Cone snail venom shows potential for treating severe malaria

Study finds anti-adhesion drugs may hold the key to treating malaria, COVID-19, aids and other emerging diseases

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: CONUS NUX view more 

CREDIT: FRED PFLUEGER, PH.D.

Severe forms of malaria such as Plasmodium falciparum may be deadly even after treatment with current parasite-killing drugs. This is due to persistent cyto-adhesion of infected erythrocytes even though existing parasites within the red blood cells are dead. As vaccines for malaria have proved less than moderately effective, and to treat these severe cases of P. falciparum malaria, new avenues are urgently needed. Latest estimates indicate that more than 500 million cases of malaria and more than 400,000 deaths are reported worldwide each year. Anti-adhesion drugs may hold the key to significantly improving survival rates.

Using venom from the Conus nux, a species of sea snail, a first-of-its-kind study from Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine in collaboration with FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science and the Chemical Sciences Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology

suggests that these conotoxins could potentially treat malaria. The study provides important leads toward the development of novel and cost-effective anti-adhesion or blockade-therapy pharmaceuticals aimed at counteracting the pathology of severe malaria.

Results, published in the Journal of Proteomics, expand the pharmacological reach of conotoxins/ conopeptides by revealing their ability to disrupt protein-protein and protein-polysaccharide interactions that directly contribute to the disease. Similarly, mitigation of emerging diseases like AIDS and COVID-19 also could benefit from conotoxins as potential inhibitors of protein-protein interactions as treatment. Venom peptides from cone snails has the potential to treat countless diseases using blockage therapies.

"Molecular stability, small size, solubility, intravenous delivery, and no immunogenic response make conotoxins excellent blockade-therapy candidates," said Andrew V. Oleinikov, Ph.D., corresponding author and a professor of biomedical science, FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine. "Conotoxins have been vigorously studied for decades as molecular probes and drug leads targeting the central nervous systems. They also should be explored for novel applications aimed to thwart amiss cellular responses or foil host parasite interactions through their binding with endogenous and exogenous proteins. Further investigation is likely to yield breakthroughs in fields continuously toiling for more efficient therapeutic approaches such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, novel emerging viral diseases as well as malaria where venom-based peptidic natural products can be put into practice."

The disruption of protein-protein interactions by conotoxins is an extension of their well known inhibitory action in many ion channels and receptors. Disabling prey by specifically modulating their central nervous system is a ruling principle in the mode of action of venoms.

CAPTION

Conus nux, a species of sea snail

CREDIT

Fred Pflueger, Ph.D.

"Among the more than 850 species of cone snails there are hundreds of thousands of diverse venom exopeptides that have been selected throughout several million years of evolution to capture their prey and deter predators," said Frank Marí, Ph.D., corresponding author and senior advisor for biochemical sciences at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. "They do so by targeting several surface proteins present in target excitable cells. This immense biomolecular library of conopeptides can be explored for potential use as therapeutic leads against persistent and emerging diseases affecting non-excitable systems."

For the study, researchers used high-throughput assays to study Conus nux collected off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. They revealed the in vitro capacity of cone snail venom to disrupt protein-protein and protein-polysaccharide interactions that directly contribute to pathology of P. falciparum malaria. They determined that six fractions from the venom inhibit the adhesion of recombinant P. falciparum erythrocyte membrane protein 1 (PfEMP-1) domains to their corresponding receptors, which express on the endothelial microvasculature and the placenta.

The results are noteworthy as each of these six venom fractions, which contain a mostly single or a very limited set of peptides, affected binding of domains with different receptor specificity to their corresponding receptors, which are proteins (CD36 and ICAM-1), and polysaccharide. This activity profile suggests that the peptides in these conotoxin fractions either bind to common structural elements in the different PfEMP1 domains, or that a few different peptides in the fraction may interact efficiently (concentration of each is lower proportionally to the complexity) with different domains.

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Study co-authors are Alberto Padilla, Ph.D., first author and a former graduate student, FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine; Sanaz Dovell, Ph.D., a former student in FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Science; Olga Chesnokov, Ph.D., research associate, FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine; aand Mickelene Hoggard, Ph.D., Chemical Sciences Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

This research is supported in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (grants R21A137721 and R01AI092120) awarded to Oleinikov.

