Winners Announced for the
fundsforngos.org Small Grant Prize!
fundsforngos.org is pleased to announce the two winners of the US$500 Small Grant Prize as well as the ten runners up. Thousands of entries were received from across the world and the winners were selected by random drawing on 7 April 2012...[more] CIVICIS World Assembly 2012: Youth Participation Bursaries Deadline: 18 April 2012 All Countries CIVICUS and Institut du Nouveau Monde are offering 15 bursaries to committed young people so they can take part in the CIVICUS World Assembly, which will be held from 3-7 September 2012, in Montreal, Canada...[more] N-Peace Awards 2012 for women and men working for peace Deadline: 10 May 2012 Select Countries The N-Peace network - working to the leadership of women in conflict prevention, dispute resolution, reconstruction and peace building at the regional, national and community levels - is seeking nominations for the N-Peace Awards 2012...[more] Upcoming Webinars: How to raise Funds from European Foundations Date: April 17, 2012 Timings: 14:30-16:00 GMT Basic Budgeting: An Introduction for Developing Country NGOs Date: April 19, 2012 Timings: 11:30-13:00 GMT How to raise Funds from US Foundations Date: April 25, 2012 Timings: 13:00-14:30 GMT Recent Articles: Australia Endeavour Awards 2013 open Transnational Research Call for Improved Livelihoods in the Sub-Saharan Africa Finding a Job at the United Nations The Rockefeller Foundation's Innovation Challenges Heinrich Böll Foundation's International Petra Kelly Prize: Human Rights, Ecology & Non-Violence |
Friday, April 13, 2012
Grants & Resources
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Cyber Forensics and Security in the National Capital Region. May 22-23, 2012
The first "Cyber Forensics and Security in the National Capital Region"
conference to be held May 22-23, 2012. This conference is jointly sponsored by
the FBI's Washington Field Office, George Mason University's Volgenau School of
Engineering, and the InfraGard Nations Capital Members Alliance.
Additional
conference partners include CareerBuilder and the Government Technology &
Services Coalition.
Who: Cyber Forensic and Security
Professionals in the National Capital Region (NCR)
What: Cyber Forensics and Security
in the NCR conference
The agenda includes speakers from the FBI,
GMU, private sector, and other government entities. Topics to be discussed
include cloud forensics, phishing detection, malware analysis, the importance of
public-private collaboration to enhance cyber security, attacks targeting
sensitive information & intellectual property of private sector companies,
and current FBI cyber case studies. In addition, Dr. Cliff Stoll, author
of The Cuckoo's Egg, will speak about his own cyber intrusion
investigation.
When: May 22-23, 2012 (Tuesday
& Wednesday)
Where: GMU's Fairfax
Campus
Why: To encourage and strengthen
the public-private partnerships between government, private industry, and
academia in the areas of cyber forensics and security; to discuss current
trends, emerging technologies, forensic techniques, and strategies to combat
adversaries, strengthen our cyber defense, and protect critical
infrastructure.
How: Register at http://incrmacybermay2012.eventbrite.com. The cost of the
conference is $150 and includes conference attendance, AM/PM coffee break
service, buffet lunch, and parking for both days. Seating will be limited to
120 attendees.
Additional information (specific location,
directions, etc) will be provided to attendees once registration is
confirmed.
Training: FEMA COOP Training-the-Trainer. Washington, D.C.
The D.C. Department of General Services' Risk and COOP Management Unit is
sponsoring FEMA COOP Manager's Train-the-Trainer Course on May
10-11, 2012 and COOP Planners Train-the-Trainer
Course on June 21-22, 2012.
The trainings will
be held in the 5th Floor Conference Room of the Frank D
Reeves Center of
Municipal Affairs, 2000 14th Street
N.W., Washington,
D.C.
20009.
FEMA 119-25-01 Training Application Form must be completed
FEMA 119-25-01 Training Application Form must be completed
Application forms can be
sent directly to Julian Muhammad at julian.muhammad@dc.gov. I can also be
contacted via telephone at (202) 731-9809 or (202) 671-2251.
