A real Ricardo.

Haiti - Politic : The OAS would have dismissed Ricardo Seitenfus
25/12/2010 16:44:32

Haiti - Politic : The OAS would have dismissed Ricardo Seitenfus
The news agency EFE, reported according to a diplomatic source who requested anonymity, that the Organization of American States (OAS) has taken the decision to dismiss from his duties its Special Representative in Haiti, Ricardo Seitenfus.

This dismissal comes two months before the end of the mission of diplomat and follows an interview that it had granted to the Swiss newspaper "Le Temps" which was published Monday, December 21, 2010.

http://www.haitilibre.com/article-1963-haiti-social-les-causes-de-l-echec-de-la-communaute-international-en-haiti.html (in french)

24 hours after publication, Ricardo Seitenfus had been recalled by the OAS to explain his statements. Speculation about its dismissal, have multiplied throughout the week. It seems that the truths disseminated openly and widely reported by the media, obviously did not please to the OAS.

http://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-1974-haiti-politic-ricardo-seitenfus-a-truth-which-does-not-please-oas.html

It only missing the official statement of the OAS to put an end to the career of the diplomat in this institution. The OAS sanctions, thus the courage of a man, whose only "wrong" is to have dared to say the truth publicly.

15 March 2011 Last updated at 20:02 ET


Haiti cholera 'far worse than expected', experts fear

By Michelle Roberts Health reporter, BBC News

Revellers bearing anti-cholera messages perform during the National Carnival celebrations in Haiti Cholera is killing thousands in Haiti


Haiti cholera challenge 'failed'
Why is Haiti still struggling?

The cholera epidemic affecting Haiti looks set to be far worse than officials had thought, experts fear.

Rather than affecting a predicted 400,000 people, the diarrhoeal disease could strike nearly twice as many as this, latest estimates suggest.

Aid efforts will need ramping up, US researchers told The Lancet journal.

The World Health Organization says everything possible is being done to contain the disease and warns that modelling estimates can be inaccurate.

Before last year's devastating earthquake on the Caribbean island, no cases of cholera had been seen on Haiti for more than a century.

The bacterial disease is spread from person-to-person through contaminated food and water.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote

It is going to be larger than predicted in terms of sheer numbers and will last far longer than the initial projections”

Dr Sanjay Basu Researcher

It causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting, and patients, particularly children and the elderly, are vulnerable to dangerous dehydration as a result.
Gross underestimate

In the three months between October and December 2010, about 150,000 people in Haiti contracted cholera and about 3,500 died.

Around this time, the United Nations projected that the total number infected would likely rise to 400,000.

But researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, say this is a gross underestimate.

They believe the toll could reach 779,000, with 11,100 deaths by the end of November 2011.

Dr Sanjay Basu and colleagues reached their figures using data from Haiti's ministry of health.

They say the UN estimates were "crude" and based on "a simple assumption" that the disease would infect a set portion (2-4%) of Haiti's 10 million population.

Dr Basu's calculations take into account factors like which water supplies have been contaminated and how much immunity the population has to the disease.

They predict the number of cholera cases will be substantially higher than official estimates.

"The epidemic is not likely to be short-term," said Dr Basu. "It is going to be larger than predicted in terms of sheer numbers and will last far longer than the initial projections."

But the researchers say thousands of lives could be saved by provision of clean water, vaccination and expanded access to antibiotics.

A spokesman for the World Health Organization said: "We have to be cautious because modelling does not necessarily reflect what's seen on the ground.

"Latest figures show there have been 252,640 cases and 4,672 deaths as of 10 March 2011.

"We really need to reconstruct water and sanitation systems for the cholera epidemic to go away completely.

"It's a long-term process and cholera is going to be around for a number of years yet."

