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A Stunning One in 6 West Virginians is on food stamps

by Justin D. Anderson
Daily Mail Capitol Reporter

About one in every six West Virginians gets food stamps, the highest level of participation in at least 30 years.
Amid rising food and fuel costs, the assistance is becoming worth less and less.
And supplemental food programs for poor families are struggling to keep up with the added demand as donations are on the decline.
Last month, 274,487 state residents received food stamps. That's up from 246,890 just five years ago, according to data from the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
A total of 122,877 of the state's estimated 743,064 households currently receive food stamps. That's up from 105,365 households in 2003.
But while the number of people on the program has jumped sharply, the federal government has raised the average per-person monthly benefits over that time by just $12 to $85.
Meanwhile, the cost of food is expected to jump by up to 4 percent this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service.
Food costs have been increasing by at least 2.4 percent each year since 2004.
Added to that budget strain are record gasoline prices.
Nationally, the average cost of a gallon of regular gas today is $3.26, according to the AAA Daily Fuel Gauge Report. A year ago, the average cost was $2.59 a gallon.
Sarah Young, a policy specialist with the Department of Health and Human Resources, says the agency is seeing more of the state's working poor applying for food stamps in order to make ends meet.
"Even those eligible for lower amounts are coming back onto the program because they have less to spend on food," Young said. "These are historically higher rates. I think even nationwide, we're at our highest rates."
Nationally, more than 26 million Americans were on the food stamp program last year, according to the federal agriculture department.
The food stamp benefit is based on income and the number of people in a household, Young said. Monthly benefits range from a minimum of $10 to $1,219 for a 10-person household with little to no income.
Young said the benefit was always meant to supplemental a family's income, not to totally cover a month's worth of groceries.
Increased demand on food pantries and soup kitchens seem to indicate that poor families are running out of resources to buy food earlier and earlier each month, officials said.
Carla Nardella, executive director of the Mountaineer Food Bank, said demand around the state is up, while food donations are decreasing.
"We never have enough food to totally give everybody what they really want," Nardella said.
Nardella said in 2006, the organization distributed 5.7 million pounds of food to pantries in the 48 counties it serves. Last year, they were only able to distribute 3.9 million pounds.
Both food and financial donations to the organization are down, Nardella said. She blames high food and fuel costs. People who usually donate don't have the money to do it as much anymore, she said.
And those who visit the food pantries are feeling the pinch.
"What happens is, when everything else raises, they can only get so much for the dollar value they have," Nardella said. "So they end up knocking on the door."
Nardella said she's also seeing an increased demand for new pantries to open in communities across the state.
"That is even another struggle," she said. "It's hard to have enough food for the ones we already serve."
To help pantries maximize the money they have to buy food, Nardella said her organization is using its financial donations to make more deliveries.
That saves the pantries from having to drive to the food bank's Gassaway location.
"We do everything we can to try to stretch their dollars," Nardella said.

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Chase mortgage memo pushes 'Cheats & Tricks'

Of course the bank says it never backed the strategies, which detail how to get an iffy loan approved

Thursday, March 27, 2008
JEFF MANNING
The Oregonian

A newly surfaced memo from banking giant JPMorgan Chase provides a rare glimpse into the mentality that fueled the mortgage crisis.

The memo's title says it all: "Zippy Cheats & Tricks."

It is a primer on how to get risky mortgage loans approved by Zippy, Chase's in-house automated loan underwriting system. The secret to approval? Inflate the borrowers' income or otherwise falsify their loan application.

The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Oregonian, bears a Chase corporate logo. But it's unclear how widely it was circulated or used within Chase.

Bank spokesman Tom Kelly confirmed that the "Cheats & Tricks" memo was e-mailed from Chase but added that it does not reflect Chase corporate policy.

"This is not how we do things," he said. "We continue to investigate" the memo, Kelly said. "That kind of document would neither be condoned or tolerated."

The March e-mail was sent by Tammy Lish, a former Chase account representative in Portland. Chase fired her days after discovering she had sent it.

"I did not write it," Lish said. "It was sent to me by another (Chase) rep in another office along with some other documents that were more step-by-step customer training documents."

Even if the memo was penned by a single employee, it illustrates an attitude prevalent in certain corners of the mortgage industry during the boom years. In the face of sustained and significant home price increases, much of the industry veered away from traditional notions of safe and sound lending. Loan volume became as important as loan quality, particularly for the rank and file typically paid on commission.

