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POLICE HAVE REMOVED handcuffs attaching Jacob Blake, who was paralysed after US police shot him repeatedly in the back, to his hospital bed.
Blake, a 29 year-old African-American, was shot seven times in the back over the weekend by a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin and can not move from the waist down.
Reports that Blake was tied to his hospital bed had caused a further uproar amid a groundswell of national anger over yet another shooting of a black man by police.
His lawyer Patrick Cafferty said Blake was restrained in his hospital bed and officers were watching over him because of an outstanding warrant stemming from a domestic violence-related incident in July.
Cafferty said he had arranged with a district attorney to have that warrant cancelled.
“As of five minutes ago, the cuffs have been removed from Mr Blake and the deputies have left his room,” Cafferty said at midday local time, according to the Wisconsin State Journal newspaper.
Blake’s father, Jacob Blake Sr, earlier expressed outrage after seeing his son restrained during a visit to the hospital on Wednesday.
“Why do they have that cold steel on my son’s ankle?” he said in an interview on CNN.
“He can’t get up, he couldn’t get up if he wanted to.”
“This is an insult to injury,” said the younger Blake’s uncle, Justin Blake. “He is paralysed and can’t walk and they have him cuffed to the bed. Why?”
Blake’s father said his son told him he can feel pain in his legs but is not sure if the pain is actually coming from his legs.
Civil rights march
Earlier, Wisconsin governor Tony Evers said he was baffled as to why Blake was tied to his bed.
“I would have no personal understanding why that would be necessary,” Evers told reporters Thursday.
Blake’s shooting has seen days of unrest in Kenosha. A 17-year-old from Illinois has been charged after shooting dead two protesters in the city and injuring a third.
Meanwhile, thousands of people are estimated to have gathered at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his historic ‘I Have A Dream’ address about racial equality.
Early on, the march was shaping up to be the largest political gathering in Washington since the coronavirus pandemic began.
Organisers reminded attendees to practise social distancing and wear masks throughout the programme.
Turnout was expected be lighter than initially intended due to city-imposed pandemic restrictions that limit out-of-state visitors to the nation’s capital.
With reporting from Press Association.
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Anything but fresh clean air is bad for your lungs,
End of story’
@Michael Maher: back in the 90s, my mum’s friend died while living in London. I remember my mum telling me the Dr who did the autopsy said she had the lungs of a 20 a day smoker. She never smoked in her life. The damage to her lungs was simply breathing the London air.
@Peter Cavey: I used to live in London, and some days I would blow my nose in the evening having been on the tube a couple of times that day, and my snots would be black. It was not pleasant. It doesn’t surprise me about your mother’s friend.
@Veronica: Are you discriminating against black snots?
@Michael Maher: And where would you get that these days?
@Veronica: along the route of the London marathon in 2018, when the roads were closed to traffic, Kings College London carried out a study that showed air pollution dropped by almost 90% in the area.
@Veronica: I remember having that experience also , it was disgusting.
@Michael Maher: Lived in Shanghai for 5 years and the god awful chest infections I used to get were disgusting. The air there can be lethal in the winter.
I hope it doesn’t come back and bite me in the future.
@Veronica: thanks for sharing that Veronica
@Peter Cavey: bullshit
@Charlie: thanks for clearing that up for me. I highly regard your input. SMH.
@Peter Cavey: no problem
@Veronica: I spoke to a colleague some years ago, he had suffered from mild asthma as a child. However when he visited China, the pollution there caused him to have dreadful chest infections, he ended up in hospital with pneumonia, it took almost a year for him to recover fully.
He said from the moment he got there he knew it was causing problems with his breathing and described the locals wearing basic cloth masks to act as breathing filters. They’d wash these out over night and use the same one again the next day.
@Marv: try opening your windows
Would it not be, that some of these people have been smokers before using e cigarettes? And would their lung disease not be linked to same?
@Marcella O Toole: it is a possibility, but the near simultaneous presentation with similar symptoms would draw alarm. The other question of course being, are what they presenting with atypical for cigarette smokers?
@Marcella O Toole: my thoughts exactly.
Watch as they do something about it but say they can’t do anything about guns.
@Ailbhe: is there a constitutional right to bare vapes?
@Stephen Brady:
*bear
@Stephen Brady: Constitions are funny in that they can be changed.
@Jazz Buckler: maybe he’d like to run around with his vape hanging out?
Still better then the 500 posions in cigarettes. Time will tell. The government will be loving this they will be able to tax them like cigarettes soon
@Darren Forde: 5000 actually identified.
@Darren Forde: it remains to be seen whether they’re safer than cigarettes.
@James Wallace: No it doesn’t…. even if they are of equal harm to the smoker, there is definitely no harm to others in their company.
Person dies from using e-cigs. Cause of illness unknown. They need to make their minds up.
With millions of deaths from cigarettes worldwide, I’ll take my chances with my vape. Vaping nowhere near as nasty as cigarettes, let’s hope this is a isolated incident that can be identified to source.
