SOLOMON HUGHES highlights a 1995 Sunday Times story about the disappearance of ‘defecting Iraqi nuclear scientist.’ Even though the story was debunked, it was widely repeated across the mainstream press, creating the false – and deadly – narrative of Iraqi WMD that eventually led to war
Tuberculosis in Ireland — a lesson from history
What Irish history shows is that governments can improve public health when the will is there to do it, writes HELEN O’CONNOR

THE Covid-19 crisis is not the very first time that contagious disease has existed and lessons can be learned from how the Irish government got to grips with a tuberculosis crisis in 1940s Ireland.
Tuberculosis is a highly infectious disease that ravaged Ireland at the beginning of this century.
Tuberculosis used to kill more than 10,000 people per year in Dublin alone. There was a stigma around getting tuberculosis in those days and it was known as a “poor person’s disease.”
More from this author

With fascists and their supporters cynically and falsely posing as ‘defenders of women,’ the left must take violence against women seriously and gain a better understanding of women’s oppression, warns HELEN O’CONNOR

As some celebrate a pay rise, outsourced, privatised workers face continued exploitation — ending this injustice by bringing them in-house must become a top priority for the labour movement, writes HELEN O’CONNOR

HELEN O’CONNOR sees a worrying trend of women exiting the labour movement in their thousands, and warns that if this tide is not stemmed with proper and effective action, it will only be to the benefit of the capitalist class

Far from being ‘more efficient’ and providing ‘choice,’ privateers taking over the public sector have worsened service delivery, and workers rights’ have been utterly compromised on the altar of corporate greed, warns HELEN O’CONNOR
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The NHS continues to say Covid spreads primarily through ‘droplet and touch’ while the WHO emphasises airborne transmission, meaning vulnerable patients and healthcare workers face unnecessary risks, reports RUTH HUNT

MARJORIE MAYO recommends a remarkable book that restores another of history’s racially biased omissions