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vaporwavebeach-writes · 1 year

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Kinktober Day 12 (Medical Play)

BTAA Scarecrow x Reader (NSFW)

(1,223 Words)

Summary: you have a debilitating phobia of needles and Dr. Crane has the solution to overcoming those fears

Warnings/Tags: 18+, gender neutral reader, reader has MAJOR trypanophobia (fear of needles), panic attacks, exposure therapy, medical kink (duh), crane feeding off the reader’s fear, crane being unprofessional, doctor/patient dynamic, fingering

Notes: sorry this one’s a little late LMAO but literally? as someone who had SEVERE trypanophobia, this was kinda empowering to write, enjoy the fic!!!

There was always a sense of unease whenever you found yourself at the doctors office. Maybe it was the awkward silence of sitting in the waiting room, anticipating what’s to come. Maybe it was the little intrusions that came with a basic physical check-up. Maybe it was unsettling scent of sterilized chemicals, sanitizing the room. Maybe it was those beige colored walls, glaring at you for the duration of your visit. Maybe it was the fact that you were about to be subjected to one of your worst fears. Or maybe, it was the fact that your physician is incredibly attractive.

Yeah, that too.

You find yourself, laying on his exam table, staring up at the ceiling. His voice, playful, as he explains the clinical the proceedings of this visit, reverberates off the walls.

“I’m really glad to see you taking the initiative to face your fears, exposure therapy isn’t for the faint of heart, you know.”

Your heart flutters at his words. As someone who suffered from a fear of needles since childhood, you figured that now, well into your adulthood, it was finally time to overcome that fear.

Doctors appointments for important vaccinations or even just the seasonal flu shot was always enough to spiral you into a panic. Nightmares leading up to it, hyperventilating, and giving yourself panic attacks to the point of nausea or fainting were feelings you had become all too familiar with. Feeling the prying gazes of other people in the waiting room or judgmental nurses always caused your embarrassment to spike at what you thought, was your own childish anxieties.

Seeing Dr. Jonathan Crane changed all that. When you scheduled your first session with him, his office felt comfortable. Adorned with classic horror movie posters and little mementos about his interests gave the impression that you wouldn’t be just some patient to him, but someone who he would genuinely try to help with your issues. When time came to actually talk about your fear, he wasn’t mean, or judgmental, or condescending, but he was understanding. He was someone who took a deep interest in whatever you had to say, as a patient and as a person. When he suggested the idea of exposure therapy, you were hesitant, but he had helped you come to realize that you had to start somewhere, which lead you to the clinic.

“Thanks, doctor,” you smile nervously, “gotta start somewhere, right?”

“Too true,” he says, turning to you as he walks over to the counter. “I appreciate that you put your trust in me to help you with such a… Debilitating, vulnerability.”

You hear the metallic rustling from within the cabinets. You stare back up at the ceiling, yet your curiosity gets the better of you. Glancing back over to him, you spy him preparing the needles, sending a wave of trepidation through your body.

“The syringes will be filled with a simple saline solution, it’s not harmful, but the solution is not what you’re afraid of, is it?” Maybe it’s just your anxiety, but you could swear there’s a hint of eeriness within his voice.

“Hey, uh, Doctor?”

“What is it, sweet pea?” He asks jokingly.

“I um, I just wanna apologize in advance in case I freak out at the needle.” You muster out with as much courage as you can. “Like, I-I might cry actually.” You chuckle nervously. You actually do feel the urge to cry as uneasiness fills the pit in your stomach.

“Aw now,“ There’s a playfulness to his voice. You’ve heard it many times in sessions, but it feels a little unsettling to hear it now. “Don’t psych yourself up too much, remember your breathing techniques.”

You can’t regulate your breathing at a time like this. As he makes his way over to you with a little alcohol wipe, you feel yourself beginning to hyperventilate. You feel the sweat trickling down your forehead as your throat begins to go dry. You feel faint; clammy. That alcohol wipe was the calm before the storm. You were fine when it was swabbed across your skin, but it always signaled what’s to come.

“Dr. Crane, I don’t know if I-”

“The feelings you have right now are completely expected,” he hushes you. “It’s all anticipatory, you fear the dread of it more than the actual stick itself, and I think I have found a sufficient way to combat that,” his explanation is stern, but comforting. He takes his gloved hands in yours, feeling his warmth through the latex. “Do you trust me?”

You’re hesitant. Your eyes threaten to spill tears out of the sheer distress you feel at the moment, yet Crane stares at you confidently, as if he knows you will make the right decision. You let out a shaky sigh, “Yes.”

“Good,” he grins at you. His hand makes its way to cup your cheek, gently thumbing over you. It moves up and around, to the nape of your neck and through your scalp, playing with your hair. You practically melt into his touch, fear beginning to dissipate from within you. And it’s at that moment, he gives it a tug, eliciting a soft moan from your lips. “A good method to combating fear, is to add an equally positive stimulus.” He lets out a low chuckle in response, which you feel go straight to your groin.

“I think I catch your drift.”

“Trust me,” he whirls you around on the table, spreading your legs. You can feel the heat pooling in your sex. “By the time I’m done with you, your phobia of needles will be the last thing on your mind.” He eyes you up, feeling his predatory gaze all around you like you wish his body was.

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” you whisper desperately.

“Then let’s not waste any time.”

You two work together to undo your pants. Your sex drips with arousal as Dr. Crane’s hand makes its way past your underwear. Your legs shake as he grazes over a particularly sensitive spot. He adds more pressure stroking you steadily as you all but grind yourself on his hand.

“God, you are such a good patient,” he groans. “Your determination to cure yourself of this fear, by any means necessary, is remarkable.”

You let out a breathy moan at the praise. You feel his fingers enter inside you, curling up and fucking away any fear you had before.

“Dr. Crane,” you gasp. “I think, I-I’m-”

“Getting close?”

“Mhm.” You groan.

You feel yourself quickly reaching your peak, eyes slamming shut. As you feel Crane’s fingers speeding up, there’s a sharp, painful sensation in your arm, making you cry out in a pained whine. With the pain, soon follows your orgasm, which tears through you frantically.

Breathing heavily, you come down from your euphoric high, to find Dr. Crane removing his gloves, smiling over at you proudly.

“Congratulations,” he smirks. “We’ve made excellent progress in overcoming your phobia, I think we’ve made a break through.” Washing his hands in the sink, he takes a seat on the table beside you, that playful tone once again adorning his voice. “However, I think we may need to have a few more sessions, fears aren’t cured overnight you know.”

You giggle, looking at him feeling giddy. You couldn’t wait for your next appointment.

#btaa scarecrow x reader #jonathan crane x reader #jonathan crane x you #jonathan crane smut #btaa scarecrow #scarecrow x reader #scarecrow imagine #scarecrow x you #jonathan crane imagine #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #mia writes batman!!!

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covid-safer-hotties · 7 days

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'Vaccine fatigue' blamed as roughly half of people in US will skip COVID and flu shots this year - Published Sept 16, 2024

by Melissa Rudy

A growing number of U.S. adults are hesitant to get recommended vaccines this fall, a new survey found.

The poll, which included 1,006 people, found that only 43% of respondents have gotten or plan to get the COVID vaccine.

Only a slight majority (56%) of adults said they have gotten or plan to get the flu shot this fall.

The poll also found that 37% of those who have gotten vaccines in past years plan to skip the shots this season.

Around one-third of respondents also said they don’t believe they need the vaccines mentioned in the survey — flu, COVID, RSV or pneumococcal pneumonia.

Vaccine hesitancy tends to skew younger, as adults aged 65 and older are the most likely to get the recommended immunizations.

The nationwide survey was conducted by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in mid-August 2024.

These findings come just weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved updated COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer for the 2024-2025 season.

"We’re at the start of respiratory virus season, when you have the triple threat of flu, COVID-19 and RSV," said Nora Colburn, MD, medical director of clinical epidemiology at Ohio State’s Richard M. Ross Heart Hospital, in a press release.

"Unfortunately, there is a lot of misinformation about vaccinations, but the reality is that they are safe and highly effective in preventing serious illness and death," she went on.

"Older adults, people with certain chronic medical conditions, and those who are pregnant are especially at risk during respiratory virus season." Dr. Jacob Glanville, CEO of Centivax, a San Francisco biotechnology company, reacted to the poll’s findings.

"It’s obviously not surprising that 37% of people said they had been vaccinated in the past but weren’t planning to this year," he told Fox News Digital.

"We just had a vaccine mandate a couple of years ago, and furthermore, childhood vaccines are very broadly administered, so those 37% are people who wouldn’t be getting a vaccine normally anyway."

The reported rate of 56% for the flu shot is a little above average, Glanville said, as it tends to hover at around 50%.

"Coronavirus vaccination rates are a little lower than for the flu," he noted.

This could be due to lack of clarity with the public over how COVID should be treated post-pandemic, according to Glanville.

"It’s also fatigue due to the COVID vaccines not being particularly effective at preventing symptoms, which causes people to believe that they are not effective (although they do protect against severe illness)," he added.

Dr. Marc Siegel, senior medical analyst for Fox News and clinical professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center, said he finds the poll’s findings concerning.

"Both vaccines wane over six months, so a yearly booster makes sense for high-risk groups," he told Fox News Digital.

Siegel estimates that this year’s flu season will be similar to last year’s, which was "moderate," with 25,000 deaths and 400,000 hospitalizations.

"The flu shot decreases severity and number of hospitalizations by about a quarter, and helps to provide community immunity," he added.

For COVID, Siegel warned that the virus’ activity is still fairly high — "especially in the western U.S."

The doctor also warned of a new variant circulating in Europe, which he expects will soon be in the U.S., known as the XEC subvariant.

"It seems to be more contagious — it causes congestion, cough, loss of smell and appetite, sore throat and body aches," he told Fox News Digital.

"The new vaccine should provide at least some coverage."

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, told Siegel that very young children are being hospitalized at a greater rate — "likely because they haven't been vaccinated with the primary series."

"I recommend a yearly booster for the elderly, immunocompromised and those with chronic illness, along with anyone who is at risk for long COVID or has had it previously," Siegel said.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued the following vaccine recommendations

Flu: Everyone 6 months and older is advised to get vaccinated against influenza.

COVID-19: The latest version of the COVID vaccine is recommended for everyone 6 months and older.

RSV: The respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine is recommended for everyone aged 75 and older, as well as those aged 60 to 74 who have certain chronic medical conditions, such as lung or heart disease, or who live in nursing homes, as they are at a higher risk of severe disease. Pregnant women are also advised to get the vaccine during weeks 32 through 36 of pregnancy.

Pneumococcal: Everyone younger than 5 years and age 65 and older is advised to get the pneumococcal vaccine, along with those who are at increased risk of severe disease.

#covid #mask up #pandemic #covid 19 #wear a mask #public health #coronavirus #sars cov 2 #still coviding #wear a respirator #influenza #flu

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hannahbarberra162 · 23 days

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A Negative Outcome

Oops I accidentally a one shot that's been rolling around in my brain for a while.

On Ao3

GN!reader, Marco (no smut).

Word count: 4.3k

Summary: You go to a pirate doctor’s office hours, hoping to get help for your ankle. You get a lot more than you asked for.

CW: All hurt no comfort. Discussions of blood.

Note: I know this isn’t really how viruses work. Get vaccinated.

You sat in the makeshift waiting room, finally finishing all the paperwork you’d been handed. Putting the pencil at the top of the clipboard, you rose and limped over to a nurse wearing a micromini pink dress and thigh high leopard print boots sitting behind a small desk, handing her the forms. They’d been way more extensive than any other doctor’s office you’d ever been to, but it was only a few more minutes of your time.

