March 14, 2014 - H5N1 bit.ly/1fzqVHp Haiti: What the latest phony cholera numbers mean by Crawford Kilian A whole months worth of cholera statistics has been uploaded to the documentation page of MSPP, Haitis Department of Public Health and Population. But the numbers appear to be worthless, and so therefore are MSPP, PAHO, and a host of other agencies supposedly helping Haiti. Back on February 7, I reported 8,547 cholera deaths as of February 2, out of a total of 698,838 cases. Now MSPP would have us believe that cholera deaths as of March 10 have actually fallen by one, to 8,546 out of 700,541 cases. This wouldnt be the first time that this has happened, just as MSPP has sometimes slipped some mysterious additional fatalities into the cumulative totals after a week or two without reporting at all. And in the three years since October 2010, MSPP has never explained its numbers or its problems in acquiring them, apart from reporting on departments that didnt report on a particular day. And while its been a long time since Ive actually believed that MSPP numbers described the real situation, they are all weve had go on. Even the mainstream media, to the extent they notice Haitis cholera at all, rely on MSPPs statistics. Even a rudimentary journalistic investigation could at least identify why MSPP pulls its cholera numbers out of the air. Just walking into some of the MSPP offices in the departments would probably give them a sense of how ineffective the local reporting is. But no one does, at least since Timothy D. Schwartz did before cholera; he reported on what he found in his 2010 book Travesty in Haiti. And you would think that the Pan American Health Organization could find out even more. But PAHO is tainted by its association with the UN and its long-denied responsibility for importing cholera into Haiti in the first place. Its not about to make things worse by pointing out MSPPs failings. The World Health Organization declared ethical bankruptcy and ran for cover almost on the same afternoon that Jonathan Katz found the liquid shit dripping out of the Nepalis leaky pipes into the river. Every government and international agency with any involvement in Haiti has either denied responsibility or maintained a prudent silence. No mainstream media have followed up on the story, and I dont expect them to follow up now; theyre content with following the lawsuits against the UN, and have no interest in the political cesspool those suits are really about. With these patently false March 10 cholera numbers, Haiti has returned to the background noise, just as cholera itself has settled into Haitis background misery along with diarrhea, rape, malnutrition and all the other ways that poor, black, strategically unimportant people suffer there. When I saw this latest MSPP report, I seriously thought about just not paying attention to Haiti any more. But the responsible health authorities have been doing that for years, and I at least have the freedom of not having to make a living by ignoring Haiti. So Ill continue posting MSPPs numbers, however fanciful they may be, and however little they describe the awful reality they try to conceal. #UN #PAHO #MSPP #Cholera #Haiti
Posted on: Sat, 15 Mar 2014 18:21:23 +0000
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