The Lancet, Early Online Publication, 16 March 2011

doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60273-0Cite or Link Using DOI

Transmission dynamics and control of cholera in Haiti: an epidemic model

Dr Jason R Andrews MD a b Corresponding AuthorEmail Address, Sanjay Basu MD c d

Summary
Background

Official projections of the cholera epidemic in Haiti have not incorporated existing disease trends or patterns of transmission, and proposed interventions have been debated without comparative estimates of their effect. We used a mathematical model of the epidemic to provide projections of future morbidity and mortality, and to produce comparative estimates of the effects of proposed interventions.

Methods
We designed mathematical models of cholera transmission based on existing models and fitted them to incidence data reported in Haiti for each province from Oct 31, 2010, to Jan 24, 2011. We then simulated future epidemic trajectories from March 1 to Nov 30, 2011, to estimate the effect of clean water, vaccination, and enhanced antibiotic distribution programmes.

Findings
We project 779 000 cases of cholera in Haiti (95% CI 599 000—914 000) and 11 100 deaths (7300—17 400) between March 1 and Nov 30, 2011. We expect that a 1% per week reduction in consumption of contaminated water would avert 105 000 cases (88 000—116 000) and 1500 deaths (1100—2300). We predict that the vaccination of 10% of the population, from March 1, will avert 63 000 cases (48 000—78 000) and 900 deaths (600—1500). The proposed extension of the use of antibiotics to all patients with severe dehydration and half of patients with moderate dehydration is expected to avert 9000 cases (8000—10 000) and 1300 deaths (900—2000).

Interpretation
A decline in cholera prevalence in early 2011 is part of the natural course of the epidemic, and should not be interpreted as indicative of successful intervention. Substantially more cases of cholera are expected than official estimates used for resource allocation. Combined, clean water provision, vaccination, and expanded access to antibiotics might avert thousands of deaths.

Funding
National Institutes of Health.

Haiti again caught in cholera's grip

[IMG]http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-07/63461403.jpg[/IMG]
More than 5,800 have died since the outbreak began in October. With the return of the rainy season afoot, more than 1,000 new cases a day were logged in June.
Haiti cholera outbreak

A cholera patient rests at the treatment center in Mirebalais, a dusty crossroads town north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The center is seeing dozens of new patients a day, many arriving on the verge of death from dehydration. (Eduardo Verdugo, Associated Press / June 30, 2011)


By Allyn Gaestel, Los Angeles Times

July 24, 2011
Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti—

Instead of the commuters typically packed into the bright blue and red "tap tap" pickup truck weaving through Haiti's capital, a man, shrunken, dehydrated, dressed in a diaper and attached to an IV, lay on the floor.

As the ad-hoc ambulance in Port-au-Prince attested, cholera refuses to leave the country.

The bacterial disease that ravaged Haiti last fall had spread quickly to all regions, but calmed down in the dry spring months. With the rainy season now in progress, clinics across the country are again bustling with seriously ill patients.

"We are still in … an epidemic," said Jocelyne Pierre Louis, spokeswoman for the government Ministry of Public Health.

More than 5,800 people have died since the epidemic began in October, according to the Haitian government. Many health workers believe the number is higher. Uncounted victims have died in remote areas of the country, never reaching services and never being added to government tallies.

The Health Ministry reported more than 1,000 new cholera cases a day last month.

For all the efforts to contain the disease, experts agree that the root of the problem is sanitation. Spread through contaminated water in a country with no central sewage or potable water systems, cholera remains a formidable threat.

"If we want to make cholera disappear, it will be with water and sanitation," said Romain Gitenet, head of the Haiti mission for France-based Doctors Without Borders, which has opened cholera treatment centers across the country.

Epidemiologists with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have cited a United Nations base housing Nepalese peacekeepers in the rural town of Mirebalais as the likely source of the epidemic. Cholera is prevalent in Nepal, a South Asian country. But the U.N. maintains that a "confluence of factors" led to the outbreak.

Government programs and private nonprofit health organizations have mounted a vigorous campaign, distributing chlorine and educating people on prevention and treatment, in an attempt to slow the spread of the disease.

