delores's blog

What's to be said? Read and enjoy the irony

http://climate-chaos.blogspot.com/

As with the environment, which is being stripped of the meagre protections of due process through environmental assessments and debasement of the Fisheries Act, so with our civil rights.
This issue of civil rights is absolutely critical – we have LOST Habeas Corpus, first fought for by the barons of Britain against the totalitarian power of the King to arrest and hold people with no public oversight, about 900 years ago, and we are continually and ruthlessly being stripped of the rights which protected us from the state. And almost no one seems to notice or care. 
The ins and outs of so-called consumer protection are, as this writer says, almost insignificant compared to over-arching political impact of our loss of civil rights. Who cares, O Canada?  

Presentation to the Senate on Bill C-6: Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

Thank you, honourable senators, for allowing me to present my views concerning this Act.

No reasonable person would disagree with the need to protect Canadians from contaminated foods, from shoddily-constructed products, from mercury or other harmful chemicals in the paint of childrens' toys, in our water supply, our soil and air.  Canadians would not only agree with the need for this protection, they would demand it.

The BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) is keeping a watchful eye on the Olympic Games being held in Vancouver this February.

They are training legal observers and will have a toll free hotline for those that have experienced or witnessed restrictions to civil liberties or harassment during the Olympic Games.

Check their website: www.bccla.org

By Clara Broten, Oct 31, 2009

I wonder how many of the people standing in line for vaccines have already been exposed and are at the stage of being contagious before symptoms appear.

I wonder how people with arthritis who are dependent on paratranspo or the kindness of friends for transport are supposed to stand in line in the rain for three hours without having serious flare ups of their condition.

I wonder how people who are dependent on transpo, paratranspo, or the kindness of friends for transportation are supposed to get a number and come back in two hours when it is often an hour wait for Paratranspo, or an hour trip on OCtranspo to get anywhere.

The Atlantic November issue has a superb story online about the effectiveness of flu vaccines and Tamiflu, quoting epidemiologist Tom Jefferson and examining the lack of scientific rigour in the studies about whether the flu vaccine actually prevents deaths or illnesses, and citing reserachers who claim the seeming results are just a "healthy worker" effect. The story includes these lines: 

"As with vaccines, the scientific evidence for Tamiflu and Relenza is thin at best. In its general-information section, the CDC’s Web site tells readers that antiviral drugs can “make you feel better faster.” True, but not by much. On average, Tamiflu (which accounts for 85 to 90 percent of the flu antiviral-drug market) cuts the duration of flu symptoms by 24hours in otherwise healthy people. In exchange for a slightly shorter bout of illness, as many as one in five people taking Tamiflu will experience nausea and vomiting. About one in five children will have neuropsychiatric side effects, possibly including anxiety and suicidal behavior."

It does not delve into the fincial implications, stickinginstead to the medical debate, but does note that Tamiflu costs $10 a shot.

Read Does the Vaccine Matter? by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer in The Atlantic, and decide for yourself!  

Governments have developed the unfortunate habit of releasing controversial or distressing news on Friday afternoon when the media are basically packing their bags for the weekend. But last Friday the 4th of September was exceptional because two pieces of extraordinarily good news came sailing through the Ethernet.

Twyla Roscovich has a video on her website, www.callingfromthecoast.com

of a research project underway in the Discovery Islands off of Campbell River where a small crew is sampling the juvenile sockeye salmon from the Fraser along their out migration to sea. Most of the Fraser sockeye travel up the Inside Passage and past many of British Columbia’s 130+ industrial salmon farming operations. The sampling crew is finding alarming levels of lice on these juvenile fish, which represent Canada’s most important run of salmon. Twyla's beautiful and sometimes heart-breaking work is always worth a look.

Some BC environmentalists (See Tzeporah Berman on her zerocarbon Power Up! blog  and Guy Dauncey's BC Sustainable Energy Association blog) have attacked the BC Utilities Commission (BCUC) for rejecting BC Hydro's Long Term Acquisition Plan for buying wind and run of river power from private companies. Significantly, the BCUC is charged with protecting the public interest on matters electrical, not with finding power for export.

This impressive exhibition of photos from the Tar Sands...  Beautiful Destruction shows some of the worst environmental destruction of today to sustain our insatiable demand for oil... yet, there is some strange beauty in them. Thank you to the photographer, Louis Helbig for this work.

The Second Coming

Author and researcher Anna Tilman shares this understanding of the medical isotope crisis due to the failure of the reactor at Chalk River

Much ado is being made out about the shortage of medical isotopes as a result of the shutdown of Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)’s Chalk River’s 52-year old National Research Universal (NRU) reactor due to “leaks” of radioactive tritium-laced heavy water. This is the second shutdown in just 6 months at this facility which is on the shores of the Ottawa River about 185 kilometres from Ottawa.

At the time of the second reported leakage in May 2009, expectations were that the reactor would get back on track within a few months. It is now apparent that the reactor will not be functional for at least a year, and even so, if at all.

While there are many isotopes used in nuclear medicine, the critical isotope in question is technetium - 99m (Tc-99m), a short-lived decay product of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), and the current workhorse of radioisotopes in nuclear medicine used internally for imaging soft tissues. The short half-lives of these radioisotopes make timing a critical issue.  While M0-99 has a half-life of 66 hours, the half-life of Tc-99m is only 6 hours. In just 24 hours, only about 6% of the initial amount of Tc-99m remains, the rest having decayed to other elements.