During the boom, it was common for lenders and brokers to get paid more for risky subprime loans than for 30-year fixed-rate loans because the higher-interest loans fetched a higher price on Wall Street.

Chase, the nation's second-largest bank, originates mortgage loans itself but also operates a wholesale arm that underwrites and funds loans brought to them by a network of mortgage brokers. The "Cheats & Tricks" memo was instructing those brokers how to get difficult loans approved by Zippy.

"Never fear," the memo states. "Zippy can be adjusted (just ever so slightly.)"

The Chase memo deals specifically with so-called stated-income asset loans, one of the most dangerous of the mortgage industry's innovations of recent years. Known as "liar loans" in some circles because lenders made little effort to verify information in the borrowers' loan application, they have defaulted in large number since the housing bust began in 2007.

Chase no longer makes any stated-income loans, part of the bank's efforts to tighten its loan underwriting, Kelly said. It wrote down $1.3 billion in nonperforming mortgages at the end of 2007.

Lish said she sent out the document inadvertently. "The document was irrelevant by the time I sent it out because the company had ceased offering stated-income loans."

The document recommends three "handy steps" to loan approval:

Do not break out a borrower's compensation by income, commissions, bonus and tips, as is typically done in a loan application. Instead, lump all compensation as the applicant's base income.

If your borrower is getting some or all of a down payment from someone else, don't disclose anything about it. "Remove any mention of gift funds," the document states, even though most mortgage applications specifically require borrowers to disclose such gifts.

If all else fails, the document states, simply inflate the applicant's income. "Inch it up $500 to see if you can get the findings you want," the document says. "Do the same for assets."

Chase's Kelly said the bank has never encouraged any of the suggestions in the memo.

"If somebody is putting inaccurate information in their loan application, they're lying and committing fraud," he said.

Still, some local mortgage brokers view the memo as vindication. Brokers have argued they've been unfairly blamed for the lax lending standards that led to a wave of defaults. The large national lenders drove the weakening standards, they argue.

The Chase memo is "a perfect example of one of the big five banks out and out telling mortgage brokers to commit fraud," said Todd Williams, a broker with Evergreen Ohana Group in Portland. "And this has been going on for years."

Williams and other mortgage brokers gave a copy of the memo to Oregon financial regulators.

"It boggles my mind that any federally chartered organization would invite this kind of activity in such a flagrant way," said David Tatman, head of Oregon's Division of Finance and Corporate Securities.

But Tatman confirmed that as a state regulator, he doesn't have jurisdiction over the federally chartered Chase.

The U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has authority over Chase. OCC spokesman Dean DeBuck declined to comment on the document.

Jeff Manning: 503-294-7606; jmanning@news.oregonian.com.



©2008 The Oregonian

The Next Big Autism Bomb: Are 1 in 50 Kids Potentially At Risk?

David Kirby

On Tuesday, March 11, a conference call was held between vaccine safety officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, several leading experts in vaccine safety research, and executives from America's Health Insurance Plans, (the HMO trade association) to discuss childhood mitochondrial dysfunction and its potential link to autism and vaccines.

It was a sobering event for all concerned, and it could soon become known as the Conference Call heard 'round the world.

The teleconference was scheduled by a little known CDC agency called the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network, a consortium of six research centers working on "immunization-associated health risks," in conjunction with the CDC's Immunization Safety Office and the health insurance lobby -- whose companies cover some 200 million Americans.

The hot topic of the day was mitochondria - the little powerhouses within each cell that convert food and oxygen into energy for use by the body. Recent news events have implicated mitochondria in at least one case of regressive autism, following normal development.

Some researchers on the call reported that mitochondrial dysfunction is probably much more common than the current estimate of 1-in-4,000 people. The potential implications for autism, then, are staggering.

"We need to find out if there is credible evidence, theoretically, to support the idea that childhood mitochondrial dysfunction might regress into autism," one of the callers reportedly told participants.

"THE CLOCK IS TICKING"

One person on the call (those interviewed for this article asked to remain anonymous) told me that, "the CDC people were informed, in no uncertain terms, that they need to look into this issue immediately, and do something about it." The clock is ticking, they were told, and if they don't respond, the information will be made public.

Still, the doctor said, he was enormously impressed by the "seriousness" with which CDC officials treated the possibility of a link between mitochondria, autism and possibly vaccines as well.

In the recent landmark Hannah Poling case, filed in Federal "Vaccine Court," officials conceded that Hannah's underlying mitochondrial dysfunction was aggravated by her vaccines, leading to fever and an "immune stimulation that exceeded metabolic reserves."