Health professionals say the second wave is less deadly because more people recognize cholera symptoms, vomiting and diarrhea, and know to seek treatment quickly.

Louis, the Health Ministry spokeswoman, acknowledged that programs to equip communities with cisterns of clean water or cholera clinics did not address the causes.

"The problem of sanitation can't be dealt with between today and tomorrow," she said.

That problem was magnified by the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that crumbled much of the capital. A year and a half later, thousands of Haitians remain homeless.

At the edge of Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum, a small community called Tapi Vert still lives beneath dust-coated, fraying tarps.

On the outskirts of the encampment, temporary toilets stand without doors, without walls, full of excrement and sealed off with rocks.

"We don't have toilets. Those toilets are closed. They are full," said Rosette Michel, a 38-year-old mother of seven. She and one of her sons, a 10-year-old, contracted cholera in the last month.

"Kids sometimes use [the toilets], but grown-ups go in the bushes," said Jean Vital, another camp resident.

Many aid organizations and charities rushed to donate toilets to camps after the earthquake. But as time passed, many of those groups scaled down their activities, or pulled out altogether.

Supplying toilets but neglecting to empty them can be worse than not providing them in the first place, said Dr. Sasha Kramer, who runs SOIL, an organization that promotes sustainable sanitation such as composting toilets.

"The fact that the toilets have been put in and there hasn't been any follow-up or management is one of the biggest risks for cholera," she said. These forgotten toilets throughout the city are becoming pools of untreated human waste.

Tapi Vert residents said no one had come to empty the toilets in three months. The rainy season has made the situation more pressing.

"The rain falls and it overflows and green sludge leaks," said Marie-Ange Dossis, another resident. "It's not good for our health."

Gaestel is a special correspondent.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

US aid is everywhere of course!
S.


[QUOTE=Atabey]
Haiti again caught in cholera's grip

[IMG]http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2011-07/63461403.jpg[/IMG]
More than 5,800 have died since the outbreak began in October. With the return of the rainy season afoot, more than 1,000 new cases a day were logged in June.
Haiti cholera outbreak

A cholera patient rests at the treatment center in Mirebalais, a dusty crossroads town north of Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The center is seeing dozens of new patients a day, many arriving on the verge of death from dehydration. (Eduardo Verdugo, Associated Press / June 30, 2011)


By Allyn Gaestel, Los Angeles Times

July 24, 2011
Reporting from Port-au-Prince, Haiti—

Instead of the commuters typically packed into the bright blue and red "tap tap" pickup truck weaving through Haiti's capital, a man, shrunken, dehydrated, dressed in a diaper and attached to an IV, lay on the floor.

As the ad-hoc ambulance in Port-au-Prince attested, cholera refuses to leave the country.

The bacterial disease that ravaged Haiti last fall had spread quickly to all regions, but calmed down in the dry spring months. With the rainy season now in progress, clinics across the country are again bustling with seriously ill patients.

"We are still in … an epidemic," said Jocelyne Pierre Louis, spokeswoman for the government Ministry of Public Health.

More than 5,800 people have died since the epidemic began in October, according to the Haitian government. Many health workers believe the number is higher. Uncounted victims have died in remote areas of the country, never reaching services and never being added to government tallies.

The Health Ministry reported more than 1,000 new cholera cases a day last month.

For all the efforts to contain the disease, experts agree that the root of the problem is sanitation. Spread through contaminated water in a country with no central sewage or potable water systems, cholera remains a formidable threat.

"If we want to make cholera disappear, it will be with water and sanitation," said Romain Gitenet, head of the Haiti mission for France-based Doctors Without Borders, which has opened cholera treatment centers across the country.

Epidemiologists with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have cited a United Nations base housing Nepalese peacekeepers in the rural town of Mirebalais as the likely source of the epidemic. Cholera is prevalent in Nepal, a South Asian country. But the U.N. maintains that a "confluence of factors" led to the outbreak.

