Community News
A venture into the unknown world of African scientists
BY SIMONE J. SMITH
This article was spawned from an article I wrote called, “BrainTech RoboticsSTEM Learning identifies a large gap in African student’s education.” In this article (located in the current edition, definitely check it out), I was quizzed on famous African’s in tech (STEM), and I failed the quiz miserably.
Not wanting to remain in my ignorance, I went on a quest. I was not only going to learn about some famous African scientists, I was also going to prepare my community so that they would be prepared for this type of question in the future.
Interestingly enough, finding Africans who focused on STEM was not very difficult. It made me think, “Why are these people not highlighted more in our education system?” As a community paper, it is our responsibility to share pertinent news stories with the people, but we also have to educate at the same time. Toronto Caribbean Newspaper would like to present to you, “A venture into the unknown world of African scientists.”
African scientists have assisted in launching us into space, discovered new disease treatments and developed world-changing technologies. For some reason or another, many of their achievements and contributions in the science, technology, and engineering and mathematics fields are forgotten or go largely unrecognized. Some say that this is a result of systemic racism. In this article we are going to present African men and women who have pioneered in the technology and science world. We must pay homage to these people, and provide role models for our young people outside of the musicians and athletes that they look up to.
Dr. Charles Drew
Dr Charles Drew is responsible for creating the first blood bank. Born in 1904 in Washington, D.C., Drew attended Amherst College in Massachusetts and then McGill University of Medicine in Montreal, and graduated in 1933. (https://www.cdrewu.edu/)
During a time when Harvard would only accept a handful of African applicants a year, he received a deferred acceptance. He attended McGill University and earned the J. Francis Williams Fellowship, an award given to the top five students in the graduating class.
He practiced medicine in Canada in 1935, and continued to advance his education. He began work in the pathology department at Howard University, and was eventually promoted becoming the Chief Surgical Resident at Freedman’s Hospital. He pursued his doctorate at Columbia University in 1938, and not long after was sent to work with John Scudder, who had been given a grant to start the first blood bank.
His legacy was defined in 1940, when he became the director of the “Blood for Britain” project. The project shipped blood and plasma to help treat civilians and soldiers who were fighting during World War II.
Drew is the person responsible for standardizing the protocols for collecting and storing blood, and many innovations that are now mainstays of blood collections, such as mobile blood banks, are a result of his work (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/).
Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler
Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the first African American woman to earn a medical degree. She is also the author of the America’s early medical textbooks, a guide for women and children entitled the “Book of Medical Discourses.”
She was born in Delaware, but she spent much of her early years in Pennsylvania. She began practicing as a nurse in 1852 in Charlestown, Massachusetts. This was before the profession required a specific training course. In 1860, she graduated from the New England Female Medical College (https://www.nlm.nih.gov/).
She moved to Richmond, Virginia where she served a community of 30,000 people, many of who were freed slaves who otherwise had no access to medical care. After retiring from the practice of medicine, she wrote her medical text in 1883. It was based on notes she had taken during her years as a doctor. Rebecca died in 1895.
Marie M. Daly
Marie M. Daly became the first African American woman to earn a doctoral degree in chemistry when she graduated from Columbia University in 1947 (https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en.html).
She studied how compounds produced by organs such as the pancreas contribute to digestion. Daly went on to teach at Howard University for two years and then pursued her postdoctoral research at the Rockefeller Institute in New York.
She joined the research and teaching staffs of Queens College, City University of New York, Howard University, and Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. After joining the departments of biochemistry and medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1960, she studied how cholesterol relates to hypertension (high blood pressure) and how muscle cells utilize creatine, an amino acid that plays an important role in energy consumption in muscles.
She continued her work to increase the enrolment of racial minorities in graduate science programs and medical school, and established a scholarship fund for African American science students at Queens College in her father’s name.
Christine Darden
Born in 1942 in North Carolina, Christine was a skilled mathematician, data analyst and aeronautical engineer. After working at NASA for over 40 years, she became one of the world’s experts on sonic boom prediction, sonic boom minimization and supersonic wing design (https://www.nasa.gov/).