About the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine:

FAU's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine is one of approximately 155 accredited medical schools in the U.S. The college was launched in 2010, when the Florida Board of Governors made a landmark decision authorizing FAU to award the M.D. degree. After receiving approval from the Florida legislature and the governor, it became the 134th allopathic medical school in North America. With more than 70 full and part-time faculty and more than 1,300 affiliate faculty, the college matriculates 64 medical students each year and has been nationally recognized for its innovative curriculum. To further FAU's commitment to increase much needed medical residency positions in Palm Beach County and to ensure that the region will continue to have an adequate and well-trained physician workforce, the FAU Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine Consortium for Graduate Medical Education (GME) was formed in fall 2011 with five leading hospitals in Palm Beach County. The Consortium currently has five Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accredited residencies including internal medicine, surgery, emergency medicine, psychiatry, and neurology.

About Florida Atlantic University:

Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit http://www.fau.edu.

New UCF study examines leeches for role in major disease of sea turtles in Florida

The disease fibropapillomatosis causes sea turtles to develop tumors on their bodies, which can limit their health and mobility

UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL FLORIDA

Research News

 

ORLANDO, Feb. 18, 2021 - University of Central Florida researchers are homing in on the cause of a major disease of sea turtles, with some of their latest findings implicating saltwater leeches as a possible factor.

The disease, known as fibropapillomatosis, or FP, causes sea turtles to develop tumors on their bodies, which can limit their mobility and also their health by interfering with their ability to catch and eat prey.

While the cause of FP isn't known, saltwater leeches have been suspected to play a role due to their frequent presence on areas of sea turtles where FP tumors often develop, such as on their eyes, mouths and flippers.

The results, which were published recently in the journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, are the first evidence of a significant association between leeches and the disease in sea turtles, according to the researchers.

"Florida is one of the areas most heavily impacted by FP," says Anna Savage, an associate professor in UCF's Department of Biology and study co-author. "Over the past three decades, approximately half of the green turtle juveniles encountered in the Indian River Lagoon have FP tumors, which is one of the highest rates documented," she says.

Sea turtle health is important because the ancient marine reptiles contribute to healthy oceans and coastlines by grazing and maintaining sea grass beds.

All sea turtles are categorized as threatened or endangered because of threats from pollution, coastal development and fishing, in addition to infectious diseases.

Central Florida's Atlantic coastline hosts about one-third of all green turtle nests in the state and is one of the most important nesting areas in the world for loggerheads.

Knowing if leeches play a role in the disease transmission can help researchers better understand and predict its spread, as well as inform conservation actions, such as leech removal in sea turtle rehabilitation centers.

The Process

The study's lead author and a recent undergraduate alumna of UCF's Biology Department, Leah Rittenburg, spearheaded the research and was responsible for the genetic analyses.

To find out a possible connection between leeches and FP, the researchers documented the presence of leeches on green and loggerhead turtles captured from the Indian River Lagoon and also used genetic analyses to determine if leeches collected from the turtles contained chelonid alphaherpesvirus 5, or ChHV5, the virus most likely responsible for disease development in an individual turtle.

"Our historical data, collected by the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group between 2006 and 2018, revealed that leech parasitism was significantly associated with FP in green turtles but not in loggerhead turtles," Rittenburg says.

"For the genetic analysis, about one-fifth of the leeches we collected were positive for ChHV5, and one leech species trended towards coming from FP-positive turtles, further supporting the hypothesis that leeches may act as ChHV5 transmitters," she says.

Now that the researchers have demonstrated a relationship between FP and leeches, they want to evaluate more specifically if leeches transmit the turtle herpesvirus, which would provide stronger evidence that the virus in an underlying cause of FP.

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Study co-authors were Jake R. Kelley, a master's student in UCF's Department of Biology, and Kate L. Mansfield, an associate professor in UCF's Department of Biology and director of the UCF Marine Turtle Research Group.

The research was funded by grants from UCF's Office of Undergraduate Research and by a Florida Sea Turtle License Plate grant.

Savage received her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University. She is a member of UCF's Genomics and Bioinformatics Cluster and joined UCF's Department of Biology, part of UCF's College of Sciences, in 2015.

