Vets | Common News Update

Jul292020 by adminNo Comments

Gaps in federal oversight add to virus woes at vets homes

Health

WASHINGTON -- Big gaps in federal oversight of long-term care facilities for aging veterans may have contributed to rampant coronavirus infections and more than 200 deaths at state-run homes, according to a congressional watchdog agency. The Government Accountability Office found the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs failed for years to require robust inspections at over 150 state-run veterans homes nationwide and to make sure all deficiencies were rectified, even as it regularly doled out federal dollars for the care. That could have made a bad situation worse in places like the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke, Massachusetts, one of 50 veterans homes nationwide where VA is the only federal agency monitoring it, according to GAO. A recent investigation conducted for the state of Massa...

Oct212019 by adminNo Comments

Jon Bernthal: ‘Honor of my career’ is working with vets

Entertainment

Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Actor Jon Bernthal is transitioning from the virtual world of video games, playing the villain in Ubisoft's Ghost Recon 4, to the real world of the 1960s as Lee Iacocca in Ford v Ferrari. Bernthal, 43, best known to audiences as the duplicitous Shane in the first two seasons of AMC zombie drama The Walking Dead and as gun-slinging Marvel hero The Punisher in the recently-defunct Netflix series, lent his voice and motions to Cole Walker, a former member of the titular special forces team turned main antagonist of Ghost Recon 4. The actor told UPI in a recent interview that the role involved more than just his voice and utilized motion-capture technology to bring the character to life. "We shoot it in this room with 800 cameras. It's like a rehearsal room, you have to use ...

Sep112019 by adminNo Comments

VA may have to pay billions in vets’ emergency care bills

Health

Let's block ads! (Why?) ABC News: Health

Aug242019 by adminNo Comments

Near-extinct northern white rhino could be saved as vets harvest eggs

Technology

There is renewed hope that the near-extinct northern white rhino could be saved after eggs were successfully extracted from the last two remaining females.Rhinos Najin, 30, and her daughter Fatu, 19, of the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya, cannot carry a pregnancy and their inability to do so meant conservationists were resigned to their kind being completely wiped out upon their deaths. But a groundbreaking procedure carried out by wildlife experts and veterinarians has seen 10 eggs harvested from the rhinos - providing a sense of optimism for their future that has long been absent. Image: Eggs have been harvested from Najin (R) and Fatu The eggs will be artificially inseminated with frozen sperm from a northern white rhino bull and t...

Nov122018 by adminNo Comments

Badger cull: Vets accuse ministers of 'barefaced lies'

Science

A campaign group of vets has accused Defra and its ministers of telling "barefaced lies" about the effectiveness of one of its badger culls in England.The group has written to the Chief Vet, Dr Christine Middlemas, asking her to ensure that the department retracts "insupportable claims that its badger cull policy is working".A spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said all statements had been "absolutely correct".Dr Iain McGill, a veterinary surgeon and director of Prion Interest Group, told BBC News that claims by Defra that the badger cull in Somerset and Gloucestershire were working were not supported by scientific evidence."According to Defra's figures, they claim that they calculated that the incidence [of TB in cattle]...