Weekly Review

By Roger D. Hodge

Thai health officials confirmed that avian flu has probably begun to spread from person to person. Influenza experts were begging drug companies to begin manufacturing enough vaccine to prevent a pandemic but the companies were complaining that production is too expensive and that they will lose money if a pandemic does not occur. Patent issues were also cited.¹ Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, began notifying more than 500 patients that they might have been exposed to sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease because of inadequate sterilization procedures.² Tony Blair underwent heart surgery, and³ Merck & Co. withdrew its arthritis drug Vioxx because it apparently doubles the risk of heart attack.⁴ The Pope beatified Karl I, the last emperor of Austria, an alcoholic adulterer who performed a miracle and used poison gas during World War I; the miracle allegedly occured in 1960, when a Polish nun prayed to Karl and was cured of sores and varicose veins.⁵ A Muslim schoolgirl in France shaved her head to protest the ban on Islamic head scarves, and eight⁶ students in Georgia were poisoned by a cookie.⁷ Twenty-six people were killed by separatist bombs in the Indian state of Nagaland.⁸

Senator John Kerry defeated President George W. Bush in their first debate. Bush was criticized by experts for giving simplistic answers, smirking, slouching, and repeating himself. He said eleven times that his job is "hard work," and referring to Missy Johnson, whose husband was killed in Iraq, the president said that "it's hard work to try to love her as best I can."⁹ Squirrel season opened in Louisiana.¹⁰ In Baghdad, suicide bombs killed dozens of children who were gathering to receive candy from U.S. soldiers.¹¹ Iraqi schoolchildren were still waiting to start school, which has remained closed because of the ongoing civil war.¹² Condoleezza Rice was still trying to use the discredited story of Iraq's aluminum tubes to justify the invasion of Iraq.¹³ The oxygen generator failed on the international space station, and the¹⁴ Army lowered its standards in an attempt to attract more recruits.¹⁵ Election officials across the country were reporting record numbers of new registrations, and Republican state officials in Ohio and Florida were doing their best to invalidate them on technicalities.¹⁶ A federal judge ordered the government to notify Indian land owners before it sells their property; the ruling was part of a lawsuit in which Indians claim that the U.S. government has cheated them out of $137 billion in royalties from the use of their lands.¹⁷ Fistfights broke out among Christians from different sects at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which is said to be the site of Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified, and the site of his tomb. "There was a lot of hitting going on," said a witness. "Police were hit, monks were hit, there were people with bloodied faces."¹⁸ There was more rioting in Haiti.¹⁹ A suicide bomber killed 23 people at a Shiite mosque in Sialkot, Pakistan.²⁰ Scientists were waiting for Mount St. Helens to blow up.²¹

A federal judge struck down a provision of the USA Patriot Act that permitted the FBI to carry out secret searches of Internet and telephone records but prevented companies from revealing that the searches had taken place. John Ashcroft said that the act is "completely consistent with the United States Constitution."²² The FBI was having a hard time translating all its intercepted terrorism-related wiretap conversations.²³ A new homeland security blimp was seen flying around in Washington, D.C., and the House of Representatives voted to overturn Washington's 27-year-old ban on handguns.²⁴ Researchers were trying to make buckyballs, the carbon nanoparticles that kill water fleas and damage fish brains, safer.²⁵ Chinese researchers unveiled a microscopic swimming robot.²⁶ Cases of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) were on the rise.²⁷ Spain's cabinet approved a measure legalizing gay marriage.²⁸ Richard Avedon died.²⁹ A new study suggested that vitamin supplements could increase the risk of dying from cancer.³⁰ Russia's cabinet approved the Kyoto Protocol, and³¹ Representative Tom DeLay was "admonished" by the House ethics committee for trying to bribe a colleague to change his vote on a bill.³² UNICEF warned that sex slavery is booming in south Asia, and a³³ penis snatcher was beaten to death in Nigeria.³⁴