Jailing intravenous drug users actually makes them less likely to stop injecting, a study in the January of the issue journal Addiction reported. The study, by the world-renowned research team at the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (including International AIDS Society President Dr Julio Montaner), found that being incarcerated within the last six months made addicts 57% less likely to quit injecting. They also found that getting methadone treatment made users 38% more likely to quit. [Addiction] Besides discouraging drug users from quitting, imprisonment also raises their risks of contracting HIV, Dr Montaner and two of the study's coauthors -- Evan Wood and Thomas Kerr -- wrote in a commentary published in The Lancet in 2005. [The Lancet abstract]
18% fewer aboriginal Canadians in northern Alberta had access to HIV care within one month as compared to non-aboriginal Canadians, according to a new government-funded study published online in the journal AIDS Patient Care and STDs. Patients over 45 years old and rural patients were also less likely to receive timely HIV care after diagnosis, wrote the group of federal, provincial and academic authors. [AIDS Patient Care and STDs (PDF)]
Karen Casey has been appointed to replace Chris D'Entremont as Nova Scotia's minister of health. [Government of Nova Scotia news release] A school principal before she became a Progressive Conservative legislator and rose to minister of education, Ms Casey (left) also has experience as the chairperson of the Colchester East Hants district health authority. "It’s a huge department," Ms Casey remarked to the Truro Daily News in a rather unenlightening interview. "With something that large it certainly brings challenges." [Truro Daily News]
Quebec Health Minister Dr Yves Bolduc plans to study why 11 emergency rooms across the province regularly top an occupancy rate of 200% and have 24-hour wait times. [La Presse]
Dr Martina Scholtens, a Vancouver physician who sees plenty of immigrant and refugee patients, describes two recent unique cases in "That would hurt" [FreshMD] and "Pain in his... what do you call it?" [FreshMD]
The Toronto Star's Stuart Laidlaw blogged about a New York surgeon who, in his divorce proceedings, is asking for the kidney he donated to his wife to be returned to him, or for $1.5 million in compensation. [Toronto Star - Medical Ethics blog]
An update to what I wrote yesterday about Zimbabwe: the World Health Organization now estimates the death toll of the ongoing cholera outbreak to have surpassed 2,000. [Reuters]
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Tuesday, 13 January, 2009
What's in the news: Jan. 13 -- Jailing drug users reinforces addiction
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On Old Olympus Terraced Tops A Frodo AND Gollum Venerate A Hobbit
The little guy that used to be draped over the cranium to illustrate where the brain manages the body looked a lot like Gollum ( Lord Of THe Rings)
The pictorial equivalent for " the brain managing the "body" of healthcare ethics... and resulting service ......look a lot like Gollum now.... constantly echoing "WE" and looking for their "precious"
birthday present.
http://www.wisegeek.com/who-is-gollum.htm
Gollum has leapt off the cranium and seeks to manage"group" the same way as you manage " individual ...and is getting more distorted everyday..
So, Batman...... Gollum initially thought it was better to "live as a villain than die a hero"..... what say you?