CONTACT: Robert H. Wells, Office of Research, robert.wells@ucf.edu

A natural protection racket among damselfish and mysid shrimp

New UD study finds first example of underwater domesticator-domesticate relationship

UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE

Research News

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IMAGE: THIS DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATES THE LONGFIN DAMSELFISH-MYSID RELATIONSHIP, WHERE THE NICHE CREATED BY THE TERRITORIAL ALGAE FARMING LONGFIN DAMSELFISH PROVIDES A PROTECTIVE REFUGE TO MYSIDS, LEADING TO INCREASED SURVIVAL. IN TURN,... view more 

CREDIT: ILLUSTRATION BY ROHAN BROOKER

Throughout nature, there are instances of animals aiding one another and living together in mutually beneficial relationships that have helped shape the world's landscapes and biodiversity.

These domesticator-domesticate relationships form when one species provides multigenerational support to another species in exchange for a resource or service that benefits both species. An example of this type of relationship is how early humans domesticated gray wolves. The wolves were attracted to the human encampments, which provided them with protection and resources, and the wolves, in turn, helped the humans increase their hunting proficiency.

One area of the world where these mutually beneficial relationships could be examined further, however, is underwater.

A new study involving researchers from the University of Delaware looked at how a mutually beneficial relationship formed in the waters of Belize. Researchers discovered that longfin damselfish aggressively defend algal farms on which they feed, which provides a protective refuge for planktonic mysid shrimps, which in turn excrete nutrients onto the farms, enriching the algae on which the damselfish feed.

The paper was recently published in Nature Communications. Rohan Brooker, a former post-doctoral researcher at UD, served as the lead author and Danielle Dixson, associate professor in University of Delaware's School of Marine Science and Policy in the College of Earth, Ocean and Environment, served as one of the co-authors on the study.

The research was conducted in the field on the shallow reef habitat surrounding the Smithsonian's Carrie Bow Cay Research Station in Belize from January through April of 2018, however the idea and initial data was conducted when Brooker was a post-doctoral researcher in Dixson's lab and continued through his post-doctoral position at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Aggressive fish

Dixson said that longfin damselfish are known to aggressively defend the algal farms that they consider to be their turf, and while they aren't a very big fish, they are tenaciously territorial.

"They will come after you if you go into their territory," said Dixson. "They'll try and bite you, and they'll try to scare everything away. They're really aggressive even though they're not very big. So they create this bubble that they protect, and one of the things that they don't bother chasing off are these mysids."

Mysids are tiny, clear planktonic crustaceans that live together by the hundreds in cloud-like structures. Using the damselfish as a kind of fence or a security system for their area, the mysids that lived within the damselfish farms were attacked less often than mysids that lived outside of the farms.

In return for this protection, the mysids provide a benefit to the damselfish by excreting nutrients onto the algae that the damselfish eat.

The damselfish that hosted the mysids in their communities exhibited a better body condition than those fish who did not host mysids in their communities.

To determine the effect of mysids on longfin damselfish body condition, the researchers looked at the hepatosomatic index (HSI), which can reflect the health or stored energy of a fish's liver and can indicate the relationship between the diet and physical condition of the damselfish. They compared the HSI of the fish who lived with the mysids to those who lived without the mysids and found that those fish living with the mysids had a higher HSI than those who had no mysids on their alga farms.

This could be for several reasons. For instance, within the mysid-associated farms, the algal composition was significantly different than those farms without mysids. Mysid-associated farms contained a significantly higher proportion of brown algae, which increases the structural complexity of damselfish farms and can serve as a catalyst for the growth of palatable turf-algae, the preferred food source for the damselfish.

Dixson said that it was interesting to see this relationship form in a natural environment and could lead to more studies looking at domesticator-domesticate relationships in the wild.

"We know that domesticator-domesticate relationships happen in nature," said Dixson. "But this is the first example we have found of this type of relationship underwater. Maybe this paper could spark other people to examine different commensal pathways or mutualistic behaviors that we see as potentially being something similar to this."

Is odor the secret to bats' sex appeal?

SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Research News

 

IMAGE: TWO RECENT DISCOVERIES SHOWED ODOROUS STRUCTURES IN ADULT MALE CURAC?AOAN LONG-NOSED BATS (LEPTONYCTERIS CURASOAE) AND FRINGE-LIPPED BATS (TRACHOPS CIRRHOSUS), CREATED BY SMEARING BODILY FLUIDS. view more 

CREDIT: MARIANA MUÑOZ-ROMO AND PAUL B. JONES.

When falling in love, humans often pay attention to looks. Many non-human animals also choose a sexual partner based on appearance. Male birds may sport flashy feathers to attract females, lionesses prefer lions with thicker manes and colorful male guppies with large spots attract the most females. But bats are active in the dark. How do they attract mates? Mariana Muñoz-Romo, a senior Latin American postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and National Geographic explorer, pioneers research to understand the role of odors in bat mating behavior.

"Aside from their genitalia, most male and female bat species look identical at first glance. However, a detailed examination during mating season reveals odor-producing glands or structures that are only present in male bats. Long interested in this understudied sexual difference, and working with long-nosed bats, Leptonycteris curasoae, in Venezuela, Muñoz-Romo discovered that males exhibit an odorous dorsal patch in the mating season consisting of a mixture of saliva, feces, urine and/or semen that seems to attract reproductive females.

Later in Panama, Muñoz-Romo investigated the "perfumes" from smelly crusts that male fringe-lipped bats, Trachops cirrhosus, meticulously apply to their forearms during mating season. These studies deepened her interest in odor and its role in bat mating systems, and her conviction that odor may be bats' secret weapon to choosing a mate in the dark."

Studies across a range of mammalian species show that just by smelling a potential mate, an individual can assess its sex, age, sexual receptiveness, health, social status, group membership and identity. This is a whole lot of personal information in one sniff, suggesting that odor may be a more important factor for mate choice and reproduction.

Alongside STRI staff scientist Rachel Page and renowned Boston University bat ecologist, Thomas H. Kunz, Muñoz-Romo combed through all published articles on the topic. Together, they found reports of odor-producing structures in 121 bat species from 15 different bat families. This represents nearly 10% of all known bat species and over 70% of bat families. Odors come from very different parts of bats' bodies, from their heads and mouths to their wings or genitalia. Not only are chemical signals potent and effective for communication in dark conditions, they also do not impede the bats' ability to fly.

"We believe that these key factors--nocturnality and powered flight--combined with scent-producing glands common across mammals, promoted the evolution of a great diversity of the odorous displaying structures we find in bats," Muñoz-Romo said.

Although researchers know very little about these structures so far, the new review of the subject opens up promising new avenues for bat research. There are potentially many more odor-related structures waiting to be discovered.

"Future investigations should consider the importance of the timing of odor production and sexual behavior, because most of these traits are displayed during a specific and usually short time of the year--the mating season," Muñoz-Romo said. "Answering new questions about the nature and development of the odorous traits, as well as understanding which traits female bats prefer, are key to understanding why differences between males and females evolved. We also want to understand the chemistry of bat perfumes--what compounds make them attractive."

In another recent publication, Muñoz-Romo, Page and colleagues suggest that the size of the odorous crusts found on the forearms of male T. cirrhosus allow females to evaluate potential mates during the time of year when they were fertile.

"While differences between males and females (sexual dimorphism) in bats have long been overlooked, new tools are giving us an ever-expanding window into their previously cryptic social lives," Page said. "The patterns revealed here sharpen the focus of investigations going forward, in particular highlighting the importance of seasonally present odor-producing glands and soft tissues. With so many bat species still to be studied, it will be extremely exciting to see what lies on the horizon. We only wish that our dear friend and colleague, Tom Kunz, whose insight inspired this work, had lived to see the publication of this review."

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Members of the research team are affiliated with STRI, Universidad de Los Andes (Venezuela) and Boston University. The work supporting this review was funded by these three institutions at different points in time.