Government programs and private nonprofit health organizations have mounted a vigorous campaign, distributing chlorine and educating people on prevention and treatment, in an attempt to slow the spread of the disease.

Health professionals say the second wave is less deadly because more people recognize cholera symptoms, vomiting and diarrhea, and know to seek treatment quickly.

Louis, the Health Ministry spokeswoman, acknowledged that programs to equip communities with cisterns of clean water or cholera clinics did not address the causes.

"The problem of sanitation can't be dealt with between today and tomorrow," she said.

That problem was magnified by the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that crumbled much of the capital. A year and a half later, thousands of Haitians remain homeless.

At the edge of Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince slum, a small community called Tapi Vert still lives beneath dust-coated, fraying tarps.

On the outskirts of the encampment, temporary toilets stand without doors, without walls, full of excrement and sealed off with rocks.

"We don't have toilets. Those toilets are closed. They are full," said Rosette Michel, a 38-year-old mother of seven. She and one of her sons, a 10-year-old, contracted cholera in the last month.

"Kids sometimes use [the toilets], but grown-ups go in the bushes," said Jean Vital, another camp resident.

Many aid organizations and charities rushed to donate toilets to camps after the earthquake. But as time passed, many of those groups scaled down their activities, or pulled out altogether.

Supplying toilets but neglecting to empty them can be worse than not providing them in the first place, said Dr. Sasha Kramer, who runs SOIL, an organization that promotes sustainable sanitation such as composting toilets.

"The fact that the toilets have been put in and there hasn't been any follow-up or management is one of the biggest risks for cholera," she said. These forgotten toilets throughout the city are becoming pools of untreated human waste.

Tapi Vert residents said no one had come to empty the toilets in three months. The rainy season has made the situation more pressing.

"The rain falls and it overflows and green sludge leaks," said Marie-Ange Dossis, another resident. "It's not good for our health."

Gaestel is a special correspondent.

Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times

[/QUOTE]

9 November 2011 Last updated at 03:02 ET
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-15648110

Haiti cholera victims demand UN compensation

Patients with cholera are treated in a hospital in Haiti on 6 November, 2010 Before the 2010 outbreak, Haiti had been cholera-free for nearly a century.


The UN is facing claims for hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from Haitian cholera victims.

Several studies have found that cholera was probably brought to Haiti by UN peacekeepers from Nepal.

The US-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti filed the demand on behalf of some 5,000 victims.

It says the UN mission in Haiti failed to screen peacekeepers for cholera and allowed untreated waste from a UN base to be dumped into the main river.

It also says the UN mission failed to respond adequately to the outbreak.

The demand would be looked at by the "relevant parts of the UN system", spokesman Martin Nesirsky said.

The UN was working "to do everything possible to bring the spread of cholera under control, to treat and support those affected by cholera and ultimately to eradicate cholera from Haiti," he said.

More than 6,500 Haitians have died of cholera since the outbreak began in October 2010, according to the Haitian Ministry of Health, and nearly 500,000 have been made ill.
'Public apology'

The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) - a Boston-based human rights group - is demanding $50,000 (£31,000) in compensation for each sick person and $100,000 (£62,000) for each death.

As well as individual damages, it also wants a public apology and an adequate nationwide response - including medical care, clean water and sanitation infrastructure.

The group says it is prepared to go to court in Haiti or the US if the UN does not respond.

"It is time for the UN to step up and do the right thing," IJDH director Brian Concannon said.

"The majority of our petition's facts come from UN reports. The UN developed much of the law we cite," he said.

"Our clients are challenging the institution to act consistently with what it knows to be true and just".

A UN report on Haiti's cholera epidemic - drawn up by by independent experts and published in May - found that the outbreak was the result of a "confluence of circumstances" rather than the fault of a group or individual.

