So the UN Peace Keepers are responsible for cholera in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — A contingent of U.N. peacekeepers is the likely source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that has killed more than 2,000 people, a French scientist said in a report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

Epidemiologist Renaud Piarroux, who studied the outbreak for the Haitian and French governments, concluded that there was no doubt that the cholera originated in contaminated water next to a U.N. base outside the town of Mirebalais along a tributary to Haiti's Artibonite river.

"No other hypothesis could be found to explain the outbreak of a cholera epidemic in this village ... not affected by the earthquake earlier this year and located dozens of kilometers from the coast and (quake refugee tent) camps," he wrote in a report that has not yet been publicly released.

The AP obtained a copy from an international official who released it on condition of anonymity. Piarroux declined in an e-mail interview to discuss his findings.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gXnA1Hxq9FM3EuY_FSOZ7GTA0y-Q?docId=e02d10ba8abe485bb2702a97bb1c6845
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2,000 Haitians are dead and 90,000 are infected. WTF!!!!!!!!

How is it that the one great hope for world peace and prosperity and the greatest gathering of the finest minds in the world at the most important deliberative body in the history of the planet keeps shooting itself in the foot?

I despair at this massive blunder.

Carriers can be asymptomatic. You carry the germ but you don't know you carry the germ.

It's also possible for cholera patients to recover and still be able to pass along the bacterium.

In other words, shit happens. Probably they should have screened all the peacekeepers to make sure that none came from an area that had or recently had a cholera outbreak. That wouldn't definitely prevent transmission, but would reduce the risk.

It's also worth pointing out that accidental epidemics are completely possible. There's the presumption of omniscience--somebody must have known, consciously failed to stop it, and therefore the outbreak was intentional. If there's no real evidence, all that's needed is a good conspiracy theory that accounts for all the data and makes the "theorists" feel good--whether it's justified, "in the know," or superior. All this shows is that victims often have a lot of ill-will towards those who hurt them, regardless of intent. Gee, who'd have thunk it?

However, given the tendency to blame those who can't be held responsible there's also an understandable reticence to accept blame. "You can't prove beyond any doubt at all that it was us. So you have to assume it wasn't us." It's also silly--esp. when nobody's obviously at fault.