Did you know there's a CQ Global Researcher? Same great reporting as the CQ Researcher, but with an international perspective. The May issue (out next week) will be "The Future of the Middle East." Here's the introduction by Irwin Arieff.
Three major events reshaped the political landscape of the Middle East during a seven-week period, beginning in late 2008. Israel launched a devastating 22-day assault on Gaza to halt Palestinian rocket fire, Israeli parliamentary elections displayed growing disenchantment with the peace process and Barack Obama moved into the White House promising to try to help resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict after more than six decades of violence. Obama's pledge raised hopes in some quarters for a revival of peace talks — in limbo since the Gaza war began. But Israel's political shift to the right and deep, continuing Palestinian divisions raise the prospect of continued stalemate. Years of talks and several interim agreements have failed to encourage either side that they can eventually get what they want. Israelis, pursuing security, remain the target of militant attacks, while Palestinians — seeking a state of their own — remain under effective Israeli control.
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CQ Global Researcher
Recurrences of Flu in History from the CQ Researcher Archive
The following is an excerpt from the CQ Researcher Archives report on "Influenza Control", September 24, 1976. In the fall of 1976, the federal government sponsored a National Influenza Immunization Program that at the time was the most ambitious such effort in history. It was the first time a nation's government attempted to vaccinate virtually an entire population against a potential influenza epidemic.
Influenza apparently has plagued humankind throughout history, A flu-like epidemic swept through the Athenian army in 412 B.C., and Hippocrates described another epidemic in the same century that was probably influenza. The name influenza was coined by two Italian historians, Domenico and Pietro Buoninsegni, in 1580. They believed that fevers, sore throats, soreness and nausea were attributable to un influenza—an influence—of the stars. The word influenza was introduced to the English language in the mid-1700s.
For many years influenza was thought to be passed along by the winds. It was not until the late 19th century that this idea was dispelled. In 1892 Richard Pfeiffer identified the influenza bacillus, a tiny organism of varied forms that lives on certain substances in blood. For a time, this bacillus was thought to be the causative agent of influenza. But that notion was proved wrong during the period of intensive research and experimentation that followed the worst outbreak of influenza in world history, in 1918.
Devastating Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19
The great influenza pandemic that swept the world in 1918–19 may have been the most virulent outbreak of disease in history, at least in terms of the swiftness of its devastation. It killed more than 20 million persons around the world, including some 550,-000 in the United States—all within two years. [1] “Mathematically, had the epidemic continued its rate of acceleration, humanity would have been eradicated in a matter of months,” Joseph E. Persico wrote in American Heritage. [2] The pandemic killed about one out of every 100 people living in the world at that time. Influenza deaths outnumbered World War I fatalities by more than two to one.
The disease was known as the “Spanish flu” or the “Spanish lady” in the United States because, although waves of it swept many European countries during the final year of World War I, only in neutral, uncensored Spain did the newspapers report the full extent of the epidemic. No one knows for sure where the flu originated. Some scientists believe it may have started independently in Europe and Asia, or that Chinese workers carried it to Europe. Others say the best evidence points to the United States. At Ft. Riley, Kan., in March 1918, hundreds of soldiers came down with flu after a severe dust storm had whipped up clouds of dirt and smoke from burning piles of manure. Many of the soliders later sailed for France, and the French and British armies soon were hit by influenza outbreaks. Crowded military camps, unsanitary wartime conditions and constant troop movements contributed to the spread of the disease.
The German army was soon stricken, as were inhabitants of such faraway places as India, Japan, Chile, Greenland, Alaska and Africa. Among the world leaders who fell ill were British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, King George V, French Premier Georges Clemenceau, German Premier Prince Max of Baden, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Gen. John J. Pershing and Navy Assistant Secretary Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt nearly died, and Clemenceau lost a son to the flu. Densely populated cities naturally were centers of contagion, but people in remote farmhouses, lumber camps and sheepherders' cabins also were afflicted.