“Thank you, the doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse said, scanning your paperwork. She flipped through the first few pages quickly, continuing to read as she took your forms with her through a doorway. You sat back down on the uncomfortable chair and took your book out of your bag, flipping it open to where you'd left off. You’d been to pop-up pirate clinics before, they were a little weird but a lot of people liked them. It was an easy way for pirate crews to make money - they’d stop on an island, the crew doctor would hold office hours for cheap, and they’d be on their way after a couple of days. It was especially beneficial to islands like yours that lacked medical resources and had to do with home remedies most of the time. It also helped pirate crews maintain good relationships with islands they wanted to come back to, instead of just looting. Some people were wary, saying it was foolish to trust pirates with anything. But you’d been to one before with Dr. Trafalgar and it had been completely fine, so you hoped for the best. You’d broken your ankle the previous year and thought it healed wrong. It was hard to walk on and hurt constantly, you were hoping the doctor could fix it, or at least confirm your suspicions.

You sat patiently, not caring about the wait time. There were a lot of people waiting, most with concerns more dire than your own. You had your novel and time on your hands, as long as the doctor saw you today you couldn’t complain. You’d heard a lot about this particular doctor, Marco The Phoenix. People raved about his medical skills and knowledge, maybe even more than Dr. Trafalgar. You thought he had an unfair advantage, since his Devil Fruit power gave him the ability to heal others. Though, truthfully, you didn’t care either way. As long as he helped you, or at least tried to, you’d be happy with the result. You sat back and waited for your name to be called. Soon, the nurse working the reception desk called your name, and you followed her through the doorway. You were surprised that you were being seen so quickly, given how non-emergent your situation was, but you weren’t going to complain.

The Whitebeard doctors weren’t operating out of a real medical office, they were borrowing a house and converted it to a clinic for a few days. You had been sitting in the living room and followed the nurse to a bedroom that now had medical equipment inside. You sat down on the disposable paper covering the bed, raising your foot alongside you. Keeping it elevated sometimes helped, but not always.

“Hi, I’m Bethany, I’ll be your nurse today.” She had a blood pressure cuff in her hand and you took off your long sleeve shirt. Bethany seemed pleasant enough as she took your blood pressure, recorded your height, and followed up on your medical history. You grew up on on an island very close to Reverse Mountain on the Grand Line. As a consequence, every virus that was endemic to different Blues came through your island. And unfortunately for you, as a kid you’d caught nearly all of them. You’d spent a lot of your childhood confined to your room, which was part of the reason you loved reading so much now, since you’d spent so many hours poring over books as you lay sick in bed. You confirmed to Bethany that yes, you'd had East and West Blue Nile virus, that you’d had Sea King flu, as well as North Blue Pox and South Blue Foot and Mouth. Fortunately, that meant you had immunity to all of these viruses as an adult and hadn’t been sick in a decade. Bethany finished up her questions and routine procedures, handing you a cloth gown.

“Go ahead and change, the doctor will be with you shortly.” You took the gown but gave her a quizzical look.

“Are you sure? My problem is with my ankle, I don’t -” Bethany smiled and cut you off.

“Marco is a thorough doctor. Change into the gown, please.” You shrugged and agreed. Maybe you’d get a physical and orthopedic appointment for the price of one. You changed quickly, not wanting Marco to catch you half dressed, and sat back down on the bed, fiddling with the hem of the gown. You didn’t have to wait long before there was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” you replied. A man with a mop of blond hair at the top of his head and red glasses on his face poked his head through the door.

“Good morning yoi,” replied the physician. He was just as good looking as he was in his wanted posters, you thought to yourself. He had your papers in his hands and was flipping through them much like the nurse before. “Wow, quite the list of illnesses. How are you feeling now?” He sat on a chair that was too small for his tall stature, looking at you over his glasses.

“Pretty good. I don’t get sick anymore, since I’ve had basically every virus in the world,” you joked. “But I broke my ankle last year and I don’t think it set right. There wasn’t a doctor on the island at the time and the barkeep that did it -”

Marco looked at you askance, tutting at you. “You let a barkeep set your ankle yoi?”

“Well, yeah. There wasn’t anyone else to do it and besides, he sets everyone’s bones. I think it turned out wrong. I can’t walk that much before it starts hurting.” Marco looked at you more closely than before and you couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he wasn’t thinking about your broken ankle. Marco set the clipboard down on the bedside table that was doubling as a medical stand and unwound his stethoscope from around his neck. You shifted backwards slightly, suddenly uncomfortable, though you couldn’t say why. You felt the urge to bolt and leave this room behind but you squashed it down. Marco had done nothing unprofessional so you forced yourself to relax. Maybe just being in the presence of a notorious pirate had you on edge, you rationalized to yourself. For his part, Marco didn’t react or mention anything and put the buds of the stethoscope in his ears and put the diaphragm of the stethoscope on your chest.

“Deep breaths yoi,” he said to you soothingly. Your heart was racing but he didn’t remark on it. He hummed and made a note on your paperwork then moved the diaphragm to your back. The gown was partially open in the back by design, so you felt his bare hand graze your skin. You shivered, wishing you were still in your own clothes. Marco made a few more notes and wound the stethoscope back around his neck.

“Heart and lungs are healthy,” he remarked, putting on medical gloves. Marco reached to open your gown at the back and you jumped back in surprise.

“No need to worry, just checking you for scoliosis, rashes, and palpating some organs.” You didn’t need those things, you knew you didn’t have scoliosis or a rash. But you let Marco run his fingers over your spine, check your skin, and feel your lower back and side.

“Kidneys, liver, and skin are all healthy.” Marco said after grabbing a phlebotomy kit. He opened it and arranged the vials and needles on his makeshift tray.

“I’m glad to hear that but my ankle is what -” Marco stopped his movements, looking down at you from his superior height.

“Where do you work yoi?” Marco asked evenly, putting a vial down gently. You had a feeling this wasn’t just for casual conversation.

“Oh, um. The cobbler shop.” Marco nodded.

“I see. And when customers come to the cobbler, do they get to tell the cobbler how to fix shoes? Which tools are needed for every repair?” Your throat was dry as you answered.

“No.” Marco nodded again.

“That’s correct, they do not yoi. So just like I don’t come into your work and tell you how to fix shoes, you don’t know what’s needed in this medical appointment. Right?” He said the last word with a smile but it felt like he’d just gutted you with his words.

“Right,” you echoed back to him. He’d get to your ankle when he got to it, you guessed. Marco warmed back up after his comment and prepared you for a blood draw.

“And you have A negative blood type, right? Pretty rare yoi. Only about 6% of people have it.” Marco tied off a tourniquet and was prodding his fingers at your veins, determining the best one to draw from. You’d always been told you had good veins, he would be able to stick you easily.

“Yeah, A negative. Is that a problem?” You didn’t know much about blood types. Sometimes you donated blood during blood drives but that was about the extent of your knowledge.

“No, no. Not a problem yoi. A negative is the universal platelet donor type. The platelets from your type of blood will be accepted by every other type.” He was wiping down the inside of your forearm with rubbing alcohol.

“That’s cool.” You’d never thought about it before, but that was good to know. Maybe you’d donate at the next drive, then.

“Mm, very. Hold still.” Marco stuck you with the needle, getting into your vein on the first try. Or you assumed he did, you closed your eyes for his part and didn’t feel him redoing it. You felt the tourniquet loosen as Marco took your blood. Sitting there for a few minutes, you wondered what was taking so long. Cracking open an eye, you saw Marco had a large handful of tubes he was filling. You closed your eyes again.

“Squeamish? That’s OK, a lot of people are yoi.” Marco was filling yet another tube.

“Just a little. That’s a lot of samples,” you commented, hoping he wouldn’t snap at you again.

“Almost done, just a few more.” Marco hadn’t told you what they were for, but you figured he would when he was done. Finally wrapping up, you opened your eyes as Marco removed the needle and pressed down on the puncture site with a cotton ball. “Hold this here a moment,” he told you, indicating the cotton. You did as you were told, watching Marco deposit the vials into a container. He grabbed a bandage and removed your hand, securing the cotton ball. He called for Bethany, and gave her the vials when she appeared in the doorway.

“Full workup,” was all he said to her as she walked away. Nice, it was a full physical for you. At least you’d know your numbers. “All right yoi. Let’s check that ankle.” Finally, you thought to yourself. You showed Marco your ankle and where you thought it healed wrong.

“See, it doesn’t look right. And I don’t have my full range of motion.” You tried moving your right foot to the right, but it only went over so far. Marco picked up your foot, rolling it gently. As he manipulated and poked at your ankle, you realized your foot was smaller than his hand. He started twisting your foot slowly to the right.

“Tell me when it hurts yoi,” he murmured, continuing to move your foot.

“Ow! There, please stop.” Marco noted the angle of your foot in relation to your ankle. He sighed, picking your papers back up off the stand, making a few notes with the pencil he’d stuck behind his ear.

“I have some bad news. You’re right, your ankle didn’t set correctly when you broke it. It’s called malunion and if you don’t address it, it will only get worse. More than that, if you want it to be fixed, it’s going to have to be rebroken.” You paled. Breaking it once was painful enough, you didn’t want to break it again on purpose.

“Oh, um, okay. I guess I can find someone to do it?” You bit your lip from stress as you started putting a plan together. You didn’t know anyone who could do that for you on this island, you’d have to leave the island, you didn’t have enough money right now for a trip…

“I can correct it for you but I don’t have the supplies here yoi. You’d have to come back to Moby Dick with me,” Marco said, frowning. “Normally I wouldn’t take civilians there, but this is a special case. The tools I need are there, I can take you now and we can resolve this quickly.”

“The Moby Dick? Like, Whitebeard’s ship? He’ll be there?” You hadn’t spent a lot of time with pirates, and especially not Emperors. Marco smiled at you like you were a small child.

“It’s his ship, of course he’s there yoi. If you want your ankle fixed, we need to go now.” You didn’t think it was a good idea to go unaccompanied onto a pirate ship, but you also didn’t want to live a life of pain when you walked. You hesitated, and Marco put his large hand over your knee, squeezing lightly. “If you’re worried about the pain of rebreaking, don’t be yoi. We can put you under for that part of the procedure.”

At that moment, Bethany poked her head through the doorway. “All set!” she said brightly. “No reaction, no rejection.” You were guessing she was talking about another patient’s case, since none of that meant anything to you. Marco smiled at you again, and the urge to run returned even stronger. This time, you seriously thought about leaving this weird medical office, going home, and forgetting any of this happened. Refusal was almost on the tip of your tongue when Marco gripped your knee even tighter, nearly to the point of pain.

“Let’s go. Get changed.” Marco handed you your stack of clothes.

“B-but what about all the other patients?” Surely he wasn’t dropping all those other cases for an old broken ankle?

“We have another doctor from the crew here yoi. They’ll get care too. Such a nice thought, caring about others. That attitude will serve you well. I’ll be right outside the door, let me know when you’re dressed.” You gulped as Marco left the room. You looked around, half thinking you should jump out the window. But you took off the gown and put your clothes on, knocking to let Marco know you were changed. You hobbled for a few steps before Marco scooped you up in his arms. You blushed a little at the embarrassment of being carried but you were also happy to keep weight off your ankle.

“Don’t have a wheelchair here yoi. This will have to do for now,” Marco said, referring to himself. You laughed lightly. After carrying you out of the house, Marco set you on the ground. “My turn to change,” he said with a grin. You watched in amazement he turned into the Phoenix, resplendent in blue and gold. The Phoenix was haunting in its beauty, but you didn’t have time to admire it before it grabbed you with one large talon around your middle.

“Wait, I don’t -” you didn’t get to finish your sentence before Marco took off in flight. You shrieked as you ascended to the skies, hearing the flapping of wings and watching the ground recede before your eyes. You clutched at the talon gripping you, hoping the flight to the ship was short. You felt his sharp talons pricking at your skin through your clothes, you hoped Marco knew his own strength. Flying was colder than you expected, the wind whipping at you from all directions and Marco’s leg providing you little protection. You were pretty sure Marco wasn’t planning on dropping you but you worried about it nonetheless. The largest ship you’d ever seen came into sight and you clutched tighter at the leg holding you.