2012 New Madrid Incident Management Peer Exchange. October 23-25, 2012
New Madrid Incident Management Peer Exchange Pre-Event
Survey
The Kentucky Transportation
Cabinet-Division of Incident Management along with the Kentucky Department of
Environmental Protection-Emergency Response Team, Kentucky Office of Homeland
Security-HSEEP, US Department of Transportation, US Environmental Protection
Agency and Kentucky Emergency Management Agency are tentatively planning the
“2012 New Madrid Incident Management Peer Exchange” Registration from 12:00 p.m.
- 1:00 p.m. EDT, with opening session beginning at 1:00 p.m. EDT on Tuesday,
October 23, 2012. We will have full-day sessions from 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. on
October 24. On October 25, the sessions will begin at 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon
EDT. This inaugural conference will be held at the Kentucky Transportation
Cabinet Office Building at 200 Mero Street, Frankfort, Kentucky
40601.
The Peer Exchange will
focus on the key elements at play while planning the response to a catastrophic
event in the New Madrid Seismic Fault Zone states. The Peer Exchange tracks
will include: a scenario based pre-planning response for Federal/State/Local and
Private Transportation Partners (Freight “Air and ground, Evacuation “Air,
Ground and Rail”, Navigation and Hazardous Materials”, Rail “Hazardous Materials
and Infrastructure’ and Pipeline “Hazardous Liquids and
Gas”.
Our goal is that as a
participant you will experience a most beneficial and enjoyable knowledge-based
return for being a part of our nation’s first Peer Exchange. Please see and
respond to the attached survey; this survey will take less than five minutes to
complete. Your responses will help us better determine what should be included
so we can serve your agency or industry in the nation’s first such Peer Exchange
for the transportation industry. Please complete and submit this survey via
link provided…
Antimalaria drug: Mefloquine
http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2012/04/military-new-concerns-antimalaria-doxycycline-mefloquine-041112w/
New concerns rising over antimalaria drug
By Patricia Kime - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Apr 11, 2012 6:22:47 EDT
Posted : Wednesday Apr 11, 2012 6:22:47 EDT
Navy Sonar Technician (Surface) Seaman Douglas Corrigan placed a Skype call to his wife March 25, 2011, from Rota, Spain, shortly after taking his first dose of the antimalaria medication mefloquine.
Preparing for a mission to a malaria-endemic region, his unit watched a video on the illness, and corpsmen dispensed two drugs: daily-dose doxycycline, and mefloquine, taken weekly.
Corrigan doesn’t remember getting a choice. He received a blister pack of mefloquine and was told it could cause nightmares.
“He told me he didn’t feel good,” recalled Nicki Corrigan, his wife of three years. “He said, ‘I don’t feel like myself anymore.’ It was a really weird thing for him to say.”
Corrigan’s personality changed radically, she said. The straight-laced husband and father began chewing tobacco, drinking and carousing. He climbed outside a three-story building to see whether he would feel fear.
Months later, at home, he was found tiptoeing around his basement, pursuing imagined intruders. He ranted psychotically and complained of daily headaches.
Medical tests showed no traumatic brain injury, nor did doctors believe he had post-traumatic stress disorder. They began suggesting he had a personality disorder or was a malingerer, faking his problems to get out of the military.
Finally, an ear, nose and throat doctor at National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Md., offered another diagnosis: “multifocal brain stem injury” — brain damage — likely caused by mefloquine.
“He has a lesion. On his brain,” said Nicki, a registered nurse.
BACK IN THE SPOTLIGHT
Mefloquine has drawn attention since the Army’s former top psychiatrist, retired Col. Elspeth Cameron Ritchie, wrote a column in Time magazinelisting it among several drugs that may have induced psychoses in Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, charged in the shootings deaths of 17 Afghan civilians March 11.
But Defense Department concerns about mefloquine date back further — and some close to the issue say the most recent bout of scrutiny, which began with a meeting last Aug. 24-25 of DoD’s Joint Prevention Medicine Group to discuss mefloquine policy, stems from the Corrigan case.
