Tag Archives: WHO

The Desire To Eat Exotic Wildlife

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animals in chinese wet market.jpg

The Desire To Eat  Exotic Wildlife

“The Beijing-backed expansion of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in many African countries risks fueling the illegal wildlife trade and threatens the future of some of the world’s most endangered species, a new report has warned. The growth of the TCM market, coupled with the perception of Africa as a potential source of TCM ingredients, is a ‘prescription for disaster for some endangered animal species, such as leopards, pangolins and rhinos,’ the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which investigates wildlife and environmental crime, said in the report published on Wednesday. China has been promoting traditional medicine, which dates back more than 2,500 years, alongside its flagship Belt and Road Initiative, which is developing road, rail and other major infrastructure projects across Africa. While most treatments are plant-based, demand from the industry has been blamed for pushing animals, including pangolins and rhinos, to the brink of extinction. ‘Ultimately, the unfettered growth of TCM poses a serious threat to the biodiversity found in many African countries, all in the name of short-term profit,’ EIA Wildlife Campaigner Ceres Kam said in a statement. ‘Any utilisation of threatened species in TCM could potentially stimulate further demand, incentivise wildlife crime and ultimately lead to overexploitation.’ The report, Lethal Remedy: How the promotion of some traditional Chinese medicine in Africa poses a major threat to endangered wildlife, said TCM products had never been more accessible in Africa, with TCM companies and clinics established in countries across the continent and Beijing stepping up promotional activities in line with the COVID-19 pandemic.

While China has sought to crack down on rare species in traditional medicine, there are still some who prescribe such remedies as aphrodisiacs or to treat illnesses from cancer to skin conditions. The status of a ban on the use of rhino horn and tiger parts imposed in 1993 and suddenly lifted in 2018 before the government made an apparent u-turn, remains uncertain. ‘We understand that traditional medicine is integral to many cultures and plays an important role in healthcare in Africa and beyond,’ Kam said. ‘Our very real concern is that such a huge expansion of TCM in Africa, as is happening under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, will have the knock-on effect of drastically increasing demand for treatments containing wildlife and, in turn, cause more species to become threatened or extinct.’ With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing, healthcare, including strengthening the ties between TCM and traditional African medicine, is likely to be a key issue at the forthcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which is due to start in Senegal later [in November]. The EIA noted that South Africa, Cameroon, Tanzania and Togo were among African countries that had already signed agreements with China to develop TCM while South Africa and Namibia had recognized TCM as of their public health systems [sic]. China replaced the United States as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009, and total trade topping $200 billion in 2020, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.” (Al Jazeera, November 10, 2021)

“According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases that spread to humans originate in animals. The SARS virus, for example, which killed 800 people between 2002 and 2004, is thought to have started in bats before spreading to civet cats at a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Foshan. In April, after its investigative team in China concluded a seafood market in Wuhan was the most likely route by which COVID-19 first jumped to humans, WHO took the unprecedented move of urging countries to pause the sale of captured wild mammals at wet markets as an emergency measure. Animal welfare groups in Asia have been making the same demands for years, saying the unsanitary and cruel conditions in which wild and domestic animals are kept at wet markets are the perfect breeding ground for zoonotic diseases. Several Asian countries have passed new laws to curb the sale of ‘bush meat’ and limit activity at wet markets during the pandemic. But nearly all attempts to stamp out the trade have been hamstrung by the continuing popularity of bush meat among some people in Asia, the sector’s vast economic value and a lack of enforcement. Stopping the trade ‘will be a challenging exercise,’ said Li Shuo, global policy adviser for Greenpeace in China.

Last July, a presidential decree was issued in Vietnam suspending all wildlife imports and introducing much stiffer penalties for violators, including up to 15 years in prison. But a survey last month by PanNature, an NGO, found no positive changes in the trade of wildlife products had occurred at the local level in Vietnam. Wet markets in the Mekong Delta and other parts of the country were found to still be selling turtles, birds and endangered wildlife species. In Indonesia, the site of Asia’s worst COVID-19 outbreak with more than 2.5 million cases and at least 67,000 deaths, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry has been trying to convince local officials to close wildlife markets around the country since the start of the pandemic. Officials in the city of Solo in Central Java were among those who took note, ordering the culling of hundreds of bats at Depok, one of the country’s largest bird, dog and wildlife markets. But the victory proved short lived. ‘They brutally exterminated hundreds of bats when COVID-19 first hit and stopped selling them,’ said Lola Webber, coalition coordinator at the Dog Meat-Free Indonesia Coalition. ‘But from what I’ve heard from my sources, it’s now business as usual.’ Marison Guciano, founder of Flight, an NGO protecting Indonesian birdlife, confirms Webber’s claim. ‘I was there one week ago and they are still openly selling bats as well as snakes, rabbits, turtles, ferrets, beavers, cats, dogs, hamsters, hedgehogs, parrots, owls, crows and eagles.’ The same scenario is playing out at wet markets across Indonesia. To mark World Zoonoses Day last week, animal welfare group Four Paws released photos taken in June showing hundreds of bats, rats, dogs, snakes, birds and other animals for sale at three different markets in Northern Sulawesi Province 2,000km (1,243 miles) northeast of Solo.