Soon you were deposited, none too gently, onto the deck of the Moby Dick. It was immense and filled with dangerous looking pirates, some of whom stopped momentarily to glance at you while they loaded crates. You felt small and weak, like a sheep put into a den of wolves. You turned to see the infamous Whitebeard, sitting on a gigantic chair. He was flocked by nurses in the same garish uniform as the one on the island. Of course you’d heard of him and seen his posters. But right now he looked tired. He looked old. He was resting his eyes as his nurses attended to him. Marco’s hand landed heavily on your shoulder, startling you from your thoughts.

“Let’s check out that ankle hmm?” You’d nearly forgotten about the reason for your visit to the ship. Marco picked you up again, carrying you to the stairs quickly. The hairs on the back of your neck rose but you were a little stuck. Hopefully the healing would be quick and he’d take you back to your island. You were taken to the infirmary, to a private room. There was a lot of different medical equipment in the room, including a fancy looking machine with more tubing and empty bags hanging from it. Marco shut the door behind him and put you on the medical chair. It had padded arms with straps - you hoped you wouldn’t need anything like that.

“Before we begin, I’m going to give you two injections. For vitamin deficiencies, promoting healing, that sort of thing yoi.” Marco didn’t wait for your response, putting on some latex gloves. He took two different vials and two syringes, placing them on a metal tray near the bed. Filling one syringe, he looked at your nervous face and smiled in an approximation of warmth.

“This one is B12, you’re a little on the low side. It should help you feel better generally yoi.” You nodded, presenting your arm. You turned your face away as he gave you the injection. You didn’t know what B12 had to do with your ankle but it couldn’t hurt. Marco put the empty syringe on the tray and took the other, filling it from a vial containing a clear liquid. This time Marco didn’t say anything, just injected your other arm.

“What’s that one for?” you asked. You suddenly felt drowsy, maybe you were more tired than you thought.

“You don’t want to be awake for the re-breaking, do you? I thought it might be easier this way,” Marco replied evenly. You felt an undercurrent of panic as your eyelids drooped closed. You didn’t think you'd fall asleep so quickly or that Marco would anesthetise you without warning. But you couldn’t fight the overwhelming urge to sleep that overtook you like a tidal wave.

You woke up some time later, rolling your head around on stiff shoulders. It took a moment for you to register where you were any why. Your ankle felt great, better than it had in over a year. You looked down but didn’t see any cast, stitches or even bruising. You tried to swing your legs around and stand up but realized you were hooked up to the fancy machine from earlier, arm strapped to the padded armrest like you'd seen earlier. The machine looked like it was taking blood out of your arm. Looking closely at the bags hanging, one had a yellow liquid and the other red. You jumped as the door opened without warning.

“I wasn’t expecting you to be up so soon yoi,” Marco said, holding paperwork in his hand. You chuckled nervously.

“Yeah, I um..my ankle feels great! It doesn’t even feel like anything happened to it, just that it’s better.” Marco smiled condescendingly at you, sitting beside you on a rolling stool.

“That’s the power of the Phoenix. Your ankle is all healed like nothing ever happened.” You nodded.

“Thank you, I really appreciate it. I didn’t think I would have a positive outcome like this. But um, did I need a transfusion or something?” you asked, gesturing to the tubing coming out of your arm.

“Not exactly yoi. How appreciative are you?” Marco asked, tilting his head. You felt like you were treading on thin ice, and tried to think of the right answer. You were on an Emperor’s ship, in a room alone with his First Division Commander, you needed to play whatever games he wanted in order to get out of here.

“Um, very? I don’t know how I can repay you.” That seemed to be the right answer as the corners of Marco’s lips quirked up.

“Interesting you say that. Would you like to know a secret?” You nodded hesitatingly and Marco continued. “There’s an incredibly well kept secret on this crew yoi. Whitebeard has cancer. He’s being treated with chemotherapy and it’s going well. But his platelet count is low, he needs frequent transfusions.” You were very uncomfortable, shifting on your chair. Surely this was one of the most guarded secrets on the seas, why was Marco telling you this? Your heart sunk, you had a very bad feeling about where this was going.

“We’ve been looking for a donor to keep Pops supplied with fresh platelets yoi. It’s harder than you think to find someone in good health with an A negative blood type, the type for universal platelet donation. But it’s the duty of the son to help the father, no matter the cost.” Marco looked at you expectantly. “Not only do you have the right blood type but you’ve built immunity to an incredible amount of viruses from all over the world. It’s like the seas themselves sent you to us. While you were under, I took the liberty of extracting some of your blood for platelets. You don’t mind, do you? After all, I did fix your ankle.” Marco said, patting your hand. You felt cold sweat gathering on the back of your neck.

“N-no, I don’t mind. Did you get enough?” You hoped this was the end of the platelet conversation and you’d be free to leave soon.

“Pops is about four times your size. So we got enough for one dose, but we’re going to need three more for today yoi. Each dose takes about 90 minutes to two hours to extract from the body. Luckily, Pops had a great reaction to the first round. Said he feels better than he has in months. We're hoping your blood boosts his immunity to viruses while he recovers from his medicine. Isn’t that wonderful?” Marco was staring at you without blinking. Small wisps of blue flames were gathering around his shoulders, giving him a threatening aura.

“Yeah, t-that’s wonderful. I’m glad I could help.” You weren’t, you wanted to rip the tubes out of your arms and jump out the small window.

“I’m glad you see it the same way yoi,” Marco said, now holding your wrist tightly in his hand. “I knew you’d be open to helping us the same way I helped you. You’ll need to stay hooked up to the apheresis machine for another 3 hours. I’ll heal you part way through and replenish your platelets. That way we can have as much as we need for Pops. I even brought you the book you were reading earlier.” Marco placed your novel on your lap as you felt the blood drain out of your face. You didn’t want to be used as a living blood bag, no matter how much reading you could get done.

“B-but after that I can go back home, right?” Marco smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. He moved his large hand so it settled on your throat. He put some weight on it but didn’t restrict your breathing. He didn’t need to, the threat was clear.

“Platelets go bad after about five days yoi. And Pops needs a new transfusion daily when he’s receiving his medicine. So, no. You’ll be staying here, with us. It's only about six hours of your day, can't you do that for an Emperor? Aren't you happy to be helping someone as strong as Whitebeard? Besides we’ve already left your island, we set sail about three hours ago. ” He squeezed the column of your throat lightly, baring his teeth. You couldn’t look away even as tears welled in your eyes.

“Life is such a delicate thing. The smallest things can upset the balance yoi. One could become quadriplegic with only a tiny injury to the spine. Or you could wither away for years, given the bare minimum of food and water to maintain health. And so little is needed to keep someone technically alive. All you need is some lower brain function, could be in a coma. Little more than a breathing bag of organs, but alive nonetheless. Don’t you find that interesting?” Marco’s eyes bored into your own, forcing you to listen as his hand still rested on your throat. He was demanding an answer, demanding you understand exactly what he was saying.

“Yes,” you whispered. Marco removed his hand from your throat, cupping your cheek. He rubbed his thumb along your cheekbones, almost tenderly.

“But I don’t think any of that would happen to us, would it? We’re going to help each other for as long as it’s needed, isn’t that right?” Tears fell down your cheeks as you nodded, sealing your fate.

#x reader #reader insert #no comfort #op marco #mentioned whitebeard pirates #whitebeard crew #all hurt no comfort #tw blood #tw kidnapping

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saddiedotdk · 2 months

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Kamala Harris accomplishments as VP:

Cast tie-breaking vote for the American Rescue Plan of 2021.

Passed the American Rescue Plan, resulting in $1.9 trillion in economic stimulus.

Extended the Child Tax Credit through the American Rescue Plan.

Extended unemployment benefits through the American Rescue Plan.

Passed the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill.

Secured funding for electric school buses in the infrastructure bill.

Secured funding to combat wildfires and droughts in the infrastructure bill.

Secured funding for replacing lead water service lines.

Engaged with lawmakers at least 150 times for infrastructure investment.

Led diplomatic mission to Guatemala and Mexico to address migration issues.

Launched the "Central America Forward" initiative.

Secured $4.2 billion in private sector commitments for Central America.

Visited Paris to strengthen US-France relations.

Visited Singapore and Vietnam to bolster economic and strategic ties.

Visited Poland to support NATO allies during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Visited Romania to support NATO allies during the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Launched the "Fight for Reproductive Freedoms" tour.

Visited a Planned Parenthood clinic in Minnesota.

Passed the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act.

Promoted racial equity in pandemic response through specific initiatives.

Chaired the National Space Council.

Visited NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to promote space policies.

Passed the Freedom to Vote Act in the House.

Passed the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act in the House.

Built coalitions for voting rights protections.

Supported the Affordable Care Act through specific policy measures.

Expanded healthcare coverage through policy initiatives.

Passed initiatives for debt-free college education.

Hosted a STEM event for women and girls at the White House.

Championed criminal justice reform through specific legislation.

Secured passage of the bipartisan assault weapons ban.

Expanded background checks for gun purchases through legislation.

Increased the minimum wage through specific policy actions.

Implemented economic justice policies.

Expanded healthcare coverage through policy initiatives.

Secured funding for affordable housing.

Secured funding for affordable education initiatives.

Launched the "Justice is Coming Home" campaign for veterans' mental health.

Proposed legislation for easier legal actions against financial institutions.

Strengthened the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Secured investment in early childhood education.

Launched maternal health initiatives.

Launched the "Call to Action to Reduce Maternal Mortality and Morbidity".

Made Black maternal health a national priority through policy actions.

Increased diversity in government appointments.

Passed legislation for renewable energy production.

Secured funding for combating climate change.

Passed infrastructure development initiatives.

Secured transportation funding through the infrastructure bill.

Developed a plan to combat climate change.

Reduced illegal immigration through policy actions.

Equitable vaccine distribution through specific policy measures.

Supported small businesses through pandemic recovery funds.

Secured educational resources during the pandemic.

Promoted international cooperation on climate initiatives.

Secured international agreements on climate change.

Passed economic policies benefiting the middle class.

Criticized policies benefiting the wealthy at the expense of the working class.

Promoted racial equity in healthcare through specific actions.

Promoted racial equity in economic policies.

Reduced racial disparities in education through specific initiatives.

Increased mental health resources for underserved communities.

Secured funding for affordable childcare.

Secured federal funding for community colleges.

Increased funding for HBCUs.

Increased vaccinations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secured policies for pandemic preparedness.

Ensured equitable vaccine distribution through policy actions.

Secured international cooperation for COVID-19 responses.

Reduced economic disparities exacerbated by the pandemic.

Passed digital equity initiatives for broadband access.

Expanded rural broadband through specific policies.

Secured cybersecurity policies through legislation.

Protected election integrity through specific actions.

Secured fair and secure elections through policy measures.

Strengthened international alliances through diplomacy.

Supported the Paris Climate Agreement through policy actions.

Led U.S. climate negotiations through international initiatives.

Passed initiatives for clean energy jobs.

Secured policies for energy efficiency.

Reduced carbon emissions through specific legislation.

Secured international climate finance.

Promoted public health policies through specific initiatives.

Passed reproductive health services policies.

Supported LGBTQ+ rights through specific actions.

Secured initiatives to reduce homelessness.

Increased veterans' benefits through legislation.

Secured affordable healthcare for veterans.

Passed policies to support military families.

Secured initiatives for veteran employment.

Increased mental health resources for veterans.

Passed disability rights legislation.

Secured policies for accessible infrastructure.

Increased funding for workforce development.

Implemented economic mobility policies.

Secured consumer protection policies through legislation.

Engaged in community outreach through public events.

Organized public engagement efforts.

Participated in over 720 official events, averaging three per day since taking office.

Supported efforts to modernize public health data systems.

#kamala harris #us politics #vote blue #vote kamala #Kamala'sAccomplistments

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bfpnola · 1 year

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Fifty years ago, 15-year-old Sonia Yaco ran for the school board in Ann Arbor, Michigan, one of the youngest people in the country ever to run for a seat on the Board of Education. A member of a group called Youth Liberation, whose platform was founded in 1970, she believed schools would be best run by the people required to be inside them for about seven hours a day, 180 days a year.