She earned a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a teaching certificate, before working as a teacher in Portsmouth, Virginia and at a Virginia State College. So, this is one of the names that I should have gotten and didn’t when I was quizzed by Patrick Monize. Her life was chronicled in the book “Hidden Figures,” became a “human computer” for NASA’s Langley Research Centre.
Recognizing an unhealthy balance in her work environment, she approached her supervisor and asked why men with the same level of education as she had were hired as engineers while she wasn’t. Shortly after, she was transferred to the engineering section, where her first assignment was to write a computer program for sonic boom (https://www.nasa.gov/). She spent the next 25 years working on sonic boom minimization. In 1989 she became the technical leader of NASA’s Sonic Boom Group of the Vehicle Integration Branch of the High Speed Research Program.
Throughout her career, she also served as a technical consultant on government and private projects and authored more than 50 papers in high-lift wing design.
She continues to encourage people, including her children, her grandchildren and her great grandchildren to always be curious.
Gladys West
For all my directional challenged individuals, it is imperative that you give a silent clap for Gladys West. She is the person responsible for developing the GPS technology that allows satellites to locate you anywhere on earth.
Born as Gladys Mae Brown in 1930 in Sutherland, Virginia, she was not eager to work in the tobacco fields or factories where her family worked, Instead, Gladys devoted herself to her education. She graduated as valedictorian from her high school, and won a full-ride scholarship to Virginia State College. Here she earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in mathematics by 1955.
Gladys was the second black female ever hired at a military base in Dahlgren, Virginia known as the Naval Proving Ground (now called the Naval Surface Warfare Centre). She was one of just four black employees.
She had the ability to solve complex equations longhand, and became a programmer on some of the earliest supercomputers. In the 1960s, Gladys participated in award-winning research that proved the regularity of Pluto’s orbit relative to Neptune. I now know that for every two orbits that Pluto makes around the sun, Neptune makes three.
Beginning in the 1970s, she programmed an IBM computer to precisely model the irregular shape of Earth. The data generated by West’s complex algorithms ultimately became the basis for the Global Positioning System (GPS).
Dr. Charles Drew, Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, Marie M. Daly, Christine Darden, Gladys West; I now have five very strong reference points that I can intelligently speak about when referring to Africans in STEM. What a relief!
References
American Chemical Society
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en.html
Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science
https://www.cdrewu.edu/
National Library of Medicine
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/
BY KHADIJA KARIM
Have you ever forgotten someone’s name, or where you left your phone and thought, “Why can’t I remember anything?” Forgetting might feel frustrating, but it turns out that forgetting things can actually be good for you. Experts believe forgetting might be an important part of human survival and could even have benefits.
You probably think that remembering everything would be better, right? If you remembered every tiny detail, like what you had for breakfast three weeks ago, or the colour of every car you saw today, you would be overwhelmed. Our brains are constantly receiving information, and if we didn’t forget some of it, we wouldn’t be able to focus on what really matters at that time.
Forgetting helps you clear out information you don’t need, and it helps your brain remember the most useful memories. Think about how hard it would be to focus on important things if your mind was filled with random thoughts. Forgetting helps you stay focused and keeps your mind from getting lost.
So, why would evolution make us forget things? Early humans had to deal with dangerous environments that changed quickly. They needed to remember things that helped them survive, like where to find food, or how to avoid predators. They didn’t need to remember every small detail, like what happened last week. Forgetting information, they didn’t need allowed them to make quick decisions based on what was most important at that moment in time.
For example, if you remember a recent storm, you might make sure to stay inside or find shelter. If you remembered every storm you’d ever seen, it would be harder to make decisions about the present. Forgetting irrelevant details helps you stay on your feet and helps you react faster to new situations. This ability to forget likely helped early humans survive and make better decisions in their everyday lives.