In April and May of last year, a few months after the pandemic began, global animal rights group PETA began visiting wet markets known to sell wildlife in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia and China. ‘We expected new rules and regulations to have been put in place but we saw it was business as usual, with all different species in filthy cages, some alive, some dead, sometimes in the same cages,’ says PETA’s Asia spokesman Nirali Shah. ‘These environments are extremely frightening and stressful for the animals, which weakens their immune system and makes them more vulnerable to diseases that can jump across species and then to humans. At some markets, we saw animals taken from cages, killed on countertops streaked with blood from other species and workers not wearing gloves, no hygiene at all. [Isn’t diversity great?]This combination of risky factors is like a ticking time bomb waiting for a new pandemic to begin,’ she says. In China, where a total ban on the trade and consumption of wildlife was issued in February last year as the coronavirus surged in Wuhan, the situation has improved but only marginally, according to Shah. ‘You can no longer see exotic wildlife for sale openly at wet markets in China. But they still sell all kinds of birds in unsanitary conditions. And in a lot of those markets we found that if you want a certain animal, no matter what it is, vendors can get it for you despite the ban.’ This is not the first time China has attempted to end the bushmeat trade. In 2002, wildlife markets were closed because of SARS but reopened later because of economic pressure. In 2016, the Chinese Academy of Engineers valued the country’s wildlife industry at $76-billion, with bush meat accounting for $19-billion of business activity each year and employing 6.3 million people in China. In Malaysia, captured wildlife and bushmeat was sometimes sold at wet markets before the pandemic. But it was more commonly available through direct sales and restaurants.

 In August of last year, now-retired Inspector General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador gave district police chiefs one month to ensure their areas were free of illegal restaurants selling bushmeat. The wildlife department was instructed to assist police. ‘Don’t tell me with 300 to 500 personnel in an area, the existence of restaurants and illegal premises selling exotic animals can’t be detected?’ Abdul Hamid said at the time. A series of high-profile wild meat seizures followed at markets, restaurants and private homes. Elizabeth John, the Kuala Lumpur-based spokesperson for TRAFFIC, an NGO fighting the illegal trade in wildlife, says raids are a signal of both success and failure. ‘In forming this joint task force between police and the wildlife officials, it’s definitely a move in the right direction,’ she said. ‘But the fact that we have seen seizures continue even during the pandemic shows that warnings have not changed attitudes among consumers. Despite the risks it poses, the desire to eat wildlife is still out there.’” (Al Jazeera, July 13, 2021) So, is it a “desire to eat wildlife” or “ancient Chinese medicine?” [Canadian Immigration Hotline, January/February, 2023]

Who is Dr. Theresa Tam?

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Who is Dr. Theresa Tam?

by Kidist Paulos Asrat

 
Armed for Work: Dr. Theresa Tam arrives at meeting determined to impose Chinese-style health measures upon Canadians.


The official line is that she is the “Chief Public Health Officer” of Canada. With this position, she has become, in effect, the Canadian official behind the government’s COVID-19 containment strategy. But who is Theresa Tam, really?  How did she acquire such a powerful position, with the ability to close down a whole nation based on such inconsequential statistics of 3-4% cases, which even the 2018 flu virus, with double the cases, wasn’t able to do?

Teresa Tam Locks Down Canada


Tam appears daily in the living room of Canadians reporting on the state of the virus on various television stations with her government colleagues, Minister of Health Patty Hajdu and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, telling Canadians to “practice physical distancing” to “fight” this “pandemic.”

Initially, Tam questioned the public health risks of the virus:

Right now, the cases are in China. Very few are exported. Yes, there’s human-to-human transmission, but those are generally for close contacts…for the general public…the risk is low in Canada.