Youth Liberation developed a 15-point platform that was far-reaching in its vision. In addition to calling for an end to sexism, sexual discrimination, class antagonism, racism, colonialism, and what they called “adult chauvinism,” the group wanted to form communities outside the structure of the nuclear family, live in harmony with nature, abolish juvenile detention centers and mental institutions, establish global solidarity with youth all over the world, be free of economic dependence on adults, and have the right to their own “new culture,” which included everything “from music and marijuana to free clinics and food cooperatives.”

The 20 or so young people in the group, ranging in age from 12 to 16, wanted “a nationwide movement for youth civil rights, akin to the Black Liberation movement and the growing women's movement,” one of the founders, Keith Hefner, later wrote.

Backed by the radical socialist Human Rights Party, Yaco tells Teen Vogue she delivered stump speeches in a hand-sewn, black ruffled skirt and a black leather jacket. At the time, Ann Arbor, birthplace of the Students for a Democratic Society, was a political hotbed. Youth-led organizations had helped rally support for the 26th Amendment, which was ratified in 1971, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18. With popular books like Children’s Liberation (1973), Escape from Childhood (1974), and The Children’s Rights Movement: Overcoming the Oppression of Young People (1977), the idea of youth liberation was gaining force. Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor distributed their message through an underground newspaper, which was a collection of news items, how-tos, and stories from youth all over the country. Yaco informed her parents that, given her political commitments, having a curfew wasn’t going to work, though she did still do the dishes. She talked to PTA forums and rock concerts of thousands, all with the message of youth empowerment. Each time she arrived to speak, she remembers, there was the question of whether or not she would be allowed on stage. She tells Teen Vogue that a school board member once told her to “shut [her] fat lip.” At another event, she says she encountered labor and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez, who told her, “I’ve been hearing about you.” The resistance against her candidacy was so great that the Board of Education prohibited Yaco from running, instigating a Supreme Court case which she ultimately lost. Still, with 1,363 votes, Yaco says she got the highest number of write-in votes ever received.

When we think of ageism, it commonly refers to older adults, not the other way around. Though many don’t tend to think of young people as oppressed, a recent study published in the Children and Youth Services Review argues that young people are, in many ways, similarly vulnerable to exploitation. Though young people under 18 can be tried in adult court, they are generally not allowed to vote or hold federal office. They are surveilled and policed in schools, medicated and institutionalized without consent, and paid less for their work. In some states, they cannot get vaccinated without parental permission. Many of these issues are particularly acute for youth of color — some as young as preschoolers — whom research has shown are viewed as older and not as “innocent” as their white counterparts. “You're actively teaching children how to deal with an active shooter, but you can't let them have a say in budgeting, you can't let them discuss curriculum,” says Yaco. While rhetoric about the need to “save the children” is rampant, much public policy in the United States — from the struggling childcare system to gun violence in schools — reveals otherwise. The U.S. is the only country in the United Nations that hasn't ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a historic human rights treaty.

The same justifications historically used to deny other groups their basic freedoms are still applied to youth, explains scholar Mich Ciurria. “The popular narrative about children — as spoiled, ungrateful, and mentally ill — mirrors the popular narratives about 1960s housewives, Black working mothers, and disabled people,” she wrote in a recent essay. To be “childish,” after all, is a derogatory term. As psychologist Robert Epstein argues in an article for Scientific American, what is commonly chalked up to an innate “irresponsibility” or “laziness” — the idea of the unformed teen brain — may simply be a response to living under the repressions of modern society. A 1991 study reviewing research on young people in 186 preindustrial societies — more than half of which had no word for “adolescence” — revealed little evidence of the kind of antisocial teen behavior found in the West, according to Epstein’s summary. In his research for the piece, Epstein found that, based on surveys he conducted, “teens in the U.S. are subjected to more than 10 times as many restrictions as are mainstream adults, twice as many restrictions as active-duty U.S. Marines, and even twice as many restrictions as incarcerated felons.” Young people have long been at the forefront of liberation struggles. Youth played a big part in the Civil Rights movement, which would inspire other movements that followed. In 1955, nine months before Rosa Parks became famous for refusing to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus, a 15-year-old named Claudette Colvin was arrested for the same action. Galvanized by the Civil Rights movement, the National Indian Youth Council, formed by a group of young people in 1961, organized “fish-ins'' in support of land-use rights. The 1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade saw more than a thousand young people, some as young as seven, attacked and jailed after taking to the streets in peaceful protest. In 1972, the Gay International Youth Society of George Washington High School, a group of students of color in the Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights, formed one of the first gay-straight alliances on the basis of student civil rights.

By 1979, Youth Liberation of Ann Arbor had disbanded, and the idea of youth liberation gradually faded from popular consciousness, but activists today are still organizing around age as one form of discrimination in a larger system of interlocking oppressions. For Margin Zheng, the former president of the National Youth Rights Association (NYRA), a group founded in 1998, youth liberation is deeply intersectional. “Young people are BIPOC, young people are queer, young people are of various genders and of no gender, young people are disabled, young people are poor, young people are immigrants and migrants — just like older people,” they write as part of their principles of anti-ageism. Zheng, the child of conservative Chinese immigrants, felt constrained both by their family life and their experience in school. “I secretly longed to be homeschooled and have the freedom to do my own thing, but my parents did not believe in nontraditional education,” they tell Teen Vogue. They attended their first school board meeting in ninth grade and soon began to question why students didn’t have more of a voice. “People think that they can make sweeping generalizations about people of a certain age, but you can’t generalize about youth just as you can’t generalize about people of a certain race, gender, etc.,” they say. Ashawn Dabney-Small, who ran for Boston City Council as an 18-year-old and former vice president of NYRA, became involved in youth activism to address the issues that affected him. “It's not about advocating, it's about speaking from your experiences,” says Dabney-Small, who has experience with the foster care system and the effects of poverty. “That's why I got involved in certain issues, policies that revolve around my life because it's literally my life.” As an activist, Dabney-Small worked on campaigns against gun violence. Recently, he advocated for Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley’s bill to lower the federal voting age to 16 — a move that could revolutionize American politics. “Schools and families are the places where we (young people) begin to feel that we have to struggle for our freedom,” Youth Liberation Acnn Arbor wrote in 1972. (One of the indirect results of Yaco’s campaign was the founding of the alternative Community High School that same year.)

Indeed, many activists today — in movements from unschooling to family abolition — see the institutions of school and family as structures that should be radically reimagined. From Indian Boarding Schools to the school-to-prison pipeline, unpaid domestic labor to assaults on queer chosen families, critics say schools and certain family structures have long been used as tools of oppression for women, queer people, and people of color. In a utopian world, Zheng says, people wouldn’t be judged and set apart by age. Instead, they envision more intergenerational spaces where younger and older people — of all races, genders, sexualities, and abilities — can learn and grow together. “Just as young people would be empowered to cultivate and apply their strengths to work they find meaningful, older people would be embraced in their own personal growth, knowing that learning and unlearning are processes that happen all throughout the lifespan,” they say. Each person would be recognized for their own unique potential. The vision is not unlike the original platform outlined by Youth Liberation more than 50 years ago. As Zheng says, “There would be no prisons, no police, and no schools, only communities of lifelong learning, caring, and joy.”

#undescribed #resources #youth liberation #history #black liberation #bipoc #michigan #socialism #abolition #education #civil rights #anti racism #family #autonomy #queer #trans #intersectional feminism #signal boost #reaux speaks

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videntefernandez · 8 months

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For years now "Fucking PENCIL" has been our friend group's shorthand for "we're used to something being X and it'd be weird to rename/remake it at this point no matter how silly/outdated/anachronistic it sounds but yeah it sounds outrageous in this instance" and it's all from a post that you responded in the tag w yours and teripop's OC names.

Tell us more about this fucking Pencil and Bas the golden retriever best boy.

That's so funny, I don't even remember that!

But yeah he's Teri's character so I don't really have the full story but I'll tell you what I know.

He's Jewish

Everyone in his family is named after art supplies, he has a brother named Brush.

He's a painter but really made his money as a cook

He was a great foster parent

He and Kyrie were good friends and she loved his food

He and Bas dated for a while and had an amicable breakup.

He seems cheerful but I think he's the kind of person who hides his feelings away in order to avoid confrontation.

One time he was possessed and was later found dead inside a fridge.

Teri doesn't play with me anymore, i think because of all the awful stuff I put her poor characters through. That's why I had to kill him.

Sebastian is the golden retriever boy and doesn't even have childhood trauma. His parents are alive and he has a good relationship with them. Unbelievable.

He loves baseball and hockey, He went to college on a sports scholarship and was Diedrik's roommate. By then Diedrik was already attractive and Bas developed a huge crush on him, but it never really progressed into anything because Diedrik was "straight" (and oblivious to other people's feelings). They're best friends.

Bas majored in anesthesiology because he hates to see others suffering, but once at the hospital he multiclassed into pathology, that is to say he was demoted to work at the morgue. Nobody else wanted to do it, and somebody has to harvest organs for transplant and keep the demon who lives there under control. It's kind of a lonely job and he's starting to lose his mind. He developed an unhealthy interest in muscles and organs and taking things apart to see how they work. He started collecting stones because he thinks they're cool (like gallstones, kidney stones, etc).

When Charles started working at the pharmacy they hit it off right away. And after his breakup with Pencil, they started dating. Charles has been through a lot, and Bas doesn't judge him. Charles has a knife fetish and Bas likes cutting into things, so they're a great match. They had a super small ceremony on the mountain (they're both outdoorsy types) that maybe 3 people attended.

They uncovered the Osamentas' conspiracy, and they're trying to bring it to light, while helping undo the damage. They developed a free vaccine, but they're only two guys who own an independent clinic, and the society is a powerful institution. They have survived multiple assassination attempts and are currently in hiding.

#hell portal hospital #pencil goldman #bas scurlock

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darkmaga-retard · 2 months

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Important reminder regarding the explosive growth in the vaccine schedule since 1986

Aaron Siri

Aug 07, 2024

If you have not seen this before, please take a moment to really let this image we created sink in—and keep in mind that this only reflects the vaccines given during pregnancy and the first year of life (there are far more thereafter on the current schedule):

Also keep in mind that virtually every single one of today’s vaccines was developed by a pharma company knowing it would not face liability for injuries caused by these products. This is because, as most of you know, the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 gave them immunity from having to pay for harms.

And chronic childhood diseases, many of which are autoimmune or immune-mediated, have exploded from 12.4% in the early 1980s to over 50 percent of children today. CDC and public “health” authorities cannot figure out the cause despite desperately searching (though they haven’t studied vaccines, even though smaller independent studies have indicated vaccines are a major contributor).

With that in mind, let this chart also sink in, comparing the clinical trials relied upon to license Pfizer’s top five selling products (excluding the COVID-19 vaccine) with vaccines given in the first six months of life:

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mariacallous · 4 months

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When long-shot presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that Nicole Shanahan would be his running mate, spectators were confused. Why would Shanahan, a wealthy Silicon Valley luminary and tech entrepreneur who has donated heavily to scientific causes and Democratic politicians, throw her lot in with the nation’s foremost anti-vaccine activist, a man who’s claimed that 5G causes “DNA dysfunction”?

But in a revealing video that aired with her campaign announcement this spring, Shanahan talked about her young daughter’s autism diagnosis, and proclaimed that chronic diseases in children are caused by “environmental disruptors that cause inflammatory symptoms which then reduce the child’s ability to heal.” Shanahan’s subsequent podcast appearances quickly made the matter far more clear: She, like Kennedy, has deeply held suspicions about vaccines.

Around that time, she told famed music producer Rick Rubin on his podcast that a lightbulb moment for her came in 2020, after her then 18-month-old daughter Echo was diagnosed with autism. Shanahan told Rubin she had read “every publication, every related publication, every indication, every clinical trial I could get my hands on.” In her telling, this project of deep research led her to a discovery so powerful, so taboo, that she hesitated to talk about it.

