Human Rights violations applicable to EHS misdiagnosis
Citizens' Initiative Omega | 05.07.2003 09:34 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation | Repression | London | World
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To:
Mr. Des Hogan, Senior Case Worker
Irish Human Rights Commission
17-19 Lower Hatch Street, Dublin 2.
July 4, 2003
Dear Mr. Hogan:
What I have written below is additional to the references I have made to the Human Rights violations. I have suffered and will continue to suffer throughout the duration of my life, due to the medical negligence of the defendants I have named in my Civil Bill. I made these references during my scheduled meeting with you last Tuesday, in letters to you, and in copies of affidavits and other documents I have submitted to IHRC.
This submission to you today pinpoints some Human Rights violations applicable to my case. It is not comprehensive. As you have directed me to confine my remarks to Human Rights violations caused by my medical misdiagnosis I make but a passing reference to my EHS condition.
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Among the articles in the EUROPEAN CONVENTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (ECHR) that I feel have been most clearly violated in my case are: Article 3 "No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", Article 13 " Everyone whose rights and freedom as set forth in this Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity", and Article 1 of the 1952 Protocols "Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law."
How Article 3 above relates to my case: I suffered "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" at the hands of my defendants. I was committed to a psychiatric facility on very insufficient information provided by a person who lived in a different country from me. I was given no medical examination. I was not questioned personally. I was lied to to get me into that psychiatric facility. I was treated in a most degrading fashion as a person of unsound mind who was unworthy of being questioned or even being consulted with about the medical treatment she would be subjected to. I was gravely humiliated by my enforced stay in a psychiatric facility and having to ask permission even to exit for a short while. It was degrading to be forced to attend outpatients facility and then not even listened to. And my defendants with their ill-considered, hasty diagnosis have permanently branded me with a mental illness I do not have and by doing so have tried to wrench from me my right to chart my own destiny for the duration of my life.
It's down permanently in my medical records that they diagnosed me as a psychotic and the young intern house doctor who wasn't even qualified to make such a judgement blithely wrote me up as a paranoid schizophrenic without even a conversation with me.
Due to them the quality of my life has been destroyed for over six years now and will continue so for the duration of my life. I have been degraded and shunned by people, socially and professionally because of what they branded me with. I have stated repeatedly in my affidavits that this mental illness is noted by authors of texts on schizophrenia to be the most socially and professionally damaging and that it adversely affects every aspect of the person's life.
It has been the most "cruel, inhuman or degrading" experience I have ever had and my reputation remains permanently injured due to their medical negligence.
While the word "possessions" in Article 1 of the 1952 Protocols may be generally thought to signify physical or material possessions there is no reason why it should not also encompass intellectual possessions or property. Self-esteem or self-worth are examples of non-material possessions or properties. My greatest assets are my intellectual possessions or properties and my intellectual self-esteem is commensurate with external indicators that I do possess a high level of general and specialised forms of intelligence and intellectual capacity.
Some of the external indicators are that I have earned advanced degrees including a Ph.D. from accredited universities and that I write lucidly on a vast array of subjects. My defendants in their judgments of me deprived me of my entitlement to my intellectually based self-esteem.
Dr Aisling Campbell indeed wrote in her medical notes of me that I had not come to accept my reduced capacity to function intellectually nor to realise what I would be capable of anymore throughout my life. I felt degraded when reading her statements about me.
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In the INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS (ICCPR) Article 7 is similar to article 3 of ECHR. Article 7, however, adds "In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation." (It is outside the focus of my discussion here to observe just how exactly that addresses the abuses inherent in targeted energy weaponry which is another aspect of the whole EHS issue). My consent nor opinion was not sought before I was prescribed the medication that I had a very severe reaction to. This was just another violation of my Human Rights.
Article 26 of ICCPR states: "All persons are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to the equal protection of the law. In this respect, the law shall prohibit any discrimination and guarantee to all persons equal and effective protection against discrimination on any ground such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
To focus on this "other status". It appears to me that I have been legally discriminated against due to the status my defendants decreed I should be identified as--that is as a person who was and is mentally ill. I note the ongoing nature of my status as that of a person who is mentally ill because it has been entered as such in my medical notes. I could not get legal help to bring my case to court and Professor Brice Dickson of Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission told me that there were also some people in N. Ireland who believed they had been misdiagnosed with mental illnesses but they could not get legal representation to seek justice!
Consequently, it would appear that there is "discrimination to an equal protection of the law" when it comes to psychiatric misdiagnosis. It may also be worth considering if there is a connection between the careless, sub-standard manner in which I was treated throughout by my medical defendants and the fact that this lacuna in legal protection for persons misdiagnosed as mentally ill exists.