But on March 6, CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding claimed that Hannah's case was a rare, virtually one-of-a-kind incident with little, if any relevance to the other 4,900 autism claims currently pending in the court -- or to any other case of autism for that matter.(There were conflicting accounts about whether Gerberding was on the call or not).

Since then, however, Dr. Gerberding and other CDC officials were made aware of a Portuguese study, published last October, which reported that 7.2% of children with autism had confirmed mitochondrial disorders. The authors also noted that, "a diversity of associated medical conditions was documented in 20%, with an unexpectedly high rate of mitochondrial respiratory chain disorders."

"Apparently, the Portuguese study really got their attention," one of the participants said. "It's a highly significant finding. And it's worrisome enough to definitely look into. I think the CDC people know that."

They also know that some reports estimate the rate of mitochondrial dysfunction in autism to be 20% or more. And the rate among children with the regressive sub-type of autism is likely higher still.

Vaccine safety officials on the March 11 call may have been open to discussing mitochondria and autism, but they were probably highly unprepared for what was to come next.

One doctor reported his findings from a five-year study of children with autism, who also showed clinical markers for impaired cellular energy, due to mild dysfunction of their mitochondria.

The biochemistry of 30 children was studied intensively, and in each case, the results showed the same abnormalities as those found in Hannah Poling, participants said. Each child had moderate elevations or imbalances in the exact same amino acids and liver enzymes as Hannah Poling.

All thirty children also displayed normal, healthy development until about 18-24 months of age, when they quickly regressed into clinically diagnosed autism (and not merely "features of autism"), following some type of unusual trigger, or stress, placed on their immune system.

Researchers explained on the call that some data show that mitochondrial dysfunction can convert into autism "in numbers that make it not a rare occurrence," one participant told me. They explained this as "a distinct syndrome; not a mixed bag at all. Every kid had mild mitochondria dysfunction and autistic regression."

Another surprise came when one researcher announced an "inheritance pattern" that linked each case through the genetics of the father: In families where two cousins had autism, the genetic link was always through the father.

This unexpected discovery would clearly implicate nuclear DNA inheritance, and not mitochondrial DNA, which is inherited only through the mother.

Gerberding and others had previously insisted that Hannah and her mother, Teri Poling, both had the same single point mutation in their mitochondrial DNA. CDC officials asserted that Hannah had a pre-existing disease, a rare genetic glitch in her mitochondria, that may well have manifested as "features of autism" on its own, perhaps even without an environmental trigger.

"It's not in the mitochondrial DNA, and it's not rare," one participant confirmed. In fact, he said, many people probably carry the nuclear DNA mutation that confers susceptibility to mitochondrial dysfunction, they just don't know it.

1-in-50 GENETIC RISK?

On the call, speculation on the prevalence of a genetic mutation that could confer mild mitochondrial dysfunction in the general population ranged from about 1-in-400, to a staggering 1-in-50, or 2% of all Americans.

There was talk about the urgent need to do mapping studies, and find the locus of this gene. Some of the researchers said they want to test all 30 children for the actual DNA mutation. There was some expectation that they might discover that the mutation goes back generations, so parents and grandparents might be tested as well.

One belief is that a particular mutated gene may have become prevalent over the centuries, because of selective advantage. Mild mitochondrial dysfunction reportedly has been associated with intelligence, because it can increase activity of the brain's NMDA receptors. A large number of receptors can produce increased intelligence, but it can also increase risk of brain disease, one doctor explained to me. It's possible that increased receptor activity acts in same way.

But not everyone agrees that mitochondrial dysfunction is a purely inherited affair. Some researchers believe that, while a susceptibility gene for mitochondrial problems certainly exists, some type of environmental trigger, or "adversity," as one doctor put it, is needed to turn the mutation into a dysfunction.

The medical literature is replete with studies on mitochondrial health and the adverse impact of mercury, aluminum and other toxins. Even AIDS drugs like AZT and prenatal alcohol consumption can damage mitochondria and impact cellular energy.

The mercury-containing vaccine preservative, thimerosal, for example, "can definitely kill cells in vitro through the mitochondria," one teleconference participant told me. "And some people are beginning to suspect that the dose of hepatitis B vaccine given at birth might be interfering with proper mitochondrial function in certain children."

While the cause of mitochondrial dysfunction is up for the debate, so too is its potential effect on regressive autism.