Next time you forget something, don’t be too hard on yourself! Forgetting is a natural part of how our brains work and can actually help you stay focused on the important things. It might seem annoying at times, but it’s helping you make better decisions. Forgetting isn’t just something to be annoyed about, it’s a smart way to survive in a world that’s always changing!
Community News
Blink equity dives deep into the gap between people of colour and decision-making roles in Canadian law firms
BY ADRIAN REECE
Representation in the workforce has been a topic of conversation for years, particularly in positions of influence, where people can shift laws and create fair policies for all races. Representation in the legal system is an even more talked about subject, with many Black men being subjected to racism in courts and not being given fair sentencing by judges.
The fear of Black men entering the system is something that plagues mothers and fathers as they watch their children grow up.
Blink Equity, a company led by Pako Tshiamala, has created an audit called the Blink Score. This audit targets law firms and seeks to identify specific practices reflecting racial diversity among them in Toronto. A score is given based on a few key performance indicators. These KPIs include hiring practices, retention of diverse talent, and racial representation at every level.
The Blink Score project aims to analyze law firms in Ontario with more than 50 lawyers. The Blink Score is a measurement tool that holds law firms accountable for their representation. Firms will be ranked, and the information will be made public for anyone to access.
This process is ambitious and seeks to give Canadian citizens a glimpse into how many people are represented across the legal field. While more and more people have access to higher education, there is still a gap between obtaining that higher education and working in a setting where change can be made. The corporate world, at its highest points, is almost always one race across the board, and very rarely do people of colour get into their ranks. They are made out to be an example of how anyone from a particular race can achieve success. However, this is the exception, not the rule. Nepotism plays a role in societal success; connections are a factor, and loyalty to race, even if people are acquainted.
People of colour comprise 16% of the total lawyers across the province. Positions at all levels range from 6% to 27%. These numbers display the racial disparity among law practitioners in positions of influence. Becoming a lawyer is undoubtedly a huge accomplishment. Still, when entering the workforce with other seasoned professionals, your academic accolades become second to your professional achievements and your position in the company.
What do these rankings ultimately mean? A potential for DEI-inclusive practices, perhaps? That isn’t something that someone would want in this kind of profession. This kind of audit also opens law firms up to intense criticism from people who put merit above all other aspects of professional advancement. On the other hand, there is a potential for firms to receive clientele based on their blink score, with higher ones having the chance to bring in more race-based clients who can help that law firm grow.
It is only the beginning, and changes will undoubtedly be made in the legal field as Blink Equity continues to dive deep into the gap between people of colour and decision-making roles in these law firms. This audit has the power to shift the power scale, and place people of colour in higher positions. There are hierarchies in any profession, and while every Lawyer is qualified to do what they are trained to do, it is no shock that some are considerably better than others at their jobs. The ones who know how to use this audit to their advantage will rise above the others and create a representative image for themselves among their population.
BY SIMONE J. SMITH
We are living in a world where promises of health and safety came packaged in a tiny vial, one injection was promoted by powerful governments, supported by respected institutions, and championed by legacy media worldwide. Sadly, beneath the surface, a darker truth emerged.
Reports from around the globe began to tell a different story—one that was not covered in the news cycles or press conferences. Families torn apart by unexpected losses, communities impacted in ways that few could have foreseen, and millions questioning what they had been told to believe.
Those who dared to question were silenced or dismissed (the Toronto Caribbean Newspaper being one of those sources). “Trust the science,” we were told. “It’s for the greater good.” As time went on, the truth became impossible to ignore.
Now, I bring more news to light—information that demands your attention and scrutiny. The time to passively listen has passed; this is the moment to understand what’s really at stake.
I reviewed an interview with Naomi Wolf, journalist and CEO of Daily Clout, which detailed the serious vaccine-related injuries that Pfizer and the FDA knew of by early 2021, but tried to hide from the public. I was introduced to “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity.” What I learned is that Pfizer knew about the inadequacies of its COVID-19 vaccine trials and the vaccine’s many serious adverse effects, and so did the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA promoted the vaccines anyway — and later tried to hide the data from the public.