Also, I have noted in a copy of an affidavit I submitted to you that many mental health specialists disagree among themselves on any given diagnosis.
Article 2 of ICCPR addresses in more extensive form the protection of a person's Human Rights as stated in Article 13 of ECHR. This applies to my grievance.
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Some Articles in the INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS (ICESCR)that address Human Rights abuses in these fields are also relevant to my case.
Article 6.1. states: "The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes the right of everyone to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right."
Article 7 states: "The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work which ensure, in particular . . . (b) Safe and healthy working conditions; . . .."
My right to work commensurate with my intellectual capacities and skills has been usurped in written pronouncements made on me by my named defendants. According to them what I am now capable of doing is quite low on their graph of human achievements. Please refer again to Dr. Aisling Campbell's notes on my supposedly impoverished abilities and capacities.
Should any potential employer be informed of their medical diagnosis of me, it would unfavourably bias that employer about my capacities in his workforce. I would not lie nor deceive about what my defendants diagnosed me as just to get employment I know I'm very capable of doing. But once I would inform employers about their diagnosis the negative connotations that accompany that mental illness would affect my success in the workplace.
Please refer again to what I have noted about social and professional attitudes to persons who have been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. Indeed, I have experienced many times such negative attitudes since I have been misdiagnosed and have had to suffer humiliating comments directed at me by some individuals and equally humiliating treatment. I argue that my defendants, due to their diagnosis, have restricted my choice to "freely choose" my work situations, colleagues, and employers.
My defendants have never addressed my actual disability, that is my electrohypersensitivity. There are many work situations that I can not tolerate due to their excessive levels of EMR but my defendants' misdiagnosis further frustrates my efforts to secure a work situation which is tolerable for me as an EHS person.
While Article 12 of ICESCR may be seen to address directly the rights of EHS persons, yet it has relevancy to my medical negligence case. The Article reads as follows:
1. The States parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health."
The medication that I was prescribed without prior consultation nor solicitation of my consent badly affected--ironic though it may be--my mental and physical health. Specialists whose professional remit it is to care for and improve patients' mental and physical health did the very opposite in my case.
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To Turn to my Human Rights as an Irish citizen that are guaranteed to be protected by specific articles enshrined in THE IRISH CONSTITUTION.
The section of the IRISH CONSTITUTION which specifically addresses Human Rights issues is:
"Fundamental Rights: Personal Rights, Articles 40-44." A major reason frequently aired for not incorporating the European Convention of Human Rights into Irish Law is the fact that Irish people's Human Rights are already generously safeguarded by this section of our Constitution.
ARTICLE 40 states:
"1 All citizens shall, as human persons, be held
equal before the law.
This shall not be held to mean that the State
shall not in its enactments have due regard to
differences of capacity, physical and moral, and
of social function."
As pointed out above, my right to be treated as "equal before the law" has been usurped by the diagnosis of my defendants. I have already alluded to Professor Brice Dickson's comments on this issue.
Furthermore, the devaluation of my worth due to my defendants' written pronouncements of my mental health could also affect--and incorrectly so--how the state judges my "capacity, physical and moral, and of social function."
Article 40.3.1 states "The State guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate the personal rights of the citizen."
As an Irish citizen I wish to avail of my rights enshrined in Article 40.3.1.
Article 40.3.2. states: "The State shall, in particular, by its laws protect as best it may from unjust attack and, in the case of injustice done, vindicate the life, person, good name, and property rights of every citizen."
My good name as an intelligent, rational, sociable person has been destroyed by the defendants I have named in my Civil Bill. What they did to me is equivalent to the very worst libel.
Also, I argue that property rights rather than being narrowly confined to material assets or possessions should include all intellectual properties or possessions including the very hardware or means of production of these intellectual assets. In other words, it should include the most fundamental asset of all: one's brain. The quality of my brain, it's merit and capacity to produce admirable high-quality intellectually significant work in a competitive market has been unjustly, most grievously, and permanently devalued by my named defendants.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Imelda O'Connor.
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Radio and Microwave Frequency Radiation and Health - an Analysis of the Literature
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M. Röösli1,2, R. Rapp1, C. Braun-Fahrländer1
1 Institut für Sozial- und Präventivmedizin der Universität Basel
2 Institut für Sozial- und Präventivmedizin der Universität Bern
Abstract
This paper gives an overview of present scientific knowledge in health research on the effects from radio and microwave frequency radiation, at levels to which the general population is typically exposed. The review is based on human experimental and epidemiological studies investigating the effects of radiation in the frequency range between 100 kHz and 10 GHz. The relevant studies were identified via systematic searches of the databases Medline and ISI Web of Science. The review concludes that the existing scientific knowledge base is too limited to draw final conclusions on the health risk from exposure in the low-dose range. Only few studies have investigated the effect of long-term exposure on the general population in the normal environment. Accordingly, little can be predicted regarding long-term health risks.