“So, medications impact our cellular biology in significant ways, and some medications more than others,” she said. “And in that category are vaccines. And it's hard to say that today, right? And I hesitated for a while to even mention it with friends because vaccines are such an inflammatory topic right now.”

In recent months, in addition to promoting long-debunked ideas about the link between childhood vaccines and autism, Shanahan has also claimed the Moderna mRNA vaccine is unsafe and called for it to be “recalled immediately.” She has a lot of money to bring these views to public attention: While Shanahan’s philanthropic efforts were initially carried out though the family foundation of her then husband, Google cofounder Sergey Brin, she has subsequently funneled her efforts into her own foundation, backed by the billion-dollar fortune reportedly made, in large part, through her divorce.

Shanahan has donated at least $10 million directly to the Kennedy campaign, as well as $4.5 million to two super PACs supporting Kennedy’s run. At the same time, she’s also putting money behind at least one clinical trial that an autism science expert told WIRED they believe is alarmingly vague and poorly designed.

Adding a layer of personal drama is that Shanahan’s ex-husband is taking a quite different approach to the same problem. Multiple sources tell WIRED that Brin’s family foundation is in talks to begin funding serious research on autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders within the next year, something previously mentioned as a possibility in a 2022 Fortune story. (In the autism world, it’s “the worst-kept secret ever,” one person said.)

Brin’s foundation previously donated millions to the Michael J. Fox Foundation before creating an entity called Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s, or ASAP, in 2019. While everyone familiar with the matter stressed that the discussions are still in their early stages, the foundation is expected to support other research with similar largesse, looking for ways to accelerate science around neurodevelopment.

A person familiar with the matter noted that Brin, unlike Shanahan, doesn’t appear to discuss their daughter’s autism diagnosis or treatment publicly. (He also hasn’t commented publicly on Shanahan’s campaign or post-divorce philanthropy.)

In other words, two phenomenally wealthy ex-spouses are poised to become the respective faces of autism philanthropy and autism pseudoscience. This is potentially much more consequential than Shanahan’s candidacy, and the people involved in these worlds are already either deeply apprehensive or thrilled, depending on their perspective.

“Other than Robert F. Kennedy Jr., I have never heard any candidate for major office speak with such clarity, candor, and courage about autism and chronic disease,” John Gilmore, the founder of the Autism Action Network, a group that blames vaccines and other environmental factors for autism, wrote recently.

“Shanahan’s autism knowledge comes from her own lived experience,” he added. And then, in bold, he proclaimed, “Nicole Shanahan is one of us.”

Shanahan has helped fund projects ranging from labs studying female fertility and reproductive longevity to Evolver, a Cate Blanchett-narrated “collective virtual reality experience which drops audiences deep inside the landscape of the body.” These days, though, her true passion appears to be for pseudoscience. This has positioned her as a useful messenger to communicate to the anti-vaccine movement that Kennedy is still with them, even as he’s occasionally and fitfully tried to downplay his long career in that world. Not just a powerful funder and backer, Shanahan is a symbol of his unwavering commitment to the cause.

Many parents develop vaccine injury suspicions after their child starts to display symptoms of autism spectrum disorder or other developmental conditions; those suspicions can take them deep into a world of pseudoscience and distrust. In a 2023 interview with People that focused largely on her divorce, Shanahan described that process for herself.

“I talk to two scientists a week, typically, whether they're neurosurgeons or neurologists or mitochondrial experts,” she told the outlet. “I chat with a lot of other mothers of autistic children because I think mothers are some of the most well-educated and researched … They’re trying some of these autism interventions and they’re able to tell you with greater accuracy than any published medical paper what they’re seeing in their children.”

Despite Kennedy’s and Shanahan’s concerns, though, vaccines don’t cause autism. A huge body of research and evidence, including a major decade-long Danish study of people who received MMR vaccines, published in 2019, has demonstrated that over and over and over. A second theory, that thimerosal, a preservative previously used in some childhood vaccines, causes autism has also been repeatedly debunked. (Thimerosal was never used in MMR vaccines, creating a clear logical issue for anti-vaccine activists who use that argument.) Yet another claim, that “too many” childhood vaccines at once can cause autism, has also been conclusively debunked.

Suspicions like Shanahan’s have nonetheless led many parents to pursue life-changing actions, spending money on bogus treatments for their children and getting sucked into an anti-vaccine movement—of which Kennedy has been an integral part—that monetizes their pain and frustration.

For all of these reasons, promoting anti-vaccine rhetoric on a national political stage could be “extremely dangerous,” says Azza Gadir, an immunologist who’s spent a significant amount of time counseling people and listening to their concerns about vaccines.

“Parents of children that are sick tend to be very angry and despondent and feel guilty, actually,” she adds. “Seeing a candidate running on this platform is going to appeal to people who are looking for answers, especially when they're not speaking in specifics. My concerns are that vaccine rates will go down.”

Some of the science that Shanahan is helping to fund is speculative but potentially promising. According to Politico, she’s donated to the UC Davis Mind Institute, which studies autism and other neurodevelopmental conditions, and in January 2023, she was named as an investor in a company called LinusBio that claims it’s developing technology to examine human physiology and ferret out possible neurodevelopmental disorders through a single strand of hair. The company claims that one of its early technologies “can assess the likelihood of autism at birth with 80 percent to 90 percent accuracy, and assist with personalized treatment decisions.” (The test is not yet federally approved, and Linus’ cofounder and CEO told NBC last year that it should solely be used by physicians as a diagnostic aid.)

But Shanahan is also funding what she described to Rubin as “the first clinical trial in photobiomodulation and autism,” which is scheduled to be conducted at the University of Texas at Austin and overseen by UT professor Francisco Gonzalez-Lima. The $3.7 million grant was announced by the university in May. The study says it will administer infrared light to patients using headbands that emit LED light intended to target mitochondrial enzymes. The study cites previous research to suggest that mitochondrial function is often impaired in people with autism spectrum disorder. (On Rubin’s podcast, Shanahan praised Gonzalez-Lima as a “mitochondrial guru.”)

Alycia Halladay is the chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, an organization that funds scientific research on autism and promotes evidence-based interventions for it. She says she believes the study that Shanahan is funding at UT Austin is “doomed to fail.” She adds that she’s also puzzled by how Gonzalez-Lima, who is not an autism researcher, came to be the one who’s overseeing the study, which is listed on ClinicalTrials.gov as “not yet recruiting.” It features a “huge age range” of participants (ages 4-60), which is unusual and not particularly good science, Halladay adds, since autism symptoms can vary so widely across different age groups. “This would likely never be funded in a peer-reviewed mechanism because of the wide age range,” she says. Most well-designed autism studies focus on people experiencing the same kinds of symptoms; a large and vague study tends to be difficult to extract meaningful data from.

“I describe it as driving through Ohio and trying to get a radio signal,” she says. “Sometimes it is all noise. Sometimes you can hear a voice and a song.” (She did, however, praise the fact that the study is a randomized controlled trial, usually the gold standard for experiments.)

When asked for comment by WIRED, Gonzalez-Lima didn’t respond to questions about how Shanahan came to fund the study, but complained that a previous story mentioning his work published by NBC had, in his view, unfairly characterized what he called Shanahan’s “extraordinary intelligence, generosity, compassion and positive world vision” as well as “her generous support of our groundbreaking and rigorous scientific study.”

He also disputed some of Halladay’s points. “Even the US FDA has already given ‘breakthrough discovery’ status to the beneficial use of brain photobiomodulation targeting mitochondria in autism based on recently published and ongoing studies,” he wrote. “Second, autism is a lifespan condition and should be studied accordingly. Third, nothing is ‘usual’ about cutting-edge frontier research.”

Halladay says that while “breakthrough” status has been granted for a wearable LED device for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder ages 2-6, it’s to treat anxiety, not to improve cognition and behavioral symptoms, the stated purpose of the Gonzalez-Lima study. (Breakthrough device status is intended to help speed the process of premarket approval; a device still has to be authorized by the FDA before it can be sold to the public.)

The Gonzalez-Lima study says that it will send home participants with light-emitting headbands and have participants report back on their progress. That, Halladay says, is also not very precise, since parents and caregivers often want to see progress that may not be objectively there. “These parents are really desperate for improvement in some way,” she says. The home study will require the participants to wear the headbands, but does not, Halladay points out, spell out any adaptations for autistic children or adults with severe sensory issues who may not be able to tolerate wearing them.

Shanahan is also doing her own self-styled experiments with light at home; she told Rubin this spring she’s attempting to repair her daughter’s own mitochondrial function that way.

“I have my daughter swim while the sun is still rising because as the sun rises, the wavelengths are a bit longer,” she told him. “I'm no expert in this, but they're easier for our bodies to absorb. And the light from the sun is incredibly healing. And it's almost like morning sunlight in particular is like chicken soup for metabolic health, for mitochondrial metabolism.”

As NBC News’ Brandy Zadrozny noted in her recent profile of Shanahan, much of this focus on light seems to be due to Shanahan’s affinity for Jack Kruse, a neurosurgeon who dove down his own rabbit hole in 2007 following a knee injury and came out of it convinced that “man-made light” is the cause of a variety of diseases and mitochondrial dysfunctions. Zadrozny reported that it was Kruse who told Shanahan that she was responsible for her daughter’s autism because of her exposure to vaccines and artificial light. (Kruse has also tweeted about the conversation, saying that Shanahan was “all ears and had an open mind.”)

Kruse did not respond to a request for comment from WIRED, but according to his social media posts and podcast appearances, he’s a bitcoin enthusiast and vaccine- and sunscreen skeptic now partially based in El Salvador, who promotes Great Reset conspiracy theories and thinks Covid was a “compliance test” to execute a “financial coup” on American citizens. Kruse has effusively praised Shanahan as the right choice for vice president because, he claims, she’ll have the ability to combat the evils of Big Tech.

“She knows what her ex is capable of,” he proclaimed on X, referring to Brin. “She also knows how to deal with their policies.”

Shanahan emerged from her divorce with both a lot of money and a seeming desire to be taken seriously in her own right as a founder, investor, and someone with an interest in science. She already had an impressive legal résumé: a graduate of Santa Clara University School of Law, she’s been a fellow at CodeX, the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics. She’s also the founder of ClearAccessIP, a patent-valuation and management company that was acquired by another company in 2020.

In addition to autism research, Shanahan had also already begun building another identity for herself, as a funder of research on extending female fertility and an ardent opponent of IVF. Her foundation Bia-Echo, acccording to tax records, was founded in 2019 with a $23,148,744 donation in shares from Brin. It has focused primarily on criminal justice reform, addressing climate change through regenerative agriculture, and women’s reproductive longevity.

Shanahan has said in many interviews that she and Brin struggled to conceive, and that she was identified as a poor candidate for IVF due to an earlier diagnosis of polycystic ovary syndrome. (Shanahan has said on a podcast that she was later able to conceive without IVF, through the use of “liver cleanses,” acupuncture, sleep, and “lots of fruits and vegetables,” among other things.) She came to believe that IVF was unscientific, marketed to women for commercial reasons.

“It became abundantly clear that we just don’t have enough science for the things we are telling and selling to women,” she told the Australian Financial Review, adding, “It’s one of the biggest lies that’s being told about women’s health today.”

This role of an audacious founder who bucks conventional wisdom seemed to agree with Shanahan. In 2019, she traveled to speak in Washington, DC, to the National Academy of Medicine, where she was supposed to announce a $10 million commitment to funding fertility research; instead, she announced onstage that she would give $100 million.

Most notably, Bia-Echo was the seed funder for the Global Consortium for Reproductive Longevity & Equality at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, a private biomedical institute; she also invested $8 million to found Bia-Echo Asia in Singapore, which focuses on reproductive longevity as well.

Though Shanahan attracted a good deal of positive or at least neutral attention for the work she put into funding reproductive health, the Daily Beast reported that two sources had told it that Shanahan had attempted to “intervene” in the Buck institute’s work.