Migratory birds track climate across the year

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - DAVIS

Research News

 

IMAGE: YELLOW WARBLERS ARE FOUND THROUGHOUT NORTH AMERICA AND FLY TO CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA FOR WINTER. RACHAEL BAY, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF EVOLUTION AND ECOLOGY AT UC DAVIS, AND COLLEAGUES HAVE... view more 

CREDIT: JONATHAN EISEN

As climate change takes hold across the Americas, some areas will get wetter, and others will get hotter and drier. A new study of the yellow warbler, a widespread migratory songbird, shows that individuals have the same climatic preferences across their migratory range. The work is published Feb. 17 in Ecology Letters.

"What's amazing is that the birds track similar climates despite the fact that they have migrated thousands of miles," said Rachael Bay, assistant professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. "It seems that individual birds may be adapted to particular climate regimes."

Yellow warblers (Setophagia petechia) breed throughout North America and fly south to Central and South America to spend the winter. A previous study by Bay and colleagues found links between genetic variation and precipitation across North America, suggesting that certain individuals might be adapted to dry conditions while others thrive in wet conditions. In the current study, the authors were able to use genetics to predict where birds captured on their wintering grounds in Central and South America would end up breeding and compare climate patterns in their winter and summer areas.

Individual birds showed preferences for drier or wetter areas, but not for warmer or cooler areas. In other words, birds that bred in relatively dry parts of North America -- such as California's Central Valley -- overwintered in dry parts of South or Central America.

"This is the first demonstration of using individual genetic tracking to link climates across the migratory cycle within a bird species," Bay said.

Impact of climate change

This range of climatic preferences could have consequences for how the birds respond to climate change. Bay speculates that the variation she and her colleagues found might provide the raw material for the species to adapt to changing climate conditions. For example, populations that are adapted to drier conditions might displace those adapted to wetter ones. In fact, Bay and colleagues have already found that population sizes of yellow warblers changed with precipitation across years.

Bay collected data for the study during her postdoctoral research, in collaboration with banding stations and collecting sites in North and South America. Bay and her colleagues are now eager to see whether individuals of other bird species also track climate during migration.

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Additional authors on the paper are Daniel Karp, Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, UC Davis; James Saracco, The Institute for Bird Populations, Petaluma, California; William Anderegg, University of Utah; Luke Frishkoff, University of Texas at Arlington; David Wiedenfeld, American Bird Conservancy, The Plains, Virginia; Thomas Smith, UCLA; and Kristen Ruegg, Colorado State University, Fort Collins.

The work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Geographic, California Energy Commission and First Solar Inc.

#FIGHTFORFREESPEECH

Fugitive Spanish rapper arrested after taking refuge at Catalan university

Spanish rapper Pablo Duro, known professionally as Pablo Hasel, raises a fist on Tuesday as he is arrested by police at Lleida University in Catalonia, where he took refuge in the building after refusing to report to prison. Photo by Paul de la Calle/EPA-EFE

Feb. 16 (UPI) -- Authorities on Tuesday arrested a Spanish rapper who spent a day holed up at a university in Catalonia, purportedly to avoid going to prison over a series of tweets.

Pablo Rivadulla Duro, known by his stage name Pablo Hasel, was told to report to prison by Friday for a conviction involving tweets that officials said glorified terrorism and insulted the Spanish Crown. 

Officials say Duro missed the deadline and took refuge inside Catalonia's Lleida University on Monday, along with dozens of supporters who erected a barricade inside with chairs and desks.

Police entered the building on Tuesday and took him into custody

"Long live the struggle," Duro said upon his exit, according to The Guardian. "We will never stop. They will never beat us."

At issue was the prison sentence given Duro for his conviction on expressing support for terrorist organizations, such as the now defunct Basque group ETA and the Marxist GRAPO.

The conviction also said he was guilty of accusing King Felipe VI, and predecessor King Juan Carlos, of several crimes in a series of tweets.

Spain's highest criminal court ruled in 2018 that Duro's lyrics and comments went beyond the limits of free speech and were expressions of "hatred and attacks on honor."

Duro, 32, was initially sentenced to two years, but an appellate court later cut the term to nine months. The Supreme Court upheld the decision last year.

The case sparked public debate about freedom of expression and the Spanish government has since announced plans to reform the criminal code to eliminate prison for such offenses.

The rapper has avoided prison in the past for writing and sharing songs that praised terrorist groups. He was also sentenced in 2016 for assaulting a journalist and attacking a witness at a trial, though those rulings have both been appealed.