Various studies observed an increased risk for tumours in the hematopoietic and lymphatic tissue of people living in the proximity of TV and radio broadcast transmitters. However, methodological limitations to these studies have been identified and their findings are controversial. In studies of a possible association between brain tumours and mobile phone use, the average period mobile phones use was short compared to the known latency period of brain tumours. Although these studies did not establish an overall increased risk of brain tumours associated with mobile phone use, there were some indications of an association.
Immediate effects associated with mobile phone use have been observed in human experimental studies that cannot be explained by conventional thermal mechanisms. The observed effects are within the normal physiological range and are therefore hard to interpret with respect to an increased risk to health.
However, it can be concluded that mechanisms other than the established thermal mechanisms exist. Because of the present fragmentary scientific database, a precautionary approach when dealing with radio and microwave frequency radiation is recommended for the individual and the general population.
http://www.thieme-connect.com/cgi-bin/DOI?10.1055/s-2003-40311
Informant: Elektrosmognews
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The cancer cure that worked
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Worth your time -
I read the amaizing book "The cancer cure that worked", I really recommend it - shortly, it is about a man who had a proof of cancer cure that was threatening the economic interests of the medical establishment of America, and they destroyed him.
He challenged the orthodox thinking about cancer, but like in the cellular technology issue, the orthodox establishment protected their money and their convensional methods (chemotherapy etc) and looked the other way. He actually showed that in order to cure cancer, it is not about killing the cancer cells - this does not solve the problem, while the orthodox establishment insists that the way to kill cancer is through killing cancer cells. But it is much more than that. According to the book and the documentation, the man had the answers about what causes cancer and how to cure it, but nobody really wanted to cure cancer.
http://www.barrylynes.com/orderpage.htm
Informant: Iris Atzmon
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Police masts opposed in Swansea
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Police masts opposed
Councillors in Swansea are opposing plans for new police radio equipment at two locations on Gower.
They have concerns about the safety of the Tetra system that will be used by police forces across the UK, although are objecting to the masts on the grounds that they are visually intrusive.
Air Wave MMO2 Ltd wants to site antennae on an existing mast at Southgate Sewage Treatment Works at Pennard and at North Hills Farm at Cheriton.
The company says the equipment is needed to ensure police radios are able to operate on all parts of the peninsular.
At a planning meeting on Tuesday Swansea councillors heard the mast at the sewage works was less than half-a-mile from Pennard Primary School.
Speaking on behalf of objectors Liz Radcliffe said: "We are not Nimbys as we already have three masts but until there is proof it is safe Tetra should not be in our midst."
Although hailed as cutting-edge technology, some experts have raised health concerns about the new transmitters the radio system requires.
Tetra masts pulse at 17.6Hz which is very close to the 16Hz frequency the government's Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones warns might affect brain activity.
Virginia Pritfy spoke for those campaigning against the mast at Cheriton.
She said: "Nobody will guarantee these masts are safe.
"Seven children under the age of 10 are living near the proposed mast.
"Please keep Gower the unspoilt and safe place that it is at the moment."
Councillor Richard Lewis told the meeting: "I do not believe the case has been made for it in terms of safety."
Both applications were turned down by a majority of councillors although not all agreed with the decision.
Councillor Mark Child said: "I bet a lot of the teachers at the school have got mobile telephones and I bet a lot of the parents have got mobile telephones.
"I believe that the people there do not really believe that mobile telephones are a danger to them.
"There are many things around us that are infinitely more dangerous than masts."
And a spokesman for Airwave said the masts were needed if Gower was to be fully covered by police communication.
"The application is needed to ensure that South Wales Police have coverage for a new integrated communication system.
"The system is not new and untried but is in use in 46 countries."
He accused campaigners and the media of scaremongering over the alleged health risks.
Even though councillors have opposed the applications the equipment may still be installed as the final decision rests with the Welsh assembly.
Speaking after the meeting Cheriton campaigner Virginia Pritfy said: "We are very pleased but there is still a long way to go and we will have to see what the assembly say."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/wales/south_west/3017830.stm
Published: 2003/06/24 18:07:06 GMT
© BBC MMIII
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Molecular Genetic Engineers in Junk DNA?
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/MGEJ.php
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Great Article on Nuke Madness from Association of World Citizens
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This was included with a sign-on to the letter urging a peaceful solution in North Korea.