Jennifer Garrison, cofounder and director of the Global Consortium, denies that Shanahan had interfered. “I’m incredibly grateful to Nicole and the Bia-Echo Foundation for recognizing early, very early, long before it was in the public venue, this idea that women’s health research is woefully understudied, and understudied because it’s underfunded,” she says. “It’s not like Nicole told me she was planning to run for vice president, and I haven't talked to her since then. It seems like a really difficult path she’s chosen. I’m sure she has reasons for it, but I don't know what they are.”

As the campaign has worn on, Shanahan has emerged as a promoter of a variety of pseudoscience and poorly conceived ideas, cheering on a “homesteading” influencer who recommends using a beef tallow balm instead of commercial sunscreen and sitting down for a conversation with an 18-year-old filmmaker and self-styled investigative journalist whose documentary explores a purported link between food and cancer.

And she’s continued to parrot inaccurate conspiracies about vaccines and how they’re tested and regulated. Soon after announcing her candidacy, she sat down for a warm chat with Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya, who was a signatory on the Great Barrington Declaration, which opposed Covid lockdowns and social distancing in the pandemic’s first year in favor of a scientifically dubious proposal wherein people would build herd immunity through mass infection. In the conversation, Shanahan claimed that “nothing incentivizes” vaccine manufacturers not to roll out unsafe or insufficiently tested vaccines. In fact, vaccines are extensively safety-tested before being made available to the general public.

For someone vying to help oversee federal agencies, Shanahan also sometimes doesn’t demonstrate a strong understanding of them. In a tweet, she got the role of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, known as VAERS, strikingly wrong, calling it “the body that determines if someone injured by a vaccine can be compensated.” That’s not what VAERS is; as the name suggests, it allows anyone to report what they believe is a side effect from a vaccine. Scientists then study those signals to determine if a widespread side effect is happening. The system works so well it led to an extremely rare recall, and, ultimately, the permanent suspension of a rotavirus vaccine in 1999, after it was found to cause an intestinal blockage called intussusception in some children. (It was replaced with two other rotavirus vaccines that are safe and effective.)

Despite all her campaign efforts, Shanahan does not seem to have been an overwhelmingly popular choice with Kennedy’s existing base, and didn’t provide an appreciable bump in the polls. Every video in which she’s featured is flooded with comments expressing frustration or anger that he didn’t choose a more well-known political figure like Tulsi Gabbard. Her anti-IVF stance has also earned her the ire of any number of voting-age women, as a casual scroll through TikTok would reveal. The Washington Post also noted recently that Kennedy and Shanahan don’t seem to spend much time together on the campaign trail, and have “sometimes discordant” stances on some issues like abortion.

But for all these enormous obstacles in making herself into a credible political candidate, for the new anti-vaccine movement Shanahan finds herself increasingly drawn into, she represents an almost endless source of money, mainstream attention from Silicon Valley, and, of course, a new sheen of legitimacy. Insiders familiar with the anti-vaccine world predict to WIRED that when her long-shot candidacy ends she’ll join Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization which Kennedy founded and where he’s currently chairman on leave.

Others wondered how her anti-vaccine work might set her on a possible collision course with her ex-husband’s future funding of autism research.

In response to two requests for comment for this story, Shanahan tweeted a screenshot of WIRED’s emails to her, including the reporter’s phone number, and wrote, “how about your autism science experts join an open discussion on trial design and healing, here on a spaces on @X?” She added, “Let’s use these politically motivated attacks (by media outlets whose ownership and ad dollars support the status quo), to help bring the issues back to the people and great scientists, at wonderful institutions, who are working tirelessly to help discover new tools for healing.”

Since joining the Kennedy campaign, Shanahan has not given interviews to virtually any mainstream publications. On X, she recently also reprinted an interview request and list of questions from NBC reporter Brandy Zadrozny, complaining that Zadrozny was a working up a “hit piece” and that, in her words, journalists “seem less and less focused on the issues facing the American people.”

In the end, public health experts worry that the rhetoric Shanahan is promoting could be immensely harmful to the people she claims to be trying to help: autistic kids and their families. Sociologist Catherine Tan noted in a CNN op-ed that Shanahan is strengthening the misbegotten autism “recovery” industry, which preaches that the condition can be “cured,” and which often promotes treatments that are, in Tan’s words, “incredibly harmful as well as wildly expensive.” Autistic self-advocates have said time and again that a focus on “curing” autism is offensive and wrong-headed.

Alycia Halladay of the Autism Science Foundation says she’s disappointed to see Shanahan focusing on unproven research and promoting pseudoscience about autism, instead of applying her considerable wealth and intellectual curiosity towards something else.

“Why are we focusing on light that shoots through the skull when she could be funding training programs for developmental pediatricians?” she asks. “She could be studying things that have a chance of working. I don’t know who advised her on this.”

Halladay acknowledges Shanahan’s desire to help her own daughter any way she can, and to be responsive to her needs. As a candidate for vice president, however, she adds, “her scientific interests and investments should be held to a higher standard. Taxpayers should feel secure that their money is going towards scientifically valid research.”

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drsumitchakravarty · 4 months

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Find Pediatric Immunization near me

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zahri-melitor · 1 year

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Next up in the Potted Bat Fanon Histories it is the family doctor for everyone, LESLIE THOMPKINS!

Leslie, 20s: Leslie went to medical school with Thomas Wayne.

Leslie, 30s: Leslie set up a medical clinic in the poorest part of Gotham because that was Thomas' life goal, bringing healthcare to the masses.

Leslie, at some point offscreen: Bruce and/or Alfred approaches Leslie to provide healthcare.

Leslie, old: Leslie, as a Mandated Reporter (TM) is available to assess and treat Tim and/or Jason for their childhood Abuse and Neglect. She provides them with all their childhood vaccines that their parents missed. She makes Reports of Tim's terrible Injuries from Jack abusing him so that Bruce can Foster Tim.

Leslie, currently: Leslie is the on call doctor for any healthcare needs that the Bats have! She does all their regular healthcare in house visits and has a clinic in Crime Alley and they all drop in there regularly for any injuries Alfred cannot treat in the Cave. She gently Disapproves (TM) of Vigilantism but never does anything more than sigh over their injuries and gently scold them.

Leslie, currently: ewww old people in relationships? Alternatively dating Alfred.

#potted bat fanon histories

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kylejsugarman · 1 year

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baby is a really well-behaved kid who has a very (edward cullen voice) "its fine ill just. have to endure it" outlook on all of the trials and tribulations of childhood and life in general with the glaring exception of shots and anything to do with needles. her vaccination schedule got messed up during her first four years of life with all the stress and inconsistency of her initial upbringing, and by the time demi was able to circle back around to that stuff, baby was several shots/boosters behind. since kindergarten was starting soon, demi had to get her records updated fast, which unfortunately meant getting like eight shots over the course of two weeks. baby very understandably did Not Enjoy this experience (and broke down every time she had to get in the car for the next few weeks because she was positive they were going back to the doctor's office), so when demi gets the notification that it's time for baby to get a double-dose flu shot, she feels so defeated because it's going to be such a hard time. but this time around, she has someone in her corner, and even though it may occasionally make her feel terrible that she can't provide baby with the same level of comfort that he can, demi can't deny that she's super relieved when jesse agrees to take her for this appointment. he definitely starts to have his doubts about the whole thing when they roll up to the clinic and baby looks at him like he's taking her to the electric chair, which feels Awful. but demi trusts him to make this process easier and he wants her trust, he wants to do something right, so he just squeezes baby's hand and says "let's crush this and get some dairy queen". going back to the exam room feels weird and claustrophobic even though he's done this a million times with a million different doctors by now just to even make it to this point. maybe it's knowing that baby also probably has the same weird, claustrophobic feeling. when the time comes and the nurse tech unpacks the syringe, baby starts to cry, which reflexively opens a door inside of him that he thought would never open again. "hey, hey, baby," he says, sitting down on the exam table next to her, "it's okay, it's gonna be okay. just cover ur eyes, okay?? like this." he puts his hands over his eyes, the smell of varnish and waiting room hand sanitizer (and rot and blood). when he uncovers them, baby is looking up at him with that same amount of trust, that same conviction—only this time he knows that everything will be fine in the end. she covers her eyes dutifully (peekaboo) and he loops an arm around her and they both hold their breath until the needle is out and the bandaid is on. everything is fine. everyone is still here. this time, he was able to actually Do something. baby holds onto his hand the whole way out and dairy queen has never tasted so sweet.

#syd squeaks #me typing up a bunch of shit: yeah that doesnt make sense and doesnt matter post it.#jesse pinkman #baby ayuluk #demi ayuluk

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andnowanowl · 8 months

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Since "Palestine Speaks: Narratives of Life Under Occupation" is suspiciously not available in the US in the form of an e-book, I purchased a physical copy and wanted to share it here for anyone else also unable to get access.

IBTISAM ILZOGHAYYER

Director of cultural center, 54

Born in Battir, West Bank

Interviewed in Bethlehem, West Bank

During our dozen or more meetings with Ibtisam Ilzoghayyer in her office, her black hair is either pulled back into a slick ponytail or falls to her shoulders in tight curls. She speaks with us in English, and she has a distinct accent influenced by her time studying at Newcastle University in northern England. When she stands, she adjusts a clamp on a knee brace in order to walk. This is due to a childhood bout with polio, which she contracted when she was two years old.

Ibtisam is the director of the Ghirass Cultural Center, which she helped found in 1994. Ghirass, which means "young trees" in Arabic, serves more than a thousand youth annually in the Bethlehem region through enrichment programs in reading, traditional Palestinian arts, and more. The center also provides literacy programs for women - generally mothers who are learning to read so that they can take a more active role in their children's education.

The walls of Ibtisam's office are decorated with awards and framed drawings by children who have passed through the center. Throughout her day, children stop by to share their successes - an improved test score or a list of books read during the month. Ibtisam takes time with each one to congratulate and encourage them, and to laugh with them. She spends most of her time at the center she works five or six days a week, though she can often be found at the center on her days off as well. When she isn't at the center, she is likely to be at home with her elderly mother, tending a large garden of fruit trees, flowers, and vegetables.

I was born in 1960, in Battir.¹ Life in the village was simple. Most of my neighbors were farmers, and when I was a child, people from Battir would all travel into Jerusalem to sell produce in the markets there. My parents had some land that they farmed, and my father was also a chef. When I was very young, he worked at a hotel in Amman, Jordan, and we'd see him on the weekends.² Then, after 1967, he began working as a chef at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.³

My mother stayed home and raised me and my siblings - there were nine of us. We didn't have TVs, and there were no computers and no plastic toys to keep us distracted. I think we were lucky to have those things. Instead, we used nature. We'd play in the fields, climbtrees, make toys ourselves out of sticks and stones. It seemed then there weren't divisions then between neighbors, despite religion or other differences. We were all part of one culture in many ways. I remember my mother coloring eggs every Easter. It was something that had been passed down for generations - it wasn't a Christian thing or a Muslim thing, it was a Palestinian thing to mark Easter that way.

I must have joined in all the games when I was very young, but then I developed a disability as an infant. When I was two and a half years old, my mother was carrying me past a clinic in town one day. A clinic nurse stopped us and told my mother she should come in, that she should get me the vaccine for polio. So I was given a vaccine. That night I had a fever, and I couldn't move my right arm and left leg. Over the next few years, I was able to regain function of my limbs, but my left leg grew in shorter than my right. At age four, I started wearing a brace to help me walk. It was just bad luck that we walked past that clinic.

I had to get used to people treating me differently because of my disability. Even people's facial expressions when meeting me were different they didn't react to me as if I were a normal child. When I was at school, I was excluded from physical education activities, and some field trips that required a lot of walking. That was really difficult.

I also had learning disabilities. My teacher beat me once in fourth grade because I was nearly failing all subjects. Education was important to my parents, so they were unhappy that I was struggling. My father had only gone through fourth grade, so he could read and write. My mother had never been to school. But they wanted more for their kids. Especially me. Because I had a disability, they wanted me to do well in school so that I'd be independent when I grew up, and not need to rely on anyone.