But all this changed by late March, and Tam told Canadians in her April 3 television update:

There are now 11, 747 cases of COVID-19, including 152 deaths. Again this represents infections from previous exposures, and not what is happening right now. So our urge is that even if you’re not hearing about cases in your community, it doesn’t mean that there is no risk of exposure, and we must all consider that anyone could be infected and keep our two meter distance as the safest approach. [Tam’s full presentation is available here.]

Her message now is that anyone, and everyone, could be infected. This was her rationale for assisting in the nation-wide emergency alert to Canadians that they “Stay Home; Restez a la Maison.”

“So, of course, we owe it to everyone to not put Canadians at risk, and to do all we can to stop the spread of COVID-19 right now,” says Tam of her decision. Her prescription is to “practice social distancing, self-isolation, hand hygiene.” Her recommendations have indeed evolved into simplistic symbols, the images for which bear a strong resemblance to public health information on avoiding the flu, which are presented every year for the virus which, at its most lethal, killed 8,500 people in 2018. And the country has never shut down for fear of the flu.


The only item missing on the Corona-Checklist is “Get Vaccinated.” So far.


And from this information, a lockdown of dutiful, and guilt-ridden, Canadians became the reality. Across the country, dutiful citizens closed their shops, left jobs, shuttered schools and daycare centres, and stayed home, waiting for Tam’s daily updates, to urge them to participate in the next battle tactic against their invisible enemy, who could be lurking anywhere.

And they all obliged. Tam’s draconian “Stay Home/ Restez a la Maison” ordinance could be the beginning of much stricter enforcements to come, based on her premise that “anyone could be infected,” which means that we could all be infected.

Mississauga’s (Ontario) City Centre, with blocked off, empty parking lots, which are normally filled to capacity


As the Chief Health Officer in Canada, Tam provides the data, the analyses, and the recommendations on health care and enforcement to the government. Prime Minister Trudeau, clearly following the advice of his Chief Public Health Officer, officially stated in March 29 during his daily update that:

There are no plans to call in Canada’s military to enforce quarantine or self-isolation measures amid COVID-19.

Trudeau continues, with a hint of what might come for those who don’t follow these regulations:

The Canadian Armed Forces are there to help when Canada is in need…Right now we have not received any specific requests and there are no plans underway to have the army intervene.


“All Canadians must act now to reduce the spread,” orders Tam in her pre-taped video, which has the air of an infomercial, appearing periodically on the CBC and CTV. And her emphatic “now” has a clear subtext that there are serious consequences for those who don’t help to “reduce the spread” of this “serious public health threat.”

So here we are, in the midst of the “global health crisis.”

So Who is Dr Theresa Tam?


Who is this woman now in charge of providing the “chief” medical information concerning Canada’s lockdown? Where did she come from? There is very little available on her biography, very little personal (and even professional) information on Tam. Somewhere there was a post that she was 55 years old, but I couldn’t find:

  • Her date of birth
  • Her place of birth (other than “raised in Hong Kong”)
  • The dates of her various degrees – I even went into the UBC and UA websites looking for alumni profiles.
  • There are no listings of her theses and dissertation.

She is listed having expertise in immunization, infectious disease, emergency preparedness and global health security. Something more specific, and odd, is: “she is a graduate of the The Canadian Field Epidemiology Program” which looks like an internship or upgrades for employees in the Public Health Agency of Canada.
 
But I couldn’t find her medical school records to find her year of graduation, or any other post-grad qualifications.
 
I am usually pretty good at finding out some of this information, but to draw a blank on almost all the key components that make up a biographical profile is very strange.


Wikipedia states her birth place as Hong Kong, that she grew up in Britain, obtaining her medical degree in the University of Nottingham, with further studies at the University of Alberta for her residency, and the University of British Columbia under a fellowship.

A page on the Government of Canada website states that she is an expert in “immunization, infectious disease, and global health security.”

The World Health Organization’s international website lists her as “an international expert on a number of World Health Organization committees” including SARS, pandemic influenza and polio eradication.

Her associations with the World Health Organization (WHO), I believe, has brought her in contact with Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Eritrean Director General of WHO, who was key in starting the misinformation about the global coronavirus panic. Ghebreyesus downplayed the virus’ outbreak in Wuhan, China, defending China’s President Xi’s misinformation on the severity of the virus, and refusing to support President Trump’s travel bans and restrictions of flights from China.