There were three “waves” of the pandemic in the United States: it appeared in the spring of 1918, peaked in the early fall, and reappeared in the spring of 1919. The disease completely disrupted everyday life throughout the nation. Doctors were virtually helpless in treating the illness, and were forced to fall back on the most rudimentary public-health measures. In Washington, D.C., schools, theaters and bars were closed, public gatherings were prohibited, and federal employees went on staggered work shifts. In Boston, the stock exchange was open only half a day, sports events were canceled, and “churchless” Sundays were declared. In New York City, huge signs warned that public coughing or sneezing without a handkerchief was unlawful and punishable by fines or jail sentences. San Francisco was one of many cities that required people to wear face masks in public. Around the country hospitals overflowed, health agencies ran short of supplies and personnel, and coffins became scarce.
Efforts to Develop a Vaccine Against Flu
The influenza struck abruptly, without warning. One minute a person would feel fine and the next minute he or she would be weak and helpless. Headache, chills, fever, sore throat, and leg or back pains were among the early symptoms. Severe coughing and gasping for breath followed, with accompanying symptoms of swollen ankles, bloody urine and eye-muscle paralysis in some people. The lungs filled with a dense fluid, and showed signs of hemorrhaging, abscessing and swelling; sometimes they collapsed. Since the capillaries could not carry oxygen to the bloodstream, the actual cause of death was asphyxiation. Some patients succumbed to pneumonia after being weakened by the flu. But those who did not die were usually up and around within a week. Strangely, the disease hit the young and strong harder than the old or weak.
For the medical profession, the 1918–19 pandemic was a frustrating and sobering experience. That generation of physicians had developed the germ theory of disease and had found vaccines or other means of preventing typhoid fever, diphtheria, tetanus, meningitis, tuberculosis, malaria and yellow fever. But influenza was unaffected by known medications. No one knew what caused it, how it traveled or why it killed people. Various theories attributed the disease to chemical warfare gases, cosmic rays, coal dust, atmospheric stagnation, cats, dogs, fleas and dirty dishwater.
In September 1918, at the National Swine Breeders' show in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, a prophetic discovery was made—but few people realized it at the time. Many hogs at the show had been stricken by a debilitating disease, and Dr. J. S. Koen, a hog cholera inspector from the Bureau of Animal Husbandry, noted a similarity to human influenza. In his report to Washington, Koen called the sickness “hog flu,” but it was years before researchers found a connection between the human and animal illnesses.
The American virologist Richard E. Shope, who studied swine flu extensively, was the first to demonstrate, in 1931, that it was caused by a virus in conjunction with influenza bacteria. In 1933 influenza virus, type A, first was isolated by three British scientists, and in 1936 one of them, Patrick Laidlaw, suggested that swine flu was the cause of the 1918–19 pandemic. Shope supported Laidlaw's contention, and demonstrated that swine flu can survive in a latent form in hog worm parasites and can erupt suddenly for various reasons. During the 1930s, several scientists found that influenza viruses could be transmitted from humans to animals, and that animals infected with the virus developed an immunity to the disease. This discovery led to the development of flu vaccines.
In 1943, a U.S. Army commission on influenza conducted experiments with influenza virus vaccines grown on chick embryos in eggs. A test group of 6,250 vaccinated men experienced only one-fourth as much illness from type A influenza as a similar group of unvaccinated men. In 1945 the entire U.S. Army was vaccinated, and during a type B influenza epidemic that winter only 1 per cent of all the soldiers fell ill, compared to 10–13 per cent of the unvaccinated population.
Outbreaks of the Disease in Recent Years
The most severe influenza outbreak in recent years was the Asian flu of 1957–58. There were 45 million cases of Asian flu in the United States during the fall of 1957 alone, according to HEW estimates, and 70,000 persons died. From its point of origin in central China in February 1957, the Asian flu spread quickly to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and other nearby countries. By summer there were reports of influenza in Europe, the Middle East and the United States.
The West Coast was hit first in this country, followed by the South and then the East. In the fall the epidemic spread to the central and northern states, reaching its peak in late October. A second wave peaked in February 1958, but the number of cases was far fewer by then. Intensive efforts were made to prepare for the epidemic, through large-scale production of vaccines and nationwide cooperation of many agencies. A considerable amount of vaccine was available just before the fall outbreak and its usage is believed to have prevented much illness and death.