Then in the fifth grade, I succeeded on an exam, and the feeling was very strange. The teacher handed back the paper and said the work was "excellent." I couldn't believe I'd done anything that would make her say that. I couldn't believe that it was my paper that was excellent. I thought she'd made a mistake. I think that's common for children who aren't used to success-they don't realize it's their effort that leads to excellence. They think it's by accident. But I tasted success just that one time, and I realized I loved it. I just had to convince myself it wasn't a mistake! Then I continued to try hard at school, and I started to realize my potential.

In 1977, I was accepted into a boarding school in Jerusalem. It was actually right next to the American Colony Hotel, so I could see my father sometimes. I'd also go home on holidays. It was still relatively easy to travel into and out of Jerusalem then.

I did well enough in high school that I got accepted into the University of Jordan in Amman. I started there in the fall of 1979, and I studied economics. I loved university, and I wasn't lonely. Other than college students who became friends, I had a lot of family living and working in Amman. But I still felt homesick sometimes, and I started to understand what made Palestine feel special. In my last year at university, the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish came to read at a theater on campus. I got tickets to go, but when I arrived, the theater was absolutely packed. And the streets outside were full. There were so many Palestinians in Jordan, and we all wanted to hear this poet remind us what it meant to be Palestinian.

IT RAISED A LOT OF EMOTIONS FOR ME

I returned home in 1984, and I had one of the hardest years of my life. I had just spent many years working extremely hard to make something of myself, to become independent from my parents - economically, emotionally, socially so that I wouldn't be a burden to them. Then I returned to Palestine and found I couldn't get a job. Because of my economics degree, I wanted to work in a bank, but there weren't any jobs in that field available, and I couldn't find any other sort of work. So I lived with my parents for a year and they supported me. I was very depressed during that time.

Then one day in 1985, I read a classified ad put up by the BASR.⁶ They were offering to train workers in a field called community-based rehabilitation, which was about helping people with disabilities overcome them by working with the family - the whole community, really - to integrate the disabled into daily life. At first, I wanted nothing to do with that sort of work. I had an economics degree, and I had spent my whole life trying to get away from any limitations imposed by my own disability. I simply didn't want to think about disabilities. But I desperately wanted a job, so I applied.

I trained with the BASR for a year. It was hard. I worked with children who had hearing issues, blindness, mental health issues. The work brought up a lot of emotions for me, and it took some time to become comfortable around the children. But I kept receiving praise from my supervisors, and they made me feel like I was useful. In 1986, I began working in some of the refugee camps in Bethlehem as well, and that helped open my eyes. I got to see some of the real traumathat was happening in the community. That same year, BASR opened a community center for people with mental health disabilities, and I helped to run it. It was a very busy time for me.

Then the following year, in 1987, the First Intifada began. I remember it started just after I got my driver's license. I bought an old used car on November 30 of that year, and I was really proud of myself. I was starting to feel quite independent. Then I set out to drive to work for the first time on December 6, and I ended up driving through streets littered with stones and burning tires. It was the first day of the Intifada, and I couldn't make it to work that day - there was too much happening in the streets. So I spent the day listening to the news with my family.

THINKERS BEFORE FIGHTERS

The idea of starting a community center came to me in 1990. It was the middle of the First Intifada, and the streets were dangerous places to play for children. Aside from the threat of getting caught in fighting, children were sometimes targeted by soldiers. Sometimes children threw stones at soldiers, but other times soldiers would find children simply playing traditional games with stones. Many children, even young children, were arrested by soldiers who saw them playing these games. So the idea of the center started as a way to give children a safe place to play.

Also, at that time many schools were frequently closed by military order, so children had to stay at home for long stretches of time. Sometimesthe Israeli military would even use schools as checkpoints to control the area. The school in Battir was used as a military camp. These realities came together to make us want to start the center.

The BASR was able to establish the Ghirass Cultural Center in Bethlehem in late 1993, early 1994. In the West Bank at that time, the school curriculum was Jordanian. In Gaza, it was Egyptian.⁸ So when I went to school, I studied a Jordanian curriculum. We never studied anything about Palestine or its history. We never saw a Palestinian map. We studied the history of Jordan, of China, of Germany, of England - I remember learning about all the families who ruled England-but nothing connected to our history, nothing connected to our geography, nothing connected to our culture.

When we started the center, we wanted to educate children about Palestinian culture, Palestinian music, Palestinian poetry. We have famous poets like Mahmoud Darwish, but it was forbidden for us to read from them or read other Palestinian writers. If the Israelis caught us with a book from certain Palestinian writers, we might end up in jail. We couldn't have Palestinian flags, political symbols, anything considered propaganda for a Palestinian state-everything could get us into trouble. My family, like most in the West Bank, had a hiding spot at home. For us, it was at the back of the cupboard. When we heard there were going to be raids on houses, we'd quickly hide our forbidden books of poetry or flags or whatever behind a false wall at the back of that cupboard.

With these restrictions in mind, one of our first goals at the center was to provide a sense of Palestinian culture to children. We wanted the center to be inclusive, so we didn't allow any religious symbols or symbols of any specific political parties in the center. We had children from Christian communities and Muslim, urban and rural, from refugee camps and from relatively well-off neighborhoods. I also continued to work with children who had disabilities, but we integrated them with other kids in the classroom, whether they were blind or hearing impaired or had learning disabilities. They were all integrated.

After working this way in the cultural center, I even began to forget my own disability completely. I had other things to worry about or work on. One day, I saw myself in a reflection in a window while in the street, and I remembered I didn't walk as other people do - I had simply forgotten for a time that I had any disability at all. And I was happy for myself! Overcoming my own disability was no longer my focus.

In the center, I tried to make students thinkers before fighters. I did everything I could to keep them in the center, or make sure they went straight home to keep them from dangerous interactions with the soldiers. We lost some children - some had a strong feeling that they wanted to fight. It was very difficult. Of course, they didn't always understand what they were doing. But they weren't just imitating other people who were fighting in the streets, they were expressing their own anger from experiencing humiliation and violence.

Not long after the center was established and I had begun working there, I had the chance to travel abroad for the first time. I went with a friend to help her apply for a scholarship offered by the British consul to study in England. While there, I applied myself, sort of on a whim. But it turns out I won the scholarship. When I got the call that I had won, the consular office gave me two weeks to get ready for travel. So for the first time, I got to leave Palestine - other than my college years in Jordan. I studied for a year at Newcastle University⁹ and learned administration and counseling. It was a good experience, even though it was hard.

I felt homesick from the moment the plane took off. I was away from home from the fall of 1994 to the spring of 1995. I got to travel a lot throughout England, and that was interesting, but I wanted to go home the whole time. I remember I had very little money, and what I had I'd use to call my family. I'd spend hours asking my brothers about neighbors I barely knew - old men who hung out on the street that I never talked to, for instance - just because I wanted to know everything that was happening at home. When I completed all my coursework, I was expected to stay for the graduation ceremony and some parties. But I told the school administration I didn't want any parties, I just wanted to go home and see my family!

CHILDREN SEE THAT THEIR PROTECTORS ARE SCARED

The Second Intifada began in 2000.¹⁰ During that time, I had to get around a lot of crazy obstacles just to continue my work. From late 2000 to 2003, I used to practically live in this office because I couldn't always go back home. I remember the first time I tried to go home to Battir from Bethlehem in 2000, just after the Intifada started. It was just a couple of miles, and the checkpoint was closed. Nobody could cross to or from the five villages on the other side of the checkpoint. The soldiers refused to let anyone go back home. Children, old men, workers - imagine, all these normal people who wanted to go back home at four p.m., the end of the working day. Hundreds of people! We were surrounded by soldiers, and I remember thinking that nobody had any place to hide if shooting started. I waited that day from four p.m. to seven p.m. At seven p.m., I was so angry and depressed I started talking to myself. I said, "God, are you there? And if you are there, are you seeing us? And if you are seeing us, are you satisfied with what is happening to us?" Finally, a little after seven p.m., I gave up and came back to Bethlehem and stayed at the center.

Another time that same year, I tried to walk home past the checkpoint. The Israelis had blocked the road with large stones. I wanted to go around the stones, because I couldn't climb over them with my leg problems. It was also slippery, because it was wintertime. But a soldier, a man less than twenty-five years old, stopped me from going around. When I tried to explain, the soldier said bad things to me - nobody in my life has said these things to me. He called me a prostitute. I can't repeat all the things he said. I became angry and I started to argue, and at that moment, a young man, Palestinian, tried to calm me down and asked me to stay quiet. He took my hand and helped me pass the checkpoint. At that moment I couldn't talk. I passed the checkpoint, and my brother was waiting for me on the other side. He took me by my hand and led me to his car, where my nephews and nieces were waiting. Normally I would talk to them, but I couldn't say a word. I knew that if I spoke, I'd start crying, and nobody would be able to stop me. I reached home and I threw myself on the bed. I felt I was paralyzed completely.

I saw the soldier the next day. I had a feeling that if I'd had a gun, I would have killed him. You know, I can't kill an insect, but in that moment, I felt my anger was more than it's been at any time. When he saw me, he began swearing at me again. It was very humiliating. I saw that soldier many times-usually soldiers would stay one week or ten days before they changed the group of soldiers at the checkpoints. I had to see him every day. And every day I looked at him and wished that someone would kill him in front of me. I wanted him to suffer.

One more occasion stands out from that checkpoint during the Second Intifada - I'm not sure exactly when. I remember a little girl was crying. She needed to get to school to take exams, and the soldier wouldn't let her. It's not guaranteed that a child is able to go to school. And it's not guaranteed that the child will be able to come back. Of course, this kind of helplessness has a psychological impact on kids as they grow up. Many parents have told us that their children have nightmares and achievement problems. Children look to us adults as people who can protect them, and when we can't - in many situations, we're scared! To see the child recognize that his mother is scared, his father is scared-it's not an easy thing.

When you move around Bethlehem, it's very restricted. We don't travel long distances. When you face a checkpoint or a wall, you might need to travel only a mile or two as the crow flies, but your destination is far away behind the wall. The children I teach don't have a good sense of distance because of the restrictions. They might say they live "far away," and I'll ask, "How far?" And it's a ten-minute car ride away, if not for checkpoints. That's far for them, because that fifteen minutes might actually be an hour or two most days. Sometimes I try to put all the obstacles in the back of my mind - the checkpoints, the harassments - to try and keep up my energy for my work, to keep my optimism for the future. But when I'm waiting at checkpoints, I have to face the hard realities of our lives. And the children I deal with they also have to face these realities, and before they're even fully grown they have to face them without guidance, without someone to protect them.

THE SIGN JUST SAID "OTHERS"

Back in 1994, just after we'd started the center, we used to take students to Jerusalem for trips, to spend the day in the city. It was possible then. Since the Second Intifada, it's not possible to take the class to Jerusalem.

I think this is the first generation of Palestinians that isn't able to see Jerusalem easily. Now we only talk about Jerusalem. At the center, when we ask the children, "What is Jerusalem?" they only know about the Dome of the Rock.¹¹ That's all Jerusalem is for them. They've never experienced the city - to see it with true senses, to feel it, to smell it. They only know it through photos. I think it's really demoralizing that this experience, something that used to be essential to being Palestinian, has vanished. I think the Israeli government wants other parts of Palestine - Gaza, Jerusalem - banished from our minds. The new generation, these children might never come to Jerusalem. After years, how will it be in their mind? They won't think of it as Palestine.

Here in the center, we try to keep students connected with the different parts of Palestine, even if it's only through photos, movies, films anything. For instance, I want our students to understand that Gaza is part of Palestine. This is my hope for all Palestinians in the West Bank, that if they have the opportunity, even if it takes a lot of effort, to go and visit Gaza. I think it's our duty. Many people have lost their lives to keep Gaza and the West Bank one land. I'm not losing my life, but I have put in some real effort to go there.