All the researchers I spoke with agreed that, in many cases, there was an underlying, asymptomatic mitochondrial dysfunction, aggravated by some other stressful event imposed on the child's immune system, resulting in autism.

Such "metabolic decomposition" occurs when a child's system simply "cannot meet the energy demand needed to fight the stress of illness," one doctor explained.

But what causes the stress? That is a very big question.

Apparently, in only two of the 30 cases, or 6%, could the regression be traced directly and temporally to immunizations, and one of them was Hannah Poling. In the other cases, there was reportedly some type of documented, fever-inducing viral infection that occurred within seven days of the onset of brain injury symptoms.

All 30 of the regressions occurred between one and two years of age, at a time when the still-developing brain is particularly vulnerable to injury.

But if a significant minority of autism cases was caused by mitochondrial dysfunction aggravated by common childhood illnesses, then shouldn't we see fewer cases today than, say, at the beginning of the 20th Century? And wouldn't developing countries likewise show far more prevalence of autism than the United States?

Not necessarily, some experts said. They noted that many viral infections are still quite prevalent in modern-day America, and many children still get these types of viral infections about once a month, on average.

If that is the case, then why doesn't every child with "mito" dysfunction regress into autism? Surely, they must encounter viral infections during their yearlong window of neurological peril.

Again, not necessarily: Some doctors said it would depend on the severity of the dysfunction, the type of virus encountered, and perhaps other factors that are still not understood.

But at least two of the 30 kids with mito deficiencies were pushed over the edge into autism by their vaccines, and some researchers feel the number is probably much higher than that in the larger population.

"Vaccines, in some cases, can cause an unusually heightened immune reaction, fever, and even mild illness," one participant said. "A normal vaccine reaction in most kids would be very different in a kid with a metabolic disorder. We know it happened to at least two kids in this study, and I'm certain there are many more Hannahs out there."

One theory currently in circulation about what happened to Hannah and other children like her, is an apparent "triple domino effect." According to this hypothesis, it takes three steps and two triggers to get to some types of autism, and it goes like this:

STEP ONE: Child is conceived and born healthy, but with an underlying nuclear DNA genetic susceptibility to mitochondrial dysfunction, inherited from dad.

TRIGGER ONE: An early environmental "adversity" occurs in the womb or during the neonatal period, perhaps caused by prenatal exposure to heavy metals, pollutants, pesticides and medicines. Or, it occurs in early infancy, through environmental toxins, thimerosal exposure, or even the Hepatitis B vaccine "birth dose." This trigger results in:

STEP TWO: Child develops mild, usually asymptomatic mitochondrial dysfunction (though I wonder if the ear infections and eczema so common in these cases might also be symptoms of mito problems).

TRIGGER TWO: Child, now with an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, suffers over-stimulation of the immune system beyond the capacity of his or her metabolic reserves. This stress is either via a viral febrile infection, or from multiple vaccinations, as in the Poling case. This trigger results in:

STEP THREE: Acute illness, seizures, encephalopathy, developmental regression, autism.

Such a scenario might help explain why autism has increased right along with the addition of more vaccines to the national schedule.

And it might help explain why autism rates are not plummeting now that thimerosal levels have been significantly reduced in most childhood vaccines.

It's possible that exposures from the flu shot, and residual mercury left over in other vaccines -- perhaps in synergistic effect with aluminum used as an "adjuvant" to boost the immune response - might "contribute to the toxic mix that causes childhood mitochondrial dysfunction in the first place," one of the doctors said.

But like many hypotheses, this one has competition. Some researchers believe that the modern American diet is largely to blame for an increase in the number of children whose underlying mitochondrial dysfunction is "triggered" into autism by febrile infections.

The answer, they hypothesize, is corn.

The American diet has become extraordinarily dependent on corn oil and corn syrup used in processing, these experts contend. They say that corn oil and syrup are inflammatory, whereas fish oil is anti-inflammatory. Could our diet be a factor in making this mutated gene become more pathogenic? It's a biochemical defect that leads to biochemical disease, supporters of this theory say: The gene itself becomes more of a problem.

WHAT NOW?

This information raises so many questions it makes your head swim.

First and foremost among them: What to do about vaccinating children with known mitochondrial dysfunction?

In many respects, these kids should be first in line for vaccination, to prevent some illnesses that might trigger an autistic regression during the window of vulnerability. On the other hand, with multiple vaccinations, such as the case with Hannah, there is also a risk of overtaxing the immune system, and likewise triggering regression into autism.

