privately run detention center in Georgia.

The Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it sent a diplomatic note, asking the U.S. government "to clarify the situation, requesting information on the medical attention that Mexican citizens receive" at the Irwin County Detention Center.
Nearly 9,000 migrant kids expelled under pandemic border policy

The ministry said that consulate personnel had interviewed 18 Mexican women who are or were detained at the center, none of whom "claimed to have undergone a hysterectomy," an operation involving the removal of all or part of the uterus.

© Provided by CBS News 2020 election to impact U.S. immigration for ... 07:33

The department added that seven of the women interviewed had been treated by the doctor accused of performing the sterilizations. Another of the women said she had undergone a gynecological operation, although there was nothing in her file to support that she consented to the procedure.

The women interviewed did not deny that they had been "victims of bad practices for different reasons," the foreign ministry said.

In an article published Tuesday, The New York Times said it had spoken to 16 women with concerns over gynecological treatment they had received while in custody at the Irwin detention facility and asked five independent gynecologists to review the available medical files on each women.

The Times said the independent doctors concluded that the area gynecologist used by the center, Dr. Mahendra Amin, had "consistently overstated the size or risks associated with cysts or masses attached to his patients' reproductive organs."

The doctors who reviewed the medical files for The Times "noted that Dr. Amin seemed to consistently recommend surgical intervention, even when it did not seem medically necessary at the time and nonsurgical treatment options were available," the newspaper said.

Mexico announced last week it was investigating the allegations of sterilizations, warning that such operations would be "unacceptable."

The allegations came from a whistleblower, a nurse at the center, where some detainees are held under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. The nurse said that detained women told her they did not fully understand why they had to get a hysterectomy.

Project South, the Georgia Detention Watch, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights and South Georgia Immigrant Support Network filed a complaint to the government on behalf of detained immigrants and the nurse.

© Provided by CBS News U.S. expels 8,800 migrant kids amid pandemic 

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal has called for an urgent investigation into allegations that at least 17 women were subjected to unnecessary gynecological procedures that she called "the most abhorrent of human rights violations."

ICE said when the lawsuit was filed that it does not comment on matters before the inspector general, but that it takes all allegations seriously.

"That said, in general, anonymous, unproven allegations, made without any fact-checkable specifics, should be treated with the appropriate skepticism they deserve," the agency said in a statement.

Dr. Ada Rivera, the top doctor at the agency, issued a statement saying the whistleblower accusations would be investigated by an independent office, "however, ICE vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures."

"All female ICE detainees receive routine, age-appropriate gynecological and obstetrical health care, consistent with recognized community guidelines for women's health services," Rivera said. Her statement also said that, according to ICE data, two detainees at Irwin County Detention Center had had hysterectomies since 2018.