But it strongly suggested that the disease was introduced by UN peacekeepers from Nepal living on a base where poor sanitary conditions allowed human waste to enter the Artibonite river system.

A report by the US Center for Disease Control also linked the outbreak to Nepalese troops.

The cholera epidemic provoked widespread demonstrations against the UN mission, which has been in Haiti since 2004.

Haitians have little natural resistance to cholera, and the waterborne disease spread rapidly in a country whose already poor infrastructure was shattered by the January 2010 earthquake.

Man those liberals in Boston...........what a preposterous demand..............Well if that is the case lets create a lawsuit for th the US invading Haiti........

14 December 2011 Last updated at 11:19 ET


Haiti's cholera row with UN rumbles on
By Mark Doyle BBC News, Haiti


[IMG]http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/57326000/jpg/_57326266_013409464-1.jpg[/IMG]
A Haitian teenager receiving treatment for cholera Nearly 500,000 people in Haiti have contracted cholera during the outbreak


Haiti protest for cholera pay-out
Cholera heartland found in Asia
Haiti's cholera 'to be far worse'

Lawyers representing thousands of cholera victims in Haiti have threatened to take the United Nations to court in the United States, unless the international body responds to a petition for financial compensation.

It is part of a campaign that centres on the extraordinary possibility that the UN - widely seen as a force for good around the world - may have brought cholera into Haiti and as a result may be responsible for nearly 7,000 deaths from the disease.

The UN is being asked to pay $100,000 (£65,000) to the families of those who died and $50,000 (£32,500) to each of the people who fell sick but recovered.

In addition there is a "class action" saying the UN should stop the cholera by rebuilding Haiti's decrepit water and sanitation infrastructure.

If met in total, the claims could cost the international body many billions of dollars.

Cholera is a disease that spreads through human waste and infected water.

Victims can die within hours of the disease taking hold if they don't get treatment. The main symptom is catastrophic dehydration through diarrhoea and vomiting.
'Dire conditions'

My journey here began in the pretty mountaintop town of Mirebalais, source of the original infection.

No-one contests that this is the area where the outbreak began last October. But where exactly?
Anti-UN protests in Haiti The cholera outbreak has triggered ongoing protests against the UN in Haiti

The mayor of the town, Lochard Laguerre, has no doubts: "We know that sanitary conditions in the Nepalese UN camp just outside town were dire," he told me.

"They were dumping their sewage near the river and we know that people die from cholera in Nepal. I told the UN commander in the camp about our concerns a week or so before the first outbreak began."

Inside the Mirebalais UN camp, the current officer in charge, Lt Col Tek Chand of the Nepalese army, contested the mayor's account.

"It's impossible. It didn't start here," he said.

Lt Col Tek Chand was not in charge of the camp when the outbreak began - another Nepalese officer was here.

"There has not been a single case of cholera in this camp," he insisted.

In the camp, technicians were monitoring a new, modern sewage treatment plant recently installed by the UN.

At the time of the cholera outbreak, however, the Nepalese had a contract with a Haitian waste-disposal company that was dumping raw sewage into an open pit outside the camp.

“Start Quote

In the court of pubic opinion in Haiti, the UN is already guilty”

Nigel Fisher UN head of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti.

A report by independent experts commissioned by the UN in New York said sanitary conditions at the camp in Mirebalais were insufficient to prevent the spread of infection into the Artibonite River - Haiti's biggest.

The experts' report also said the strain of cholera that hit Haiti was similar to an Asian strain.

Before this outbreak, the experts said, Haiti had not had cholera for nearly 100 years.
'Fingers pointed'

In the capital Port-au-Prince the UN's head of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti, Nigel Fisher, said the response to the petition was in the hands of lawyers at the UN Secretariat in New York.

But he told me; "I think we all regret the breakout of this thing and I don't think the UN has ever denied the possibility [that it could have been at fault]."

"However I would like to know with some certainty what the source was," he added.