What's needed most urgently, if possible, is a quick, affordable and efficient method of testing children for low cellular energy, perhaps before vaccination even begins.

There was some discussion on the conference call about altering the vaccine schedule in some way, to lower the risk of immune over-stimulation in susceptible children. Certainly, pressure will grow for a change in the schedule - the question is how, when, and if such changes will be made.

Some of the suggestions may not be popular among public health officials. They include:

1) Establishing a maximum number of vaccine antigens to which any child could be exposed on any given day.

2) Permitting the option of separating out the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) live virus combination vaccines into three distinct "monovalent" shots.

3) Not giving the varicella vaccine (chicken pox) on the same day as the MMR injection - the CDC recently withdrew is recommendation for the Pro-Quad MMR+Varicella vaccine because it doubled the risk of seizures.

Another option is to create new "recommendations for administering multiple vaccines to children who have fallen behind in the recommended childhood immunization schedule," according to the website of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Hannah had missed some shots and her doctor decided to "catch up" with the schedule by administering five shots, containing nine vaccine antigens, at once. But some autism activists have pointed out that giving five shots in one day is not that uncommon.

Moreover, they claim, many children regressed into autism following normal vaccination, when the parents religiously adhered to the official schedule.

According to the Johns Hopkins site, "Additional research is needed to determine if other children with autism, especially those with 'the regressive form' of autism, have the same or similar underlying mitochondrial dysfunction disorders."

It adds that, "the advisory groups who make recommendations regarding vaccines will undoubtedly examine this case carefully and make decisions regarding the potential need for changes."

That day may come sooner than you think. It was just announced that, on April 11 in Washington, DC, the National Vaccine Program Office at HHS will convene a meeting of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee's Vaccine Safety Working Group. The Working Group was established to go over the CDC's Immunization Safety Office draft research agenda, and to, "review the current vaccine safety system."

The meeting is open to the public, and I have my seat reserved. But I honestly don't envy the Working Group's very tricky task at hand.

It remains to be seen how all this plays out. And many important questions still lie ahead.

For example, if mitochondrial dysfunction turns out to be as common as 200-per-10,000, and autism is now at 66 per 10,000, did anything bad happen to any of the other 134-per-10,000 children, apart from autism (i.e., ADD, ADHD, speech delay, etc.)?

Moreover, if 10-20% of autism cases can actually be traced to an underlying mitochondrial dysfunction, then what about the majority of autism cases where this did not come into play?

And, if 20% of autism cases are mito related, and 6% of those cases regressed because of vaccines, that would mean that at least 1% of all autism cases were vaccine related. Some estimates of autism go as high as a million Americans - that would mean 10,000 people with vaccine-triggered autism, and billions of dollars in the cost of lifetime care.

(While we are on the subject, isn't it time to fund a study of vaccinated and unvaccinated children, to settle this debate once and for all?)

Finally, the goals of the CISA Network, (which convened the teleconference) are rather progressive and far reaching. It remains to be seen how well the Network fulfills its stated mission, which includes:


Conduct research into "the role of individual variation" on vaccine injury;


"Empower individuals to make informed immunization decisions;"

Help policy makers "in the recommendation of exclusion criteria for at-risk individuals," and;

"Enhance public confidence in sustaining immunization benefits for all populations"


Let's see how long it takes before Network members hang out the proverbial banner: "Mission Accomplished."

The Great Lake of Gaza: A New Crisis in the Making

Suzanne Baroud
March 28, 2008

In a place just a few miles from sandy beaches and soaring sky-scrapers, white stone villas and sky-blue swimming pools, it seems the epitome of irony and injustice that over 1.5 million people would be subjected to drinking sewage-contaminated water. When there is such a fine line bordering wealth and poverty, privilege and need, how unsettling to realize that just a stones throw away, mothers and fathers must nourish their families with poison. As if the occupier could not find one more creative way to torment his victim.

The greatest outrage is that such a reality is the decided policy of the Israeli government. It is decried by the most prominent human rights and humanitarian groups throughout the world, and yet it is increasingly enhanced by Israel and shamelessly backed and justified by the US. It is indisputable that the calamity of contaminated water in the Gaza Strip is a resolute policy of the Israeli government.

The problem of sewage management in Gaza is not a new issue, and in fact dates back to the direct Israeli occupation of Gaza in 1967. At that time, Israel built the sewage treatment facilities which are still in operation today, built then to serve a population of 380,000 people, a number that has grown to 1.5 million.