@Donaldo: it’s still nasty to the people around you
@Darren Bates: yeah, about as nasty as boiling a kettle. It’s just sweet smelling water vapour.
@Darren Bates: Incorrect. No combustion takes place.
“Traces of metals”
That can’t be good.
@Chin Feeyin: first up, check the air you breath in everyday, there are traces if metal in that too. Also the lab tests the ncdc use as their go to reference has been debunked many times as not using real life temperature and power settings. The test coils were practically set on fire to achieve the results in the report. Also nothing in the article to point to the fact that the 119 people affected were probably heavy smokers before switching to vaping. But let’s not let facts get in the way of a good scare mongering.
@Brendan Hughes: https://www.vaporvoicemagazine.com/another-vaping-myth-debunked/
@Brendan Hughes: do you have a reference to the study debunking the CDC’s test protocol? One would hope doctors would only be flagging this if the symptoms the patients are presenting with a different to those of a cigarette smoker
@Brendan Hughes: You talk of facts but then use statements like “…were probably heavy smokers”— your use of the word probably there makes me think the rest of your statement is questionable.
@Brendan Hughes: thanks
@Brendan Hughes: Brendan, neither of those links back up your claims about the testing regime. Perhaps you need to look up the term ‘reference’ in a dictionary before making any further scientific claims
@Brendan Hughes: The website name of the 2nd link alone would make me question the veracity of their claims.
@Vocal Outrage: https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp2175
But you won’t even read it. This is the Hopkins study
@Vocal Outrage: Now a paper by Greek cardiologist and vaping researcher Konstantinos Farsalinos and University of Louisville professor of medicine Brad Rodu takes the data from the Hopkins paper and shows how it relates to real-life vaping exposures. Their study was published in the journal Inhalation Toxicology.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/08958378.2018.1523262?scroll=top&needAccess=true
@Yzo Sirrius: give the studies a read then.
@Brendan Hughes: Louis C.K. is that you? I’ve missed you
@Chin Feeyin: Apparently the sale of e cigarettes is not regulated in the US the way it is here in Europe. Who knows what these people were smoking!!
@Paul Ennis: first thought I had too, what ingredients are in the liquid, I’d bet diacetyl is one, which is banned in liquids in Europe because of its link to “popcorn lung”.
@Yzo Sirrius: I think you are using that as an excuse to question the veracity of their claims.
Did you look at the BBC video? I cannot understand how anyone would think that vaping cannot be a good thing in the same way nicorette gum and patches are a good thing. And vaping is not intended to be a long term solution.
The great thing is that since vaping has been available, I have noticed a huge reduction in the number of cigarette smokers and the tobacco industry is running scared….. they are paying for alot of the negative publicity and conspiracy theories that you might have read about vaping.
Even if vaping is harmful, I am perfectly happy to see a regulated vaping industry take over from the tobacco industry. Then, when tobacco is no longer available because the demand has made it non commercially viable, measures can be taken to slowly reduce the reliance people have on vaping.
It might take 2 or 3 generations, but (I believe) this is the beginning of the end for smoking.
@Paul Ennis: big Tobacco own big Vape now !
@Paul Ennis: I vape. It seems like a better alternative to smoking, for sure. I just feel a little sceptical about the arguments/studies/claims on both sides.
Can they not at least give us an idea of symptoms?
@Yzo Sirrius: slow, painful death.
The Royal College of Physicians London released a study report claiming ecigs are 96% saver than traditional cigarettes. In fact the NHS are in the process of allowing vape product to be sold inside their hospitals. There is currently a backlash against vaping in America. Its a long story and has been going on for years in America but basically the state governments are losing a lot of tax money from falling tobacco sales. They heavily rely on this cash(sometime payed years in advance). There is currently a serious issue with teens vaping in the US. Also people are buying pre-filled Juul cartages on the black market filled with THC and other crap. This is suspected as the cause of all these sudden illnesses related to ‘vaping’.
@Ian Hoey: good points. A lot of these cases seemed to involve THC for some reason.
Maybe that black market concoction is not suited for vaping
In the time I read that article, 200 people will have died from cigarettes in America.
@Peter Cavey: in the time I have read your comment, I wonder how many people have been shot
@Coco86: more than have died from e cigarettes, that’s for sure.
If you look at some of these people vaping, they look like they are sucking on a large electronic gas/ candle lighter. Looks ridicules and we know what damage smoking cigarettes cause, and definitely not enough research on these vapour ones.
@Dave Barrett: I agree even if this ends up being coincidental use of e-cigs. It feels like we’ve jumped to e-cigs with no real research into their safety other than it’s better than them smoking. They are setting on fire as well.
They are allowed to openly sell and are now selling “cool” flavours so I imagine my tweens will be using them when they get older
@Dave Barrett: I agree even if this ends up being coincidental use of e-cigs. It feels like we’ve jumped to e-cigs with no real research into their safety other than it’s better than them smoking. They are setting on fire as well.
