It takes a village to raise an idiot, He did it for the kids and Bad times for burkas

By macleans.ca - Friday, February 12, 2010 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

It takes a village to raise an idiot
Jacques Rogge and the rest of the executive board of the International Olympic Committee have relented and will allow the Australian International Olympic Committee to fly its iconic “boxing kangaroo” flag from a balcony of the Vancouver Olympic Village. The flag was ordered removed because the IOC bans unauthorized commercial symbols, and the cartoon ’roo is trademarked, albeit only to the Australian Olympic Committee. The dispute fired up Aussies everywhere. Deputy PM Julia Gillard called it a “scandal.” Vancouver radio phone-in callers raged at the IOC’s bully tactics. IOC spokesman Mark Adams called the issue “a storm in a teacup.” Meantime, athletes are streaming to the Oz sector of the village for a photo with the giant ’roo.

He did it for the kids
It was death in the afternoon for any bull that Jairo Miguel Sànchez Alonso faced Saturday at an arena in southwest Spain. The 16-year-old killed six bulls without mussing his sparkly white suit of lights. He returned to Spain after several years apprenticing in Mexico, where there is no minimum age for fighters. He almost died there in 2007 when a bull gored him. Alonso holds no grudges. “I feel quite bad when the bull has been good and you see the expression on his face, the innocence,” he says. “He has given you his bravery.” The event, while bloody, had a softer side. It was a fundraiser for children with autism.

Bad times for burkas
French Prime Minister François Fillon announced this week he’ll deny citizenship to a Moroccan national who forces his French-born wife to wear a burka. “If this man does not want to change his attitude, he has no place in our country,” he said. Meantime, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s call for a law banning full burkas is gaining steam. He has declared the full veil and body covering “not welcome” in France, and inconsistent with the country’s values. It’s certainly not welcome in Paris post offices. Two burka-clad robbers walked into a post office in the Paris suburb of Athis Mons, an area with a large immigrant Muslim population. They pulled out handguns and stole the equivalent of $6,000.

Blades of glory
Germany’s Katarina Witt and Canada’s Elizabeth Manley met on the ice in Vancouver Sunday, 22 years after the Teutonic bombshell and Canada’s sweetheart squared off in Calgary during the 1988 Olympics. Witt won gold but Manley, under enormous home-country pressure, pulled off the skate of her life to finish second. Both women are doing television colour commentary in Vancouver, but they took a turn on the Robson Square ice rink with young members of the Coquitlam Skating Club. “We’re not here for a rematch,” joked Manley, 44. “Not at our age, I’m 20—plus tax.” Replied a razor-sharp Witt: “Oh, my God! How much are taxes here?”

Tea time in Tennessee
Cranky country singer and musical comedian Ray Stevens’s flagging career was ready for a death panel. Then the 71-year-old singer of such novelty hits as Ahab the A-rab and Gitarzan wrote We the People, a lighthearted attack on President Barack Obama’s health care initiative. The video, which shows Stevens strumming a bathroom plunger and singing, “You vote Obamacare, we’re gonna vote you outta there,” is a YouTube hit and an unofficial anthem of the ultra-conservative Tea Party movement. Stevens sang at the group’s convention in Nashville on the weekend, where Sarah Palin raised eyebrows with her $100,000 fee for giving the keynote speech. “That’s a lot of damned tea,” grumbled one delegate.

Do as I say, not as I…ahh-choo!
As deputy health minister for the Czech Republic, Michael Vit has the job of deciding whether to impose mandatory swine flu vaccinations on “all people indispensable for the functioning of the country.” The day after receiving the assignment, Vit came down with H1N1 himself. “I have muscle problems, a headache, simply all symptoms of the flu,” he said. The deputy health minister admitted he had yet to receive the vaccination. “As you see, I’m a living example.”

‘Funeral’ for friends, and strangers
Canadian orchestral rockers Arcade Fire made it to the Super Bowl last weekend, when the group’s stirring anthem Wake Up, from their hit CD Funeral, was used in a series of NFL promo ads. While the group is protective of licensing its music, they had their reasons in this case. They turned over the fat licensing fee to Partners in Health, an agency with deep roots in Haiti. Band member Régine Chassagne’s family came from the island. She expressed her grief in an article in Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “I am mourning people I know. People I don’t know. People who are still trapped under rubble and won’t be rescued in time.”