“You have a sailor with permanent brain damage,” said an Army doctor familiar with the debate. “It’s very serious.”
The Navy would not confirm a link between Corrigan and the current DoD review, citing privacy laws. But on Jan. 17, two months before Bales’ alleged spree, the Pentagon’s top doctor, Jonathan Woodson, directed the Army, Navy and Air Force and the commander of Joint Task Force National Capital Region Medical to give him all data and policies related to mefloquine.
DoD “wants to ensure each service conducts proper screening, patient education and medical documentation,” said Cynthia Smith, a Pentagon spokeswoman.
Mefloquine was developed under the Army’s malaria drug discovery program, which ran from 1963 to 1976. The Food and Drug Administration approved it for preventive use in 1989 and it was marketed under the brand name Lariam.
But no safety and efficacy reviews were ever done on a normal civilian population. The Army performed tests on prisoners in Illinois and Maryland in 1975 and 1976.
Shortly after commercial use began, anecdotes surfaced about side effects including hallucinations, delirium and psychoses.
According to the FDA, the most common side effects are nausea and vomiting, seen in less than 3 percent of users. Side effects occurring in less than 1 percent include emotional disturbances, seizures, hair loss, headache, tinnitus, pain and fatigue.
A 2004 Veterans Affairs Department memo urged doctors to refrain from prescribing mefloquine, citing individual cases of hallucinations, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, psychoses and more.
That same year, then-Assistant Defense Secretary for Health Affairs Dr. William Winkenwerder ordered a study to assess the rate of adverse side effects associated with antimalaria medications.
He ordered the study after questions arose over its possible role in several murder-suicides at Fort Bragg, N.C., in 2002 and suicides in Iraq among deployed troops.
The Army in 2009 issued a policy listing mefloquine as a third choice behind doxycycline and another antimalarial, chloroquine. DoD followed with a memo later that year stating that doxycylcine and mefloquine may be used in areas where malaria is resistant to chloroquine, but doxycycline is the preferred choice.
The Air Force and the Navy have similar policies, officials said.
The DoD memo says troops given mefloquine must be counseled on its possible effects and must not be suspected of having any mental health concerns.
In 2011, U.S. Central Command and U.S. Africa Command issued memos barring mefloquine use except when doxycycline or another preventive drug called Malarone cannot be taken.
Roche, the manufacturer of Lariam, stopped marketing it in the U.S. in 2008, but it is still available in more than 50 countries. The mefloquine now taken by U.S. troops is a generic version.
OTHER DRUGS ALSO HAVE ISSUES
Doxycycline is not without its drawbacks. It can make patients photo-sensitive, causing debilitating sunburn; has a poor compliance rate, since it must be taken daily; and has side effects, including nausea and vomiting.
And Malarone costs much more than the other drugs — about $30 a week, compared with $3 a week for mefloquine and less than 25 cents a week for doxycycline.
Navy Cmdr. Bill Manofsky — who was medically retired in 2004 for PTSD and neurological problems, including loss of balance, that he said were documented in his medical records as mefloquine-related — said if cost concerns are an issue, they shouldn’t be.
He said if DoD wants to protect the troops from malaria as well as mefloquine’s potential side effects, it should ban mefloquine and pay the higher cost of Malarone.
“How much does a .50-caliber round cost? They’re worried about $4 a pill and they’re willing to spend $5 for a round?” he said.
There’s no question malaria poses a risk. In 2011, 124 service members contracted the potentially fatal disease — 91 in Afghanistan, 24 in Africa and nine elsewhere. The year before, 113 troops contracted malaria; one died.
But mefloquine continues to be used in part because it is taken weekly while the alternatives must be taken daily, and some physicians believe that troops are more likely to take a weekly dose.
The services have 90 days to respond to Woodson’s order for details of their mefloquine policies.
Nicki Corrigan and others have contacted lawmakers, including Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jim Webb, D-Va., to press for congressional hearings.
Douglas Corrigan is currently undergoing a Medical Evaluation Board to determine if he is still fit for military service.