He said that describing it as an "Asian strain" was not helpful.
map

"The cholera strain we have in Haiti is the same as the one they have in Latin America and Africa. They all derive from Bangladesh in the 1960s so they are all an Asian strain."

He said every moment he spent trying to establish the exact cause of the outbreak was time he was not spending with his humanitarian team tackling the crisis that was still taking lives.

"Fingers are being pointed", Nigel Fisher accepts, "and in the court of pubic opinion in Haiti, the UN is already guilty".

He was certainly right there. Every single Haitian I met during my two week visit was convinced the UN was responsible.

A protest by about 2,000 people was held outside the UN base in the coastal town of Saint Marc.

"Down with the UN," people shouted and sang, "they brought us cholera."

"I'm here because my father died of cholera," said one of the protesters, Pierre Filsmichel.

"My dad left seven children and a wife. He was the breadwinner of our family, and because of cholera he is now dead. We ask for compensation for all the cholera victims."

There are technical question marks around the culpability of the United Nations in this affair.

Although some scientific experts say the Nepalese base was the source of the cholera, others say they cannot be certain.
UN base in Haiti The UN says it is possible that its forces brought cholera to Haiti, but it is not scientifically proven

A senior UN official, who requested anonymity, pointed out that it was possible for someone to be a cholera carrier without knowing it.

If this had been the case, the UN official said, the source could have been either an unknowing Nepali - or an unknowing Haitian, or anybody else in the country.

Another UN official, who also asked not to be named, said that following a series of internal reports, seen by most senior UN managers, "everyone knew the sanitary situation in the Nepali base was deplorable".

The legal case currently takes the form of a petition under civil law asking the UN to set up a joint UN/Haitian Government commission to hear the cases.

If the civil case is not heard by the joint commission soon, the lawyers say, they will take the matter to court in the United States.

The United Nations must face up to the disaster it caused in Haiti

Despite overwhelming evidence, the UN has still not taken responsibility for the cholera disaster in Haiti


Mark Weisbrot
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 December 2011 16.15 EST
Article history

Cholera sufferers in Port-au-Prince, Haiti

Cholera killed more than 7,000 Haitans since October 2010. Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

If an international agency brought a deadly disease to New York City that killed more people than the 9/11 attacks, what would be the consequences? Could they simply brush it off and have nobody hold them accountable for the damages? The answer is obviously no, and the same would be true for most of the countries in this hemisphere. But so far, it looks like they can get away with it in Haiti.

For some reason the "international community" thinks that it can get away with anything in Haiti. More than 7,000 Haitians have been killed since October 2010 by the deadly cholera bacteria that UN troops brought to Haiti in the aftermath of the devastating earthquake in January that year.

More than 500,000 have been infected, and the disease – which Haiti has not had in more than a century – is now endemic to the country and will be killing people there for many years to come.

Last week, UN officials once again denied responsibility for the disaster, and were, in my view, publicly dishonest about the available scientific research – some of which was included in the UN's own report on the epidemic. On Thursday Nigel Fisher, the UN's Deputy Special Representative for Minustah said: "I think we all regret the breakout of this thing and I don't think the UN has ever denied the possibility [that it could have been at fault]." But he went on to say that describing the strain as Asian was "not helpful", telling the BBC:

The cholera strain we have in Haiti is the same as the one they have in Latin America and Africa. They all derive from Bangladesh in the 1960s so they are all an Asian strain.

The Associated Press's reporter described that comment as "patently untrue", and the UN's own report (PDF) was definitive about the origin of the strain. "Overall, this basic bacteriological information indicates the Haitian isolates were similar to the Vibrio cholerae strains currently circulating in South Asia and parts of Africa, and not to strains isolated in the Gulf of Mexico [or] those found in other parts of Latin America ..."

So according to the UN's own research, Fisher was – at the very least – misleading. The evidence for the origin of the epidemic is overwhelming.