Tedros Gebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization, (L) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People, on January 28, 2020 in Beijing. China Politics


Tam has close links with the WHO as a consultant. I believe she personally knows Tedros Gebreyesus (the Eritrean Director General of WHO), who was key in starting the misinformation about the global panic. She is a feminist and a socialist, as Tedros is also a life-long Marxist, starting from his political positions in the various Ethiopian Marxist governments from the 1980s and the 2000s.

She has politicized her role in Canadians’ health and well-being. She declares, following the socialist mandates of the WHO, which is clearly her own political stance:

A healthy Canada requires us to level the [social] playing field.

And she was present at a conference in Vancouver in 2019 titled “Women Deliver,” presented by an organization which aims to indoctrinate young women, Canadian alike, with feminism, by advancing “Gender Equality and the health, rights and well-being of girls and women everywhere.”

She is also involved in the WHO’s various vaccinations (immunization) projects, working also under three of WHO’s emergency committees: Ebola, MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) and poliovirus.

We learn from Carolyn Brown’s article, “WHO veteran heads up Canadian public health“, that, according to Tam, “emergency committee members do not represent their countries.” Brown explains that Tam “was selected for her background in field epidemiology, travel health, emergency medicine and pandemic preparedness.”

 
Tam is an advocate for vaccinations, pressing for the coronavirus vaccine, which requires $CAN 192 million for its development, despite the very low fatal cases from the virus, with the majority of those affected resuming full recovery. This puts her as an expert on vaccine preparation, which has been the topic of her latest updates on the conronavirus fight. But here is a report on the risks of a coronavirus vaccine, which Tam has not presented in any of her reports.

Tam has worked with other health emergencies before, including the Ebola outbreak, SARS and the H1N1 influenza, which helped her prepare her COVID-19 health strategy. Three years ago, discussing the SARS epidemic, Tam stated that her job would be all about “harnessing the efforts of the many to protect and promote the health of all Canadians, including the most vulnerable in our society.”

When she said those words nearly three years ago, Tam probably didn’t imagine she would be ordering Canadians not to leave the country and to socially distance themselves en masse.

Recently, the Canadian government made donations to China of masks, gloves, and protective gear, while at the same time Canada was beginning to experience shortages of these materials. The donation and the shortages were discussed in the Senate. I believe it is the Chinese Tam who was behind all this.

Opposition Conservative leader Andrew Scheer tweeted on March 26 regarding these “donations”

Outrageous. Drs across the country are facing urgent shortages of critical supplies. PM must explain why he sent 50,118 face shields, 1,101 masks, 1,820 goggles, 36,425 coveralls, 200,000 nitrile gloves and 3,000 aprons from Canada’s own gov’t reserves oversees in Feb.


The Media Says “A Star is Born”


This uncharismatic woman with the monotonous voice is being touted as “a new star is born” who “offer[s] clarity in the age of the coronavirus.”

“A Star is Born”: Emergency Fundraising T-Shirt (Dr. Theresa Tam), C$45.00


Tam downplays the China origins of the virus, attempting to silence those who hold views that link the virus to China, and Chinese in Canada, by warning Canadians to stop stigmatizing the Chinese in Canada. Her accusations of racist acts towards Chinese in Canada are largely anecdotal, which is strange as she is supposed to be an expert on epidemiology and data analysis,

Tam writes on her twitter page:

These actions create a divide of us versus them…Canada is a country built on the deep-rooted values of respect, diversity and inclusion.

I should add that there is a revealing item from CPAC on face masks which brings up Tam’s own reference to her Chinese background, and where I believe she sends subtle messages of the kind of draconian, perpetual, “imprisonment” of people behind masks, as she says people in China have become accustomed to.

It is a long video on an April 3 update, but the points she makes are at 36:21 – 36.26 (I’ve transcribed them):

I think we’re all learning, through, I think particularly Western societies that are not used to wearing masks in public, are sort of learning this as we are going along, and so, some of this information I think is in real time, undergoing evolution.

I wonder if she is a lesbian? Her whole demeanor, sometimes charming, at others draconian, and also the weird all-black legging and jacket she wore in one of her photos (I’ve put in the article), her unkempt hair, unlike Hajdu and Freedland who attempt at some femininity, suggests this.
 
All in all, Canada’s health is being overseen by a Chinese women we know very little about, with a very strange personality.

***

Kidist Paulos Asrat has a website, Reclaiming Beauty.