Three people dead after Arctic processing plant collapse
BY CAMERON JENKINS - 02/20/21 

© Getty Images


Three people are dead following the partial collapse of one of Russian mining giant Norilsk Nickel's processing plants, the company said on Saturday.

The processing plant was undergoing maintenance at the time of Saturday's incident, according to Reuters.

The production security of Norilsk Nickel's locations has recently come under public scrutiny after a major fuel leak at its power plant located close to the Russian city of Norilsk and multiple smaller accidents that occurred in 2020, the outlet noted.


Norilsk has since pledged to invest $1.4 billion over five years into building up its industrial safety measures.

“This accident shows that apparently, these efforts are not enough, and we, accepting responsibility for what happened, will tighten requirements for industrial safety and for the people who are responsible for it,” Vladimir Potanin, Nornickel chief executive and the largest shareholder, told Reuters.

According to Nornickel, the plant still continues to operate with partial restrictions. A regional committee opened up a criminal investigation into the incident, Reuters reported.

The company was fined $2 billion earlier this month for damage caused in the fuel spill last year. A regional committee opened up a criminal investigation into the incident.

Anti-coup protesters, police clash in Myanmar, killing two

BY TAL AXELROD - 02/20/21 

© Getty Images

Protesters and police clashed in Myanmar Saturday amid ongoing demonstrations against the military-led coup in the country, resulting in the deaths of two people.

Local media reported that one protester was shot in the head and died at the scene during the protest in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second-largest city. Another demonstrator was shot in the chest and died on the way to the hospital.

Several other protesters were injured at the rally, which police had tried earlier in the day to disperse with tear gas and rubber bullets before using live ammunition on the largely unarmed demonstrators.

Police pushback on the demonstrations ramped up Saturday, with law enforcement using water cannons, tear gas, slingshots and rubber bullets against both demonstrators and workers who were striking at Mandalay’s Yadanabon dock.

The two fatalities Saturday marked the third death in two days after a young woman was shot and killed by police Friday during a rally against the coup.

The mushrooming protests – and the increased police and military response – come after the military junta earlier this month declared a state of emergency and overthrew the civilian-led government. Several lawmakers, including Nobel Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, were rounded up in the coup.

The White House swiftly announced sanctions targeting Myanmar's military officials, their families and some businesses, which were followed by similar moves by the U.K. and Canada.

The U.S. embassy in Myanmar expressed alarm over the Saturday killings, saying that "No one should be harmed for exercising the right to dissent."

"We are deeply troubled by the fatal shooting of protestors in Mandalay, a day after the death of Mya Thwe Thwe Khine in Nay Pyi Taw. The military must stop violence against the people of Myanmar," the embassy tweeted.

Thailand Moves To Legalize Abortion 

but Debate Persists Over Fine Print

The proposal would allow the procedure within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy for any reason.
CT
By Choltanutkun Tun-atiruj
14.1.21




A PROTEST TO DECRIMINALIZE ABORTION HELD OUTSIDE THE THAI PARLIAMENT ON DEC. 23, 2020. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MANUSHYA FOUNDATION

A draft bill to legalize abortion in Thailand within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy has attracted both praise and criticism for breaking new ground in the fight for women’s reproductive rights while not going far enough to decriminalize the procedure.

The proposal, which has the backing of Thailand’s cabinet and gained traction in December, was the subject of several days of hearings this month. It would legalize abortion for any reason in the first 12 weeks, bringing Thailand closer to its neighbors that have long eased restrictions, including Cambodia and Vietnam.

The changes afoot in Thailand have not attracted the same amount of attention as similar landmark legislation in Argentina in December, perhaps because of that country’s links to the Catholic church, whose influence has also held back abortion law reforms in the Philippines.

For now getting an abortion in Thailand is still illegal and can result in a three-year prison term. There are exceptions, including for victims of rape or in cases where physical and mental health are at risk.

Thai lawmakers will debate and vote on the changes in early February, and the bill could become effective as early as the middle of that month. But critics and experts say that under the new law, abortion would still be considered a crime if performed past the 12-week period, and while the jail time would be lower than before, the rules are not progressive enough in a country where teen pregnancy rates remain high.