To produce “The Pfizer Papers,” Naomi, and Daily Clout Chief Operations Officer Amy Kelly convened thousands of volunteer scientists and doctors to analyze Pfizer data and supplementary data from other public reporting systems to capture the full scope of the vaccines’ effects. They obtained the data from the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, a group of more than 30 medical professionals and scientists who sued the FDA in 2021 and forced the agency to release the data, after the FDA refused to comply with a Freedom of Information Act request.
It was then that the federal court ordered the agency to release 450,000 internal documents pertaining to the licensing of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The data release was significantly and the documents so highly technical and scientific that according to Naomi, “No journalist could have the bandwidth to go through them all.”
The “Pfizer Papers” analysts found over 42,000 case reports detailing 158,893 adverse events reported to Pfizer in the first three months The centerpiece of “The Pfizer Papers” is the effect that the vaccine had on human reproduction. The papers reveal that Pfizer knew early on that the shots were causing menstrual issues. The company reported to the FDA that 72% of the recorded adverse events were in women. Of those, about 16% involved reproductive disorders and functions. In the clinical trials, thousands of women experienced: daily bleeding, hemorrhaging, and passing of tissue, and many other women reported that their menstrual cycle stopped completely.
Pfizer was aware that lipid nanoparticles from the shots accumulated in the ovaries and crossed the placental barrier, compromising the placenta and keeping nutrients from the baby in utero. According to the data, babies had to be delivered early, and women were hemorrhaging in childbirth.
Let us take us to another part of the world, where research has been done on other pharmaceutical companies. A group of Argentine scientists identified 55 chemical elements — not listed on package inserts — in the: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, CanSino, Sinopharm and Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccines (according to a study published last week in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research).
The samples also contained 11 of the 15 rare earth elements (they are heavier, silvery metals often used in manufacturing). These chemical elements, which include lanthanum, cerium and gadolinium, are lesser known to the general public than heavy metals, but have been shown to be highly toxic. By the end of 2023, global researchers had identified 24 undeclared chemical elements in the COVID-19 vaccine formulas.
Vaccines often include excipients — additives used as preservatives, adjuvants, stabilizers, or for other purposes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), substances used in the manufacture of a vaccine, but not listed in the contents of the final product should be listed somewhere in the package insert. Why is this important? Well, researchers argue it is because excipients can include allergens and other “hidden dangers” for vaccine recipients.
In one lot of the AstraZeneca vaccine, researchers identified 15 chemical elements, of which 14 were undeclared. In the other lot, they detected 21 elements of which 20 were undeclared. In the CanSino vial, they identified 22 elements, of which 20 were undeclared.
The three Pfizer vials contained 19, 16 and 21-23 undeclared elements respectively. The Moderna vials contained 21 and between 16-29 undeclared elements. The Sinopharm vials contained between 17-23 undeclared elements and the Sputnik V contained between 19-25 undetected elements.
“All of the heavy metals detected are linked to toxic effects on human health,” the researchers wrote. Although the metals occurred in different frequencies, many were present across multiple samples.
I am not going to go any further with this; I think you get the picture. We have been sold wolf cookies, very dangerous ones. These pharmaceutical companies must be held accountable. I am proud of anyone who has gone after them for retribution, and have received it. Regardless, in many ways, there is no repayment for a healthy life.
REFERENCES:
https://ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/111
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender_category/toxic-exposures/
Pfizer’s ‘Crimes Against Humanity’ — and Legacy Media’s Failure to Report on Them
55 Undeclared Chemical Elements — Including Heavy Metals — Found in COVID Vaccines
FDA Should Need Only ‘12 Weeks’ to Release Pfizer Data, Not 75 Years, Plaintiff Calculates
Judge Gives FDA 8 Months, Not 75 Years, to Produce Pfizer Safety Data
Most Studies Show COVID Vaccine Affects Menstrual Cycles, BMJ Review Finds
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