In 2011, I went to Gaza to facilitate an outreach program. I was with a German colleague who worked for a German NGO that addressed international development projects. The German NGO was trying to fund a cultural center in Gaza that used our center in Bethlehem as a model. The Israelis keep a tight control on who gets into Gaza, so the permits to visit were not easy to get. I had to go through a lawyer and the court to get the permit. First, the Israeli military rejected my request for the permit, but I was able to appeal and get permission from the court to go for one night. It took me some time to get permission. But even then, I had to go through checkpoints - a checkpoint to get out of the West Bank, and then another checkpoint to get into Gaza.

To get to Gaza, we took the car of my German colleague. When Palestinian workers in Israel talk about the checkpoint, you can't imagine - you hear about it, but you need to live the experience to understand it. We went through the checkpoint nearest Hebron, because from Bethlehem it is the most direct route to Gaza.¹² It was the first time I was at that checkpoint. I can't imagine the mind that designed that checkpoint. It's a kind of torture. We tried to pass through the checkpoint in her car. We thought we might have an easier time in her car since she was an international. She passed right through in her car at first, but then a soldier stepped into the road and stopped us. They checked my ID, saw that I was Palestinian, and I was made to get out of the car and walk back to the checkpoint building a fifteen-minute walk! It was difficult for me to walk all that way with my brace. When I got back to the checkpoint, I was put in line with the rest of the Palestinians. It was around seven a.m., so most of the people there were workers. We were herded in lines through cages, and all around us were young soldiers with guns. There were only three or four other women in line, and they all passed through with no extra delay. But not me.

All the Palestinians have to pass through metal detectors. I failed the detector because of my metal leg brace. The soldiers had to examine me personally because I couldn't just take off the metal and pass through the detector. Soldiers behind security glass told me that I'd need to be taken to a special cell. The whole time I was at the checkpoint, I hardly ever talked to a soldier directly - it was through microphones, since they were always behind glass.

I was taken to a cell with no chairs. The walls were all metal with no windows, and I couldn't see anyone. I stood waiting for half an hour. I thought they might have forgotten about me. Because of my disability, it's difficult for me to stand for long periods of time. I knocked, and nobody came. Later, I knocked several more times, to remind them that there was somebody here.

Then I was taken to another room, also like a cell - just five feet by five feet. Here there was a soldier behind security glass. She was young, in her twenties. Otherwise I was alone in the room. The soldier was dealing with me as if I didn't exist. She ignored me and didn't bother to explain what would happen next. She just sat there behind the glass. From time to time I would knock, or ask her to please search me so I could leave the cell, and she'd say, "I'm just waiting for someone to come." For an hour she left me standing there.

Then another soldier joined her behind the glass. They told me to undress. I said, "I can't, there's a camera." She looked at it and said flatly, "Yes, there's a camera in the room." Every checkpoint has a Palestinian mediator, someone to translate and do chores for the soldiers, and I made them get him for me. This took a long time. Eventually, he arrived and I talked to him. He put his jacket on the camera and then brought me something to put on. I got undressed and then the soldiers told me how to move so they could examine me. Then I put on the clothes the mediator brought while he took my other clothes for them to examine. More waiting. After everything was over, the mediator took his jacket and left, and then I was taken to pass through the metal detector again.

The whole time, my colleague was outside in the car waiting for me. It had been hours. Then, once we made it to the Gaza border, it was the same procedure. My German colleague was allowed to pass quickly through the checkpoint, while I had to go through procedures strictly for Palestinians, not for foreigners. At the Erez checkpoint, we were not in the car.¹³ We had to park, and after you pass through the checkpoint, everyone has to walk through a mile-long tunnel to where the taxis are.

The tunnel was an open-air tunnel, with fencing on both sides. It was narrow-not big enough for a car to drive through. Outside the fence was a barren, treeless security area. My colleague had waited for me so we could walk the tunnel together, but a mile is very far for me to walk. I had to sit on a luggage cart of another Palestinian who pushed me the whole way. It was a struggle for me. I like to think of myself as strong, independent. I do things on my own. It's not easy for me to sit on a luggage cart and be pushed!

We finally made it to Gaza after hours going through the checkpoints. We went directly to the organization because we couldn't waste time. They only issued me a permit for one day! It's ridiculous to not be able to visit your own country. We can move freely in other countries, but not in our own.

After I finished my trip to Gaza, I had to go back through screening at Erez. This time, at the start of the checkpoint, I saw the two signs-one for "Israelis and Foreigners," and the other just said, "Others." You know, it's like they want us to feel that we belong to nothing. They could write "Palestinians," they could write "Arabs," but "Others"?

Going through the tunnel, there were open-air cells along the way. They were more modern than the Hebron checkpoint, but the same principle. The soldiers were all on high scaffolding with guns. They looked down on us from up high and talked into microphones. They would say things like, "Open gate number 2. Open gate number 10." And they'd tell us to move along. The whole time, we could see soldiers on the scaffolding, but we could never see exactly who was talking to us and ordering us onward to the next cell. The last cell had a ceiling and a grated floor. A soldier behind the glass was there. She asked me to take off my clothes. We negotiated what I could take off and leave on. I took off my trousers and my brace and put them on the conveyor belt. She checked them and then put my things back on the machine to send back to me. I waited for them to contact the people who got me a permit. It took a long time. I thought I had already negotiated all the permits I needed, so it would be fine, but no. They made me wait anyway.

I've spoken with some friends and some people at the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation. They go through the same thing, the same conditions. They have the same procedure. It's not because of me - they target Palestinians anyway - but they could show more understanding. They could not make me wait so long, or bring me a chair to sit on, to be humane. I understand they need to check, but they could do it without humiliating the person. If this were just about security, they wouldn't need to humiliate Palestinians and not others. It's to show that we're a lower class of people. The Israelis and foreigners are first-class, the Palestinian people fifth-class. And people don't understand why we are fighting. I want to be equal! Equality! Not one of us is better than the other.

Someday I want to go back to Gaza to keep working on developing a cultural center that is like Ghirass. But by then I hope I can find an easier way to get there than through the Hebron and Erez checkpoints as they are now. Still, I'm happy that I passed that experience, really. Now I know what it's like for Palestinians who have had to travel through the checkpoints day after day for work.

ALL THINGS INDICATE THAT THE FUTURE WILL BE MORE DIFFICULT

I am very proud of being Palestinian. I have never thought of living in another country. I've traveled across Europe, but I prefer to live in Palestine. When I was abroad and something bad happened in Palestine, it would be very difficult for me to sleep. If people I love die, then I want to die with them; if they live, I want to live with them. If they face a difficult situation, I want the same thing to happen to me. I want to be a member of this society. When I think of Palestine, I think of the struggles we've had. We have to keep struggling for our rights, and there's no end to the struggling for me - some days it's for rights, some days it's to improve education. We are all fighters. When I do work with the children at the center, that's fighting. When I work to improve their quality of life, that's fighting. And working against the occupation, that's fighting as well.

Day by day, it becomes more difficult. All things happening in Palestine indicate that the future will be more difficult. Twelve years ago we did not have the wall, the settlements were fewer, the harassment was less. Everything bad is increasing. Usually I avoid going to the checkpoints, because it makes me sick - physically, emotionally, all kinds of sick. It usually takes me time to come back to normal.

My goal now is to expand the center - to extend it and spread it to other places. We're working on outreach programs, to reach schools and other communities that are struggling just to continue to exist. Some villages are surrounded by Israeli settlements and are cut off from important resources. We are looking to support these communities and improve the quality life through education. I believe a lot in education if you want to rebuild the nation.

At the cultural center, we try to keep our students as children as long as possible, to protect them. When they reach a certain age, we can't protect them anymore, they have to face the reality of the streets by themselves. And this is very sad. I can think of many times I've been out walking with my nephew, or with other young boys and girls who are nearing the end of childhood. Suddenly I would get very sad, because when they reach fourteen, fifteen years old, they are children under international and national law, but the soldiers don't think of them as children. They deal with them as adults. And it doesn't matter if they're following the law or not. How they're treated depends on soldiers' moods. I use many strategies to manage. My strategy is that I love life. I want to protect my life, and the lives of others, as much as I can. Life, even with all these difficulties, deserves to be lived. And I like to look for nice things. Even the smile of a child, or flowers-I try to find something.

I'm not optimistic about the future for Palestinians. Israel is strong, and the Western powers give them their support. On the other hand, I don't think Israel can continue this forever. The world will not support Israel forever with all their behavior towards Palestinians. One day, changes will happen - history proves this. One day, sooner or later, the Palestinians will have their rights.

When the world looks at Palestine I do not think they see the full situation. If people want to see the reality of the situation, they will see. If they want to hear the reality, they will hear. But if they don't want to know the reality of the situation, they won't, even if it's right there in front of them.

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Footnotes

¹ Battir is a village of around 4,000 people located four miles west of Bethlehem and three miles southwest of Jerusalem. It is a site of ancient agricultural terraces and was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2014.

² Amman, the capital of Jordan, is a city of over 2 million residents. Jordan administered the West Bank between 1948 and 1967, and many Palestinians worked in Amman during this time.

³ The American Colony Hotel is a luxury hotel in Jerusalem. It was built in the 1950s on the site of a former utopian Christian community started by an American couple from Chicago in 1881. The hotel is well known as a gathering spot for influential people from diverse political and religious backgrounds.

⁴ The University of Jordan is considered one of the most prestigious universities in the Arab world. It was founded in 1962 and currently serves over 30,000 undergraduates.

⁵ Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was considered Palestine's leading poet and helped lead a movement to promote Palestinian cultural heritage. Darwish was also a leader of the Palestinian liberation movement and part of the executive committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) from 1973 to 1993.

⁶ The Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation (BASR) was originally founded in 1960 as part of the Leonard Cheshire Disability project, a major charitable organization in Great Britain dedicated to global disability care.

⁷ The First Intifada was an uprising throughout the West Bank and Gaza against Israeli military occupation. It began in December 1987 and lasted until 1993. Intifada in Arabic means "to shake off."

⁸ Jordan administered the West Bank and Egypt partially administered Gaza until 1967. Textbooks developed during those administrations were used even during the Israeli occupation after 1967, but when the Palestinian Authority assumed administrative control of the West Bank in Gaza after the Oslo Accords, it developed its own educational texts.

⁹ Newcastle University is a public research university in northeast England. It serves over 20,000 students.

¹⁰ The Second Intifada was also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada. It was the first major conflict between Israel and Palestine following the Oslo accords, and it lasted from 2000 to 2005.

¹¹ The Dome of the Rock is an Islamic shrine built on the site of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

¹² From Glossary -

checkpoints: Barriers on transportation routes maintained by the Israeli Defense Forces on transportation routes within the West Bank. The stated purpose of the checkpoints in the West Bank is to protect Israeli settlers, search for contraband such as weapons, and prevent Palestinians from entering restricted areas without permits. The number of fixed checkpoints varies from year to year, but there may be as many as one hundredmthroughout the West Bank. In addition, there are temporary roadblocks and surprise checkpoints throughout the West Bank that may number in the hundreds every month. For Palestinians, these fixed and temporary checkpoints-where they may be detained, delayed, or questioned for unpredictable periods of time-make daily planning difficult and can make cities or villages only a few miles away seem like distant points on the map.

crossing points: Crossing points are the gateways into Israel from parts of Palestine, or between Palestine and neighboring countries such as Egypt and Jordan. There are currently five crossing points by land into the Gaza Strip, and most of them have been closed or significantly restricted since the Israeli military blockade was imposed in 2007. There are seventy-three barrier-gate crossing points from West Bank into Israel, and Palestinians with permits have access to thirty-eight of them.

¹³ As of 2014, the Erez crossing is the only remaining crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip accessible to Palestinians. The crossing is tightly restricted since 2007, and special case-by-case permits granted by Israel are needed.

#palestine speaks #palestine #palestinian voices #strike for palestine #part 1 of 16 #there are sixteen interviewees #book exerpt

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