They are allowed to openly sell and are now selling “cool” flavours so I imagine my tweens will be using them when they get older
@Sara Brown: Yes, there have been cases of ecigs ‘setting on fire’ but 99.9% of the time, this is user error. People building the coils too low and/or using the wrong type of battery. In comparison, far more mobile phones catch fire than ecigs.
@Dave Barrett: There is research if you go and look for it….
There is lots of research regarding the air that we breath in our cities and in some cities, people have taken to wearing masks.
However, I wouldn’t suggest that this is a reason not to give up cigarettes. Just as I wouldn’t suggest that vaping is a 100% safe method of giving up cigarettes….. but it is much better than not giving up at all.
Meanwhile how many thousands died from smoking the same day?
Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. More than 7 million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use while around 1.2 million are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke. Where is the sensationalist article? Ignorance leads to fear which will always be the author of hate.
Very vague and full of “might be’s’. I would suspect that the Tobacco lobbyists in the US have a hand in pushing this agenda.
The fact that these cases all manifested in a couple of months would perhaps indicate that the issue is what they were vaping. At least one has admitted they were vaping thc they bought on the street.
I love vaping, but it’s giving up one addiction for another! No need for it but still rather vape than smoke cigarettes any day
Big tobacco firms will be loving this
If you believe everything you read then nothing in life is good for you so we all just muddle along as best we can
Champagne corks kill an average of 24 people per year, coconuts around 150 and toasters over 700 per year. Do we ban these too??
Vaping is fine if used correctly. I used to smoke and was vaping for about 3 years. If vaping to get off cigarettes the e-cig should not replace a cigarette. That’s what I did. I was vaping all the time and my breathing got really bad. I would even have the e-cig on the bed side locker, driving the car, always had to have it on me. I litterly could not go anywhere without it. I’m off both now about 1 year and never felt as good. So if used right it does help to give up cigarettes but don’t replace one bad habit with another like vaping.
This is great news, these vape dealers have literally been getting away with murder. How could anyone ever think they were safe?
@Pip: people know they’re safe because multiple studies have shown they are. People getting ill from buying black market products, which is the case in at least some of the cases here, should not lead to hysteria about vaping which has been shown as one of the most effective means of quitting smoking.
@Pip: someone dies – great news?!
because it suits your views?
Check yo’self please
@Pip: murder? There’s always some clown who gets melodramatic over what is a blatant scare mongering story. Vaping has been around for a decade and not one person has died from it. It’s saved millions of lives in fact. People have died from exploding batteries because they pushed the limits of the devices but nobody had died from actual vaping safely. Now there’s apparently a bunch of people within a short time frame, would indicate to me it’s some dodgy black market thc they’re vaping and this has nothing to do with legit vaping vendors. People like you have been getting away with stupidity for way too long, get educated. The tobacco companies are suffering hard because so many people are quitting smoking and using vaping to get through, so they will continue to put out scare monger nonsense like this with very little validated information because they know gullible morons like you swallow hard
@Cagey75: Well said, stupidity is difficult to deal with.
150 to 200 deaths a year in the USA from peanut allergies so maybe ban peanuts
What a pile of bs to start something else now to tax folk
Popcorn lung is the condition referred to in the article as rare but serious. It is a condition that develops from breathing vapour into your lungs. It was first noted and named when the condition was presented by people who worked in the manufacturing of the butter material that is used on popcorn in cinemas etc. The butter stuffs would be heated and the resulting vapour was found to be extremely harmful to the lungs.
@Chocolat E’Jesus: another anti vaping myth that’s been debunked many times. https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-cancer/cancer-controversies/does-vaping-cause-popcorn-lung
It would be interesting to know the age of this person, whether they were smokers previous to all of this, I’m a smoker, and I also like the few beers, both I am fully aware of are harmful to me, I have given up one or the other, or both at the same time, I never really experienced any great improvement in my health, and in more cases than not the actual reverse, I have also tried vaping, still have the unit. I have been in the company of many Vapours, in many cases it seems like a Macho thing, especial with ones where the burn or temperature can be controlled, where many have it set to high and, bellow out clouds of steam in front of everyone, they also never seem to take it away from their mouths, at least with smoking, depending on how heavy a smoker one is, one every hour or so is sufficient for most, Many smokers will developed the dreaded ailments associated with smoking, and Alcohol, could well be a combining factors, as about 70-80% of smokers also consume alcohol also.
But we only start suffering these ailments, in the majority of cases, when we over forty, 100 years or so ago people under normal circumstances didn’t even live that long. Our real biggest problem we have in the health service now, and I know when giving up smoking and drinking, is the weigh I pile on, and obesity is our main problem now. If this patient was relativity young and was only Vaping, or only started, (and some of my friends who began vaping also revealed certain health issues, that they hadn’t had before), there might need to be a total rethink on the whole Vaping thing.(There must be some serious money to be made in the business as there seems to be Vap shops opening up all over the place, unlike tobacconists )
I’ll start the Nicotine patches on Monday.
Idiotic to smoke like I do, swift kick up the backside I’ll have to give myself, on an E-cig for a couple of weeks, have to go the whole hog now, E-cigs aren’t the solution
Pop lung kills
have your say