The depleted source of clean drinking water and the ever-growing sewage crisis in Gaza is leading to areas of overflow, the largest of them called "the great lake" which occupies some 30 hectares of land and holds approximately 2-3 million cubic meters of waste water.

With archaic facilities to serve a group that has nearly tripled in number, and with the lack of basic necessities such as fuel to power the pumps necessary to keep the facilities running, the result is the spillage of toxic sewage into the ground and ground water and even directly into the sea.

The United Nations publication, IRIN recently interviewed Rebhi al-Sheikh, the head of the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) in Gaza, who stated that at present, 75 percent of Gaza’s drinking water is polluted.

In January 2008, UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur, John Dugard travelled to Palestine and assessed the situation, one that he described as "catastrophic" under Israel-imposed restrictions.

I recently spoke with Dr. Suma Baroud about the range of problems and health issues that result from the existence of run-off areas such as the great lake. She explained, "As a medical practitioner working in the field of primary health care in the Khan Younis region for the last 10 years, I have learned from my anecdotal observation that there are a myriad of overwhelming problems and ailments inflicting the health of Gaza residents, especially children as a result of the ever-growing lakes of sewage like that of the 'great lake’ or the 'Majari’ as we call it.

Many children are treated in our health centers for illnesses induced by infestations of small organisms such as amoeba. These ailments progress and lead to internal diseases which affect the small and large intestine and hamper or impede their functions, such as abdominal colic, diarrhea and constipation. Other complications include anemia, failure to thrive, and mental disturbances. More, we have seen growing numbers of children who suffer from conditions such as insomnia, low self-esteem and self-confidence.

Add to this a big number of patients who are treated in our clinics in summer for skin infections resulting from insects bites. There is an overwhelming problem with such insects which thrive in the conditions under which we suffer, with intense heat and standing sewage and water.

There is tremendous pressure on the Ministry of Health due to over-consumption of medications that fight these diseases and their subsequent complications."

An uncountable number of rights groups have brought the plight of Gaza to the fore in recent weeks, including the International Committee of the Red Cross who recently told IRIN that, "The environmental situation in Gaza is bad and getting worse."

30,000-50,000 cubic metres of partially treated waste water and 20,000 cubic metres of raw sewage end up in rivers and the Mediterranean Sea. Some 10,000-30,000 cubic metres of partially treated sewage end up in the ground, in some cases reaching the aquifer, polluting Gaza's already poor drinking water supply.

The International Crisis Group recently pressed Israel, Egypt, the PA and the Hamas Government to do everything possible to make necessary commodities available such as fuel, which is essential to the containing of Gaza’s huge sewage problem.

In an article recently published in the California based publication, the Coastal Post, US Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader bashed Israel for its multi-faceted execution of institutionalized violence against the people of Gaza, and called the US to account for its out-right complicity with Israel’s inhuman and illegal practices: "Israel's siege has also caused extensive loss of life in Gaza from crumbling health care facilities, electricity cut-offs, malnutrition and contaminated drinking water from broken public water systems. The victims here are mostly children and civilian adults who expire unnoticed by the West. The suffering of Gaza civilians is ignored by 98% of the US Congress, which gives billions of taxpayer dollars to Israel annually."

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), "Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community."

In early March of this year, a report drafted by eight British human rights groups and humanitarian groups condemned Israel’s policies in a "scathing" report which declared that the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was the "worst since 1967".

"As we speak, sewage is literally pouring into the streets," said Geoffrey Dennis, head of CARE International.

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said Israel must protect its citizens, "but as the occupying power in Gaza it also has a legal duty to ensure that Gazans have access to food, clean water, electricity and medical care."

She added: "Punishing the entire Gazan population by denying them these basic human rights is utterly indefensible. The current situation is man-made and must be reversed."

The 16-page report -- sponsored by Amnesty, along with CARE International UK, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Medecins du Monde UK, Oxfam, Save the Children UK and Trocaire -- calls on the British government to exert greater pressure on Israel and to reverse its policy on not negotiating with Gaza's Hamas rulers."

As Amnesty’s Kate Allen pressed, the urgency of this issue cannot be emphasized enough. Spillage so great that its masses are designated "the great lake", such abuse and mistreatment of a population regarded as "protected persons" is nothing less than pure outrage. The international community must take action immediately to ensure the protection Gaza deserves, for as Allen declared, this abhorrent action is undeniably man-made and must be reversed immediately.