A decade later, there was a pandemic of the so-called Hong Kong flu, which started in that city in July 1968. It spread to the Far East, India and Australia by the early fall, and then to the United States. There were major outbreaks nationwide in the fall and winter of 1968–69, starting in Puerto Rico and Alaska in late September. California reported the first outbreak in the continental United States in late October, and large numbers of cases appeared in the eastern states in mid-November. By Christmas, the Hong Kong flu epidemic had touched all 50 states. The disease spread so swiftly that vaccination efforts were largely ineffectual. About 50 million cases were reported, 33,000 persons died, and the estimated cost to the nation was $3.8-billion in medical bills, sick leave and related costs.
[1] The Plague of Justinian, which began in 542 A.D., may have claimed 100 million lives, but it lasted for 50 years. The bubonic plague, or Black Death, of the 14th century, killed more than 60 million over a period of several years.
[2] “The Great Swine Flu Epidemic of 1918,” American Heritage, June 1976, p. 84.
To view the entire report, login to CQ Researcher plus Archives [subscription required]. The 1976 article is not currently available for individual sale, but you may be interested in a related report from 2006 on "Avian Flu"
Judicial Elections
Are races for judgeships bad for justice?
By Kenneth Jost, April 24, 2009
The United States is the only country in the world that requires most judges to face popular elections to gain or hold office. Today, as in the past, most judicial elections attract little attention. Over the past three decades, however, political parties and interest groups have spent millions of dollars on targeted races for state supreme courts in order to change the tribunals' political or ideological composition. 
Business groups succeeded in recent elections in West Virginia and Wisconsin in backing candidates who defeated incumbent justices and tilted the courts toward business interests. Defenders of judicial elections say they help make sure courts are accountable and responsive to the public. Critics say the special-interest funding and misleading campaign tactics of many judicial campaigns threaten the integrity of the justice system. Proposals for change, however, are making little headway. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether to require judges to bow out of cases involving major campaign supporters.
The issues:
- Should states take new steps to control campaign contributions or spending in judicial elections?
- Should states adopt stricter rules for judges to recuse themselves?
- Should states with judicial elections modify their rules for selecting judges?
Judicial Elections: Overview from the April 24, 2009 CQ Researcher Report
By Kenneth Jost Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is well known not only at home but also across the country as an advocate for judicial independence. But when Abrahamson learned she would face an opponent for reelection to a fourth 10-year term, she pulled out all the political stops. The 75-year-old Abrahamson hired a veteran political operative to head her campaign, collected endorsements from across the political spectrum and raised more than $1.3 million. “She came into the race prepared,” says Charles Franklin, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Abrahamson had reason to take seriously the challenge by Randy Koschnick, an outspokenly conservative circuit court judge in Milwaukee. Just a year earlier, a conservative challenger had knocked off one of Abrahamson’s fellow liberals on the bench with a hard-hitting, multimillion-dollar campaign financed in part by the state’s business lobby. Michael J. Gableman’s election as justice in April 2008 gave conservatives a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin court. One year later, however, Abrahamson’s political efforts paid off on April 7 with a 59 percent to 41 percent victory over Koschnick. “I ran a good race and kept it clean,” Abrahamson told Milwaukee’s Journal Sentinel afterward. But she added that her financial advantage over Koschnick – who spent only $180,000 – was critical. “That makes a big difference in how you can get your message out.” For most of the world, Abrahamson’s victory would not be as remarkable as the fact of the election itself. Except for Japan and Switzerland, the United States is the only country that requires judges to face popular election to gain or hold office. Even though federal judges serve life terms after nomination by the president and confirmation by the Senate, 39 out of 50 states use some form of election for judgeships either at the trial or appellate level or both. The elections vary from traditional partisan contests to nonpartisan races to so-called retention elections in which incumbent judges run without an opponent and remain in office unless a majority votes to remove them. Today as in the past, most judicial elections attract little attention. Most vacancies are initially filled by gubernatorial appointment, and virtually all incumbents remain in office whether they face “contestable” or retention elections. Over the past 30 years, however, judicial elections in a handful of states have become high-cost, bare-knuckle political battles. In particular, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s decision in 2000 to dive into state judicial politics in a big way has led to multimillion-dollar campaigns like Wisconsin’s 2008 contest that have succeeded – as in Wisconsin – in tilting some state supreme courts toward business interests on civil litigation and some