Keeping Tabs on Cholera in Haiti

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“It seems that a Haitian killed a Dominican, and now the Dominicans sent cholera here to kill the population,” one of my Haitian friends just texted me. That hypothesis was advanced by one of his employees, and that’s the kind of superstition and misunderstanding about sanitation that could quickly lead to a lot more deaths.

Latest reports of the recent cholera outbreak in Haiti are that 259 have died and about 3,000 have been hospitalized, with at least five confirmed cases in Port-au-Prince. The good news is that the cases didn’t originate in the overpopulated capital, but traveled there from the central rural regions where the outbreak originated. The bad news is that with no restrictions on travel between those areas and no potable water in many of the devastatingly squalid displacement camps where more than a million people have been living post-quake, it’s a short step to an epidemic. The Haitian health ministry reports that the infection rate is slowing but has likely not yet reached its peak.

You can keep tabs on the outbreak—and counter misinformation—on Twitter. @Haitifeed aggregates news about the country, much of it now cholera-related; the Miami Herald’s Jacqueline Charles and freelancers Jacob Kushner and Ansel Herz are on the ground reporting about the situation. Partners in Health, an organization that’s long been providing medical care in Haiti, is posting updates on its website, which is also a great place to donate if you want to help.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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