Skeptical reporter @ 2013-07-05

Skeptical Reporter for July 5th, 2013 Netherlands is facing a measles outbreak. The number of reported cases of measles in the Bible Belt region has gone up to 161 and five children have been hospitalised, the public health institute declared. The true figure is likely to be higher because not all patients will go to their family doctor. The outbreak is largely affecting children aged four to 12 who attend orthodox Protestant schools. Many of the country's strict Protestant communities do not vaccinate their children on religious grounds. The outbreak began in May with 54 reported cases in the past ten days. In the Phillipines, classes were suspended at a school in Mandaluyong City after around 20 students aged between 12 and 16 started acting strangely—screaming, crying, fainting and convulsing—prompting claims that they were possessed by evil spirits. Julie Esparagoza, an 8th Grade teacher at the public school, said the incident started shortly after 9 a.m. and initially involved two girls from her section. One of the girls suddenly stood up and began acting strangely while the other lost consciousness.  According to Editha Septimo, the officer in charge of the high school section, some of the affected students were taken to the principal’s office while the others were brought to a classroom where a doctor attended to them. She added that she had no choice but to suspend classes in the entire school after parents started rushing to the school to get their children out of fear that they would also be “possessed.” Those who witnessed the incident were divided about what happened. Septimo was skeptical and called the incident a case of “mass hysteria” caused by students who just wanted attention. A priest that was contacted to help the children said the incident was clearly a case of “evil spirits possessing the students.” Ever heard about the curse of the pharaohs? Well, how about the curse of a 2,500-year-old chief of a nomadic Scythian tribe that brings about floods, droughts, livestock decimation and high atmospheric pressure? Though the curse of the pharaohs has repeatedly been debunked as myth, the Scythian curse is very real, say locals in a remote area of eastern Kazakhstan where the chieftain’s remains were discovered – and where they will be reinterred to appease his spirit, to the despair of archaeologists. In 2003, an archaeological expedition dug up a burial mound in the Shiliktinskaya Valley to find a Golden Man – a presumed leader of the Saka tribe, a branch of the Scythian nomads that populated Central Asia and southern Siberia in the 1st millennium BC. Since the mound was excavated, the area around it has been hit by several floods, a drought, a mass loss of livestock and an increase in births of children with learning disabilities, locals said. Scholars dismissed the rumors, pointing to global climate change as the reason for the area’s problems. But archeologists had to concede to reinter the Golden Man at the request of the Kazakh Culture Ministry and after “unrest” among locals. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and international regulators shut down 1,677 illegal online pharmacy websites this week, and seized more than $41 million worth of illegal medicine worldwide, according to a statement by the FDA. The authorities seized the offending websites, and posted messages on them warning visitors about the websites' alleged illegal activities, and the potential harms of buying counterfeit drugs. Some websites used names similar to some major pharmacy retailers in the United States to imply an affiliation with these retailers. Other drugs sold on these websites included medications that have potentially life-threatening side effects, and should be used only when prescribed by a doctor. And now let’s look at some news in science. A telescope in Hawaii built to seek out asteroids that might one day threaten the Earth has discovered the 10,