John Hallam
Douglas Mattern
President, Association of World Citizens
http://www.worldcitizens.org
worldcit@best.com
55 New Montgomery Street, Suite 224
San Francisco, CA 94105
MAD AS HELL AND NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE
(NUCLEAR NIGHTMARE ESCALATES)
By: Douglas Mattern -
When the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference was held in New York city in the year 2000, the nuclear weapons states make a commitment to an "unequivocal undertaking" to eliminate nuclear weapons. This was an empty and hypocritical promise, and experts now agree the danger of nuclear proliferation is worse than in the past 50 years.
The NPT was undermined, if not annihilated, when President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 17, which states the United States reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force-including nuclear weapons---to the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, our forces abroad, and friends and allies. William Arkin, a military analyst writes that the Bush administration's war planning "moves nuclear weapons out of their along-established special category and lumps them in with all the other military options."
The entire record of the Bush Administration on the nuclear issue is abominable. This includes refusal to ratify the Comprehensive Test Bat Treaty, abrogating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the intention to resume nuclear testing to build a new category of nuclear weapons, including the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. This weapon would be thousands of times more powerful than the conventional bunker-busting
weapons used in "Shock and Awe" bombing of Iraq.
The addition of India and Pakistan, and possibly North Korea, to the macabre nuclear club also increases the nuclear danger. Now add a recent study by the RAND think-tank that gives a frightening assessment of Russian's strategic capabilities. Former Senator Sam Nunn said "the risk has increased for a perfect storm in terms of a nuclear miscalculation or an accident."
The RAND study lists three reasons for this development.
* The U.S. and Russia maintain large nuclear forces on "hair-trigger" alert that could be launched in minutes and destroy both countries in an hour.
* Economic and social problems have led Russia to rely more on nuclear arms.
* The vulnerability of Russian forces is enhanced by the capability of U.S. forces to deliver accurate and devastating strikes.
The Rand report gives three gruesome scenarios, which could erupt at any time:
* An intentional unauthorized nuclear weapon launch by a terrorists or rogue commander
* A missile launched by mistake
* An intentional launch of nuclear weapons based on incorrect or incomplete information.
Robert McNamara acknowledged that during the Cuban missile crisis "we came within a hairbreadth of nuclear war without realizing it." McNamara said: "It's no credit to us that we missed nuclear war--at least we had to be lucky as well as wise." We can only guess how many times we have been lucky and escaped nuclear destruction throughout the Cold War. There are many frightening close calls that received little media coverage.
Bruce Blair, Director of the Center for Defense Information (CDI) and a former Minuteman Missile Launch Officer, reminds us that both the U.S. and Russia remain preoccupied with preparing to fight a large-scale nuclear war with each other on short notice. Both sides have thousands of nuclear warheads on a hair-trigger alert and aimed at each other.
U.S. spy planes monitor the Russian coast and U.S. submarines still trail Russian submarines as soon as they leave port. The U.S. spends an average of $27 billion annually preparing to fight a nuclear war.
In a "doomsday" scenario, the CDI reports that Russia has come online at their Kovzvinsky Mountain facility with equipment designed to ensure a "quasi-automatic" Russian missile retaliation in case a U.S. first strike destroys their nuclear chain of command.
Terrorism is a burning problems to counter, but by far the greatest terrorism is that each and every day for the past several decades, and in this third year of a new millennium, we are daily under the threat of nuclear incineration whether by accident, miscalculation, or by design.
McGeorge Bundy, former assistant to President Kennedy, said: "In the real world even one hydrogen bomb on one city would be a catastrophe; ten bombs on ten cities would be a disaster beyond history. A hundred or even less would be the end of civilization"
There are 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world today and only a fool could believe we can exist indefinitely without these weapons being used. It's utter madness, and it's imperative that thinking people join together and declare unequivocally that, similar to the TV anchorman in the movie Network, WE ARE MAD AS HELL AND WE ARE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.
Liberation from the nuclear nightmare and the "architects of destruction" is the first priority to which we must hold every politician and policy maker, beginning with the reconstituted cold warrior hawks that comprise the Bush Administration.
Douglas Mattern is president of the Association of World Citizens (AWC); a San Francisco based international peace organization with branches in 50 countries, and with UN NGO status. The website for AWC is www.worldcitizens.org Douglas is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant.
Go also to http://www.liberalslant.com/liberalslantarchives.htm
and
THIS MAY BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SAVE AMERICA
http://www.stewwebb.com/I-Grand%20Jury%20This%20may%20be%20your%20last%20chance%20to%20save%20America%20042603.html
Informant: Carol Wolman
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The once and former rule of law
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0328/hentoff.php
Informant: Thomas L. Knapp
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Independence!
"The flames kindled on the Fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them."
--Thomas Jefferson
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
The United States Declaration of Independence - July 4, 1776
http://www.buzzflash.com/southern/2002/07/04_southern.html
Citizens' Initiative Omega
Homepage:
http://www.grn.es/electropolucio/omega234.htm