In the United States criminal justice system, we have the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt" for a guilty verdict. The evidence in this case far exceeds even that standard, let alone the less rigorous standard for civil lawsuits.

The UN's own study was clear: "The source of the Haiti cholera outbreak was due to contamination of the Meye Tributary of the Artibonite River with a pathogenic strain of current South Asian type Vibrio cholerae as a result of human activity." In other words, somebody dumped human fecal matter containing a deadly cholera bacteria from South Asia into one of the country's main sources of water for drinking and irrigation. Who might that be?

Suspect number one is the UN troop encampment from Nepal. From the Associated Press at the time of the outbreak:

When Associated Press journalists visited Wednesday, they found open and cracked pipes behind the base, with U.N. military investigators taking samples. There was an overpowering smell of human waste, and a pipe leading toward a septic tank was leaking foul-smelling black fluid toward the river.

The waste is dumped across the street in open pits that residents, who live a few yards away, said often overflow into the Artibonite tributary running below.

A UN official told the BBC that "everyone knew the sanitary situation in the Nepali base was deplorable".

But that's just some of the evidence on the ground. The scientific evidence is even more conclusive. The UN report itself provided quite a bit of genetic evidence with regard to the South Asian origins of the cholera bacteria in Haiti, but tried to leave some wiggle room.

But in August a more definitive research paper was published by a team of fifteen scientists that had access to samples of the cholera bacteria from Nepal. This study used whole-genome sequence typing and two other methods to compare the genetic make-up of the cholera bacteria in Haiti to that of Nepal at the time that the contingent of troops from that country came to Haiti. This study also found a "close relationship" between the Haitian and Nepalese strains of the bacteria.

The most recent study confirms what was found in previous studies, for example, one published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January of this year. Harvard microbiologist John Mekalanos was a co-author of that article, and commented to Science Magazine on the most recent study comparing the Haitian and Nepalese strains of the bacteria:

"They're practically identical. This is as close as you can come to molecular proof" for the Nepalese link, says Harvard University microbiologist John Mekalanos, the author of the first genomic study on the issue, who had tried in vain to get his hands on samples from Nepal himself. "The authors have to be congratulated for closing the book on this issue at the molecular-genetic level."

These studies also confirm a detailed investigation from the U.S.-based Center for Disease Control, headed by French epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux, whose "findings strongly suggest that contamination of the Artibonite and one of its tributaries downstream from a military camp triggered the epidemic."

How much more evidence could we possibly need? You can bet that any impartial jury or judge in the world would find that the UN brought this epidemic to Haiti. And according to most countries' laws, they would have to pay for what they did. Indeed there might even be criminal responsibility, since this action was so incredibly reckless in its disregard for the life and health of the victims.

UN officials had to be aware of the dangers that troops coming from an area where there was cholera could pose to a country like Haiti, where so many people do not have access to clean water or sanitation facilities. They had to know how important it was not to let that bacteria pollute the country's water supply.

Where are all the human rights organizations on this issue? Is the UN so sacrosanct, or perhaps influential, that nobody can state the obvious when an abuse of this horrific magnitude has been committed? So far one small, brave, and independent NGO – the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti – has announced it will pursue legal action to force the UN to pay for the damages.

Additionally, a Brazilian group – the Faculdade de Direito de Santa Maria – has filed a complaint with the OAS's Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Perhaps even more important than compensation for the victims and their families, both groups are also demanding that the UN provide the public health infrastructure for water and sanitation that is necessary to eventually get rid of cholera in Haiti.

Everyone who cares about human rights in this hemisphere should join this effort to hold the UN accountable for this disaster.

I would not be surprised if this was purposely created as some sort of population control or perhaps some pharmaceutical company using Hati to test a new drug for the market. You never know.

I just can't believe that one single country has so much bad luck, just simply as coincidence. It just can't be that all of that tragedy all happened by chance. I am a big believer of consipracy theory. I would be leeery of the whole thing. Be careful guys and keep your eyes on the look out.