Planned Parenthood Thailand’s Executive Director Somjet Srikanok suggested that an additional month be added to the legal time frame, citing the lack of proper sex education in the country and the possibility that teenagers may not fully grasp that they are pregnant within the first 12 weeks. Argentina’s legislation permits abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.

Still, Somjet added that it was an important first step and should be considered a “milestone” for Thailand.

“This is the beginning of bigger changes to come in the future,” he told VICE World News.

Poland’s Abortion Ban Is Already Having a Chilling Effect

But several women’s rights groups expressed disappointment in the proposal.

The new bill is “fooling the international community,” said Emilie Palamy Pradichit, the founder of the Manushya Foundation, whose work revolves around empowerment, gender equality and human rights. She said abortion should be fully decriminalized and that the proposal gives an impression of progress while being rooted in old mindsets.

Thararat Panya, a woman’s rights activist who is on a committee that took part in the hearings, said she could accept the new bill but wants jail time removed as a penalty after 12 weeks.

Others argue that without full decriminalization, women may still take dangerous measures to rid themselves of unwanted pregnancies after the legal 12-week period, putting their lives at risk.

These have included trying to throw themselves downstairs, crashing a motorbike on purpose, or using a hanger to attempt the procedure, according to Kobgarn Trakulvaree, an executive director at the Sahathai Foundation, which works with people who get pregnant and may not be ready to become a mother.

“It would be great if a woman could decide for herself whether or not she would like to carry on with her pregnancy and not be forced into it just because safe abortion is not accessible,” Kobkarn said.

Iceland Declares All Religions Are Mental Disorders

JANUARY 21, 2020 BY ANDREW HALL

Iceland officially states religious faith is delusional and harmful.

*Reykyavik, Iceland – This small island country in the North Atlantic is home to many controversies. The country’s parliament voted in 2017 to place mental health warnings on all Bibles. In that same year, the nation took another secular step forward by banning American televangelists. Iceland is now declaring all religions to be psychological disorders.

The Alþingi (the nation’s parliament) voted overwhelmingly in favor of the statute 60-3. The three politicians who voted against the decree reportedly believed the measure didn’t go far enough. “We don’t want to end up like the United States or Saudi Arabia, do we?” one anonymous representative mused.

What Is A Psychological Disorder?

Mental illness and psychological disorders are different terms that oftentimes are explaining the same malady. Mental health professionals sometimes can’t agree on the best way to describe what they are. Some believe mental illness doesn’t exist at all. For example, the psychoanalyst Thomas Szasz believed society uses psychiatry and psychology as a way to control the population. However, large academic institutions basically agree on an operational definition of what mental illness/psychological disorders are.

The American Psychiatric Association defines mental illness as:


Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses are associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work or family activities.


The American Psychological Association (APA) Dictionary of Psychology defines a mental disorder as:


any condition characterized by cognitive and emotional disturbances, abnormal behaviors, impaired functioning, or any combination of these. Such disorders cannot be accounted for solely by environmental circumstances and may involve physiological, genetic, chemical, social, and other factors.

The Mayo Clinic states what mental illness is in a similar way:


Mental illness, also called mental health disorders, refers to a wide range of mental health conditions — disorders that affect your mood, thinking and behavior. Examples of mental illness include depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, eating disorders and addictive behaviors.
Many people have mental health concerns from time to time. But a mental health concern becomes a mental illness when ongoing signs and symptoms cause frequent stress and affect your ability to function.

Iceland Says, “D’uh.”

Iceland’s Prime Minister Andrew Kanard not only immediately signed the decree but is giving a full-throated defense of why religion is a psychological disorder:

A cursory look at any of the common definitions of mental illness reveals that religion is, in fact, the most common malady of them all. Look at any recent convert. It’s plain to friends and family the poor soul in question is suffering from emotional disturbances and impaired functioning.

Have you been to the Creation Museum in the United States? If that place isn’t a hot bed for disordered thinking common to those inflicted with schitzophrenia, I don’t know what is.

Iceland proudly stated its secular values in this new video promoting tourism.


President Trump has yet to comment on this newest assault on American values.

In related news, Sweden bans the religious indoctrination of children.


*For a list of Iceland’s restrictions on religion, click here.