The Ontario Health desk of Ontario's Health Minister, Sylvia Jones, cancelled a media tour that included an interview with the province's Chief Medical Officer, Dr Kieran Moore because of concerns over which journalist would ask the questions, according to emails obtained by The Toronto Star. The interviews were planned mid-December, during a time of increased hospitalisations due to a "triple threat" of COVID-19, respiratory syncytial virus, and the flu. Jones' communications director, Alexandra Adamo, apparently objected to the Star's chosen journalist, Kenyon Wallace, who has frequently reported on the pandemic, and asked whether another journalist could be lined up, according to the emails. As a result, the entire media tour was cancelled. Ontario is one of several Canadian provinces facing a resurgence in COVID-19 cases due to the Omicron variant, which has led to fresh restrictions on movement and activity in several parts of the country.
China was a major topic of discussion at the latest G7 summit, alongside the war in Ukraine. The summit featured a lengthy section which expressed concern about China's trade practices, alleged political interference, and human rights abuses, while calling on Beijing to do more to “press Russia to stop its military aggression and immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw its troops from Ukraine." The G7 leaders did not intend to decouple from China, but said they would need to start "de-risking and diversifying" for economic resilience. Joe Biden's approach towards China was compared to that taken by the G7. Biden said the US would “compete vigorously” with China, but the two countries should not see competition translate into conflict. The G7 has seemingly had success in keeping China in check, as Beijing accused the G7 of "hindering international peace, undermining regional stability and curbing other countries’ development.”
Elephants in zoos are happier when visitors come to see them, according to a study from Nottingham Trent University and Harper Adams University. The research, which analysed more than 100 papers looking at visitors' effect on more than 250 species, showed that elephants reduced repetitive behaviours indicative of boredom, showed increased foraging and decreased inactivity levels after public feedings. Penguins, jaguars, grizzly bears, polar bears, cheetahs, servals, banteng and black-tailed prairie dogs were among the other species that showed positive responses to being viewed. Hedgehogs and frogs preferred to be alone, but only amphibians had negative responses more than chance.
A GoFundMe page for the Cho family, who were among eight people killed by a neo-Nazi gunman in Texas earlier this month, raised nearly $2m for their only surviving son. Kyu and Cindy, who were both born in Texas and had moved back home upon starting their family, left behind two sons aged three and six years old respectively. The couple had met in Boston congregation, a church that they both attended, where their supportive relationship had become one of its defining strengths, earning them the title “relationship goals”.
Kyu and Cindy Cho died alongside their son, James, in a recent shopping mall shooting north of Dallas in a case that has disgusted the world. The demented individual who killed the Cho family as well as five others is understood to have a background with white-supremacist and dangerous misogynistic beliefs and writings. The Cho family has set up a fund to support their extended family, following the murder of their children's parents. The family's hope is to allow all of William’s future needs and dreams to be realised and to keep his parents’ legacy alive.
Canada's got a drinking problem — and one senator says Ottawa needs to step up
CBC
23-05-22 08:00
Canada's federal government's reluctance to hit drinkers with punishing financial disincentives – despite the fact that alcohol is the country's leading cause of preventable death – has prompted a politician to propose a bill to mandate cancer warnings on drink labels. Quebec Sen Patrick Brazeau, himself a recovering alcoholic, is behind Bill S-254. "It's so widely accepted in our society," he told CBC News. "But alcohol is not good for us, and we have to stop pretending that it is. … It doesn't seem there are too many people on Parliament Hill, elected officials, who are willing to take the bull by the horns and do something."
NFL expands sports medicine diversity program to 19 schools
The Toronto Star
23-05-22 22:05
The NFL has increased its diversity initiative, aiming to introduce more women and BAME medical staff in a bid to improve diversity among athletic trainers and medical staff across the league. The Diversity in Sports Medicine Pipeline Initiative matched students from 19 of America's medical schools with NFL clubs, with twice as many students participating than the number who completed the initial programme in 2021. The initiative also plans to include more player care disciplines like physical therapy and behavioural health in its aim to improve underrepresented BAME and female groups in the field.
Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York turned a blind eye to a doctor’s abuse of patients because of the revenue he generated, according to legal documents filed by 19 former patients of the healthcare facility. They claim that the hospital was aware that Dr Ricardo Cruciani was a serial abuser but failed to notify law enforcement or licensing authorities for over a decade or to alert future employers of Cruciani’s record. Cruciani was a specialist in rare and debilitating syndromes and abused pain patients who were seeking relief by overprescribing powerful painkillers to them. He killed himself at the notorious Rikers Island prison complex in New York last year after being jailed for 12 counts of violent abuse. The alleged abuse was an “open secret” among his colleagues, according to the lawsuit.
Over 150 doctors on strike at NYC hospital that was once called pandemic epicenter
The Toronto Star
23-05-23 00:05
Around 160 resident physicians at New York City's Elmhurst Hospital Center went on strike over pay, making them the first doctors to do so in the city since 1990, according to their labor union. The doctors-in-training are employed by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital and claim they are being paid about $7,000 less annually than their peers at the main Manhattan campus. Initially dubbed as the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Elmhurst Hospital Center was one of several city hospitals to become overrun with patients.
Tanzania's experience of trying to introduce the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine offers a look at the challenges of implementing a critical health intervention in the region. The vaccination programme has been hampered across Africa for years and many countries designed programmes to begin in 2018. Supply and logistical obstacles have been a major challenge as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, which supply vaccines to the world, have often targeted high-income nations. The vaccination campaign has also faced misinformation and rumours about what is in the vaccine, which has caused vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, the Covid pandemic has further complicated the HPV campaign as it forced school closures and lowered public trust in vaccinations.
Tanzania has been able to inoculate almost three-quarters of its girls aged 14 years in 2021, but that has not been without issues. While the first dose was delivered to 74% of girls, only 57% returned for a second dose six months later. Tanzania has largely counted on school pop-up clinics to deliver the shots, but it has been difficult to distribute the vaccine a second time. The fourth most populous county, Indonesia, plans to introduce or expand the use of the vaccine this year. Many hope there will soon be sufficient doses for countries to vaccinate all girls between 9 and 14 so vaccination can become routine for 9-year-olds.
The HPV vaccine is crucial to provide near-total protection against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer as 90% of cervical cancer deaths occur in developing countries. Public health experts say a cost-saving step would be to move from school-based vaccination to making HPV one of the routine vaccines offered at medical facilities, but this will take a huge and sustained educational effort to shift to a model of routine vaccination.
Universities must “rediscover the spirit of radical questioning” they encouraged in the past or become irrelevant, argues Iain Martin in The Times. He highlights the recent example of academic and feminist campaigner Dr Kathleen Stock, who has attracted criticism for her emphasis on biological gender differences, as exemplifying a current reluctance to confront challenging views. Martin suggests that modern students and censors would likely oppose a writer like Martin Amis, who was celebrated during his own student years for his radicalism.
Black Americans suffer from a range of health problems from asthma to COVID-19, with Black women particularly at risk when giving birth. Angelica Lyons nearly died from an undiagnosed case of sepsis during childbirth. Black women are nearly three times more likely to die during pregnancy or delivery than any other race in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The nation’s health disparities have had a catastrophic impact over the past two decades, resulting in 1.6 million excess deaths compared with white Americans and a cumulative loss of more than 80 million years of life due to premature death, resulting in billions of dollars in healthcare and lost opportunities. Black Americans’ health issues have long been ascribed to genetics or behaviour, when in actuality, racism is responsible, as a history of racism that began in the nascent days of America has led to the disparities seen today, from restrictions on where people could live to the historical lack of access to care. More needs to be done to combat medical racism.
