What's in the news: Dec. 5 -- Liberals lead in Quebec election polls

A round-up of Canadian health news, from coast to coast to coast and beyond, for Friday, December 5.

QUEBEC ELECTION UPDATE: With just a few days remaining before the election on Monday, the Liberals have widened their lead in a new poll published in La Presse. The latest numbers give the Liberals a 45% share of the vote -- their largest in a year -- the Parti Québécois 29%, the ADQ 15%, Québec Solidaire 5% and the Green Party 6%. If those numbers turn out to be accurate, the Liberals will regain a majority in the National Assembly and the ADQ will lose a great many of the seats the party gained in last year's election and cede the job of the official opposition back to the PQ. PQ leader and ex-health minister Pauline Marois has been largely unable thus far to gain greater public support than her predecessor, who lost his job as the party leader after a poor showing in the 2007 election. [La Presse]

Just two weeks after celebrating the production of its five billionth vitamin A pill, the Micronutrient Initiative, a Canadian government-funded nonprofit set up to provide developing countries with vitamins to improve children's health, was praised to the skies by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof for its work -- particularly when it comes to the promotion of iodized salt. A lack of iodine during fetal development and during childhood and adult life causes permanent brain damage as well as goiters and other physical deformities. "Almost one-third of the world’s people don’t get enough iodine from food and water," Mr Kristof wrote. "An educated guess is that iodine deficiency results in a needless loss of more than 1 billion I.Q. points around the world... Yet the strategy hasn’t been fully put in place, partly because micronutrients have zero glamour. There are no starlets embracing iodine. And guess which country has taken the lead in this area by sponsoring the Micronutrient Initiative? Hint: It’s earnest and dull, just like micronutrients themselves. Ta-da — Canada!" [New York Times]

If the Liberal-NDP coalition government idea indeed comes to fruition, Dr Carolyn Bennett would be minister of health, according to the National Post's Don Martin, who was leaked a list of potential cabinet appointments. [National Post]

AIDS PEI has run out of funding and may have to permanently discontinue its needle exchange program. Already, the program will be closed in January. It will not reopen unless new funding is found. "It would really be a big step backwards if the program could not be maintained," said Dr Lamont Sweet, Prince Edward Island's deputy chief health officer. The provincial health minister will meet with AIDS PEI to discuss the situation soon. [The Guardian (PEI)] [CBC News] [AIDS PEI]

Now that it's been decided that Montreal's new French-language superhospital will be built downtown, where Saint-Luc Hospital currently stands, the details of the construction and the transition are making doctors anxious about how they will continue to see their Saint-Luc patients and maintain normal care. Plans are being drawn up now about what to do during the construction. "We've shown that to do the project in one phase is impossible," said Serge Leblanc, the interim director of the University of Montreal's teaching hospitals. "That would be insane." [La Presse]

A potentially problematic batch of the cancer drug Avastin is being blamed for causing eye inflammation in patients for whom ophthalmologists were prescribing the drug off-label for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Avastin is less expensive than a similar drug approved for AMD, and is thought to be as effective. "Absolutely we do not recommend this," Roche Canada spokesperson Samantha Ouimet told the Canadian Press. "[Doctors] are taking it out of its [original] packaging, repackaging it and injecting it into people's eyes. This comes in a bag and it's meant for intravenous use for people with cancer." [Canadian Press]

A group of British Columbia patients, backed by the provincial nursing union, is suing the BC government for allegedly failing to enforce its laws prohibiting private clinics. [Canadian Press]

An independent scientific review found that four out of 41 Tasers were more powerful than they were supposed to be, with some firing 50% more electrical current than they were designed to. "When you combine an increased current intensity with a dart that falls right over the heart for somebody who has cardio- vascular disease or other conditions, such as using drugs for example, it can all add up to a fatal issue," Pierre Savard, the University of Montreal engineer who designed tests, told the Canadian Press. The Taser corporation's VP of research countered that the excess electricity is not "relevant from a medical safety perspective." [Canadian Press]

A Newfoundland & Labrador task force recommended mandatory adverse-event and medical error reporting. [CBC News] [Task Force on Adverse Health Events]

Tom Daschle, Barack Obama's nominee for the job of Secretary of Health and Human Services and the man now charged with reforming the American health insurance system, wants Americans to hold "holiday-season house parties to brainstorm" about potential solutions. He said he'll stop in at one such party and consider the ideas generated. [Wall Street Journal]

Henry Gustav Molaison, the Connecticut man known to the world only as "HM" for years as one of the most famous neuroscience case studies in history, died earlier this week. After surgeons snipped off a piece of his hippocampus in 1953 to treat his epilepsy, which was caused by a trauma to his head as a child, HM developed an unusual form of amnesia in which he couldn't form any new memories whatsoever, but could still learn new tasks. The groundbreaking research conducted on him, which helped shape the modern understanding of memory, was mostly performed by McGill University's Brenda Milner, who still teaches neuroscience there. “He was a very gracious man, very patient, always willing to try these tasks I would give him,” she told the New York Times. “And yet every time I walked in the room, it was like we’d never met.” [New York Times] "He never recognized me, even if I'd been with him all day," Dr Milner told the Montreal Gazette. "He was always an extremely polite man. But I could pass him in the waiting room and he wouldn't bat an eyelid. If you ever said anything, he would just say, 'I'm sorry, I have a bit of trouble with my memory.'" [Montreal Gazette]

Ottawa obesity specialist Dr Yoni Freedhoff squares off against the local school system in a fight over weekly pizza and ice cream sandwich days for six-year-olds. [Weighty Matters]

Alberta doctor blogger Liana, struggling through a hospital night shift, nearly passed out from exhaustion. She wants advice: how do you make it through the night shift? [Med Valley High]

Deirdre Bonnycastle, a clinical teaching development coordinator in the University of Saskatchewan's school of medicine, published a list of online resources physicians can use to stay up to date in their fields. [Medical Education Blog]

Don't forget to cast your second-round vote for the best Canadian health blog. The choices are: Ottawa Street Dental, Weighty Matters, Dr. Sharma's Obesity Notes, Marijke: Nurse turned writer, and Salted Lithium. [Canadian Blog Awards]

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