other issues. The Chamber – which now generally avoids direct comment on judicial election issues – said at the time it wanted to counteract political influence in the judicial selection process by trial lawyers’ groups. Business groups like the Chamber, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Tort Reform Association blame the plaintiffs’ bar for a history of favorable rulings on personal injury suits only recently being cut back in some states. The increasing cost and the deteriorating tone of judicial election campaigns worry many bar associations, traditional court reform organizations and liberal advocacy groups. “Over the last 20 years, and especially in the past seven years, we’re seeing a race to the bottom with respect to financing and campaigning in judicial elections,” says Seth Andersen, executive director of the American Judicature Society, a 95-year-old court reform organization that created the retention-election systems now used in 19 states. “Judicial elections are now posing the single, greatest threat to fair and impartial courts,” says Tommy Wells, a Birmingham, Ala., lawyer and president of the American Bar Association. The ABA along with state and local bar associations has been the major interest group supporting retention-election plans. Wells and others fear that campaign contributions from businesses and from lawyers with cases before courts are undermining public confidence in judges’ impartiality. “There’s a real fear that money alone can be tipping scales of justice,” says Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake, a Washington-based coalition of liberal-leaning legal advocacy groups. Judicial elections are strongly defended, however, by an assortment of Republican officials and leaders, business lobbies and conservative advocacy groups and experts. They emphasize that judges, especially state supreme court justices, have the power to make law in their respective jurisdictions – in some cases with no effective review by the federal judiciary. “Judges are making law, and it’s only appropriate for the people to choose judges,” says James Bopp, a lawyer in Terre Haute, Ind., who has represented Republican and anti-abortion groups among others in campaign-speech cases at the U.S. Supreme Court and in lower federal courts. “The whole idea of popular sovereignty supports judicial elections.” Bopp and others profess little concern about the impact of increased campaign costs and spending by businesses and other interest groups. “If you are going to elect your judges, then you pretty much have to allow much of the same trappings that you do for any other election,” says Sean Parnell, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, a Washington-based organization critical of campaign finance regulations. Michael DeBow, a law professor at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Ala., and a member of the conservative-libertarian Federalist Society, says the public supports judicial elections despite concerns about the impact of contributions on judges’ decisions. “They don’t want to let go of judicial elections,” DeBow says. The debate over the impact of campaign contributions and spending is now pending at the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices are being asked to decide whether constitutional due process may require judges to step out of a case – in legal parlance, to recuse themselves – because of campaign contributions or spending by a party, lawyer or other individual with a stake in the outcome. The issue reached the justices in a case brought by the president of a now defunct coal company in West Virginia who says state supreme court justice Brent Benjamin should have recused himself from ruling on the $50 million award the company won against a rival coal business. Benjamin refused to recuse himself even though the president of the rival company had spent more than $3 million to help Benjamin during his successful campaign for the supreme court seat in 2004. Benjamin eventually cast a critical vote in the 3-2 decision in March 2008 overturning the award. Stricter standards on recusal are among the reforms the ABA, Justice at Stake and other public-interest groups are urging to try to counteract what they see as the negative effects on public confidence in the judiciary due to judicial elections. They also express interest in public financing of judicial campaigns – a system now on the books in two states, North Carolina and New Mexico. From the opposite perspective, judicial election supporters say stricter recusal standards may undermine elections by deterring campaign contributions or spending. They similarly argue that public campaign financing – accompanied by overall limits on candidates’ spending – will reduce the amount of information for voters in judicial contests. The arguments over judicial elections are drawing only limited attention from state legislators, who would have to be involved in making any changes in selection or election methods or campaign finance regulations. The general public also is largely unengaged on the issue. Indeed, despite public support for judicial elections in general, voter turnout is traditionally low in judgeship races. Wisconsin’s relatively high-profile supreme court race in April 2008 drew 830,000 voters – fewer than one-third of the nearly 3 million state voters in the presidential election in November. 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What are you doing for Earth Day?
Are you doing anything special to acknowledge Earth Day (April 22, 2009)? If so, we'd like to know about it. Tell us by leaving a comment and/or taking the poll on the blog.