Broom versus stick
Icy, obsessed with winning and not above the occasional cheap shot. Yes, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and hockey are a match made in heaven. Hockey is “deeply reflective of the character of the nation,” he explained in a pre-Olympic interview with Sports Illustrated. Harper, who has studied the origins of the sport, said it contributes to “a uniquely Canadian sense of belonging in a community across the country.” Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff waxes poetic about a different sport: curling. Naturally, he identifies with the skip. “It’s the leadership and the precision, and the quiet,” he told the Globe and Mail. Apparently he’s not the sort of skip who shouts unseemly commands like, “Hurry, hurry hard.”

Very, very teed off
A Kelowna, B.C., entrepreneur is cashing in on Tiger Woods’s extramarital mayhem. Mike Caldwell has produced the Mistress Collection, a boxed set of 12 golf balls, each bearing a portrait of one of Woods’s mistresses. “He likes to play a round with them…and now you can, too!” notes his website, tailofthetiger.com. Caldwell says he sold 1,500 sets at US$54.90 in the first six days. Less than impressed is Joslyn James, an adult film star and alleged Woods mistress. She called a news conference to denounce the balls as hurtful and in bad taste. “It bothered me to think that someone would be standing with a dangerous club in their hands hitting a ball with my photo on it,” she said. She then showed her sensitive side by releasing 100 tawdry text messages she said she received from Woods.

You don’t want a visit by Oscar
Oscar the cat has a near infallible ability to detect which of the patients in the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, R.I., is next to die, says Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician. When Oscar curls up with a patient, staff know to phone the next of kin. “It’s like he’s on a vigil,” says Dosa. Such insight would come as no surprise to cat owners, who are themselves terribly smart. Certainly smarter than dog owners, according to a study by Dr. Jane Murray at the University of Bristol. Winston Churchill was a cat lover. Paris Hilton loves dogs. Want more proof? Cat owners (if anyone really owns a cat) are 1.36 times more likely than dog owners to hold a university degree. They’re also 100 per cent less likely to have to follow behind their pet and scoop droppings off the sidewalk.

Gay but not cheerful
The headline in the Seattle Weekly says it all: “Gay, mentally challenged biracial male cheerleader claims discrimination.” All that high school student Benjamin Grundy wants is to shake his pom-poms like the girls on the squad at Garfield-Palouse High School in tiny Palouse, Wash. Instead, the cheer coach suggested he’d make a great mascot. He was eventually given a cheerleader’s top but denied the rest of the uniform, pom-poms, and the right to join the dance routine. “I was reduced to standing there and moving my arms,” he says. The school board denies discrimination, but Benjamin’s mother, Suzanne Grundy, is pressing the case with the ACLU and her congressman. “The combination of a biracial, mentally challenged gay male may be too much for them,” she told the local TV station.

L’état c’est moi
Quebec’s Lieutenant-Governor Pierre Duchesne has revived a tradition that ended 44 years ago—awarding medals, in gold, silver and bronze, and bearing his coat of arms, to those making contributions to their communities. The practice of awarding such medals ended in 1966 after Quebec nationalists condemned the symbolic tie with the monarchy. Duchesne has no such qualms: he also invoked royal privilege to avoid testifying before a national assembly committee on how he spends some $1 million annually in taxpayer money. His refusal to testify was condemned by all sides of the legislature.

Disharmony in the house of Wang
It was Hong Kong feng shui master Tony Chan’s skills in arranging buildings to create a positive life force that drew Chan to the eccentric, pigtailed property magnate Nina Wang. He began a 15-year affair with Wang, 23 years his senior. Now, he’s accused of arranging her $4-billion fortune in a manner auspicious to himself. When she died at 69 in 2007, he claimed to be her sole heir. Her family contested the will, and he’s charged with forgery.

She also has a Ph.D. in thankless tasks
Leila Ghannam, a former Palestinian intelligence officer, is the first woman governor of Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the West Bank. Her challenge is to quash a resurgence by hard-liners in Hamas. “My intelligence experience, like my degree in psychology, helps me carry out my job,” she says.

The students who cried swine flu

By Emma Teitel - Monday, December 14, 2009 at 3:00 PM - 14 Comments

Thanks to H1N1, Section 16.8 of Dalhousie University’s Academic Regulations, regarding medical certificates in the case of illness  (required to miss classes and assignments with no penalty incurred) has been modified. Since September, anyone with “flu-like symptoms” has been encouraged to stay far, far away from campus, no questions asked. It seems for now swine flu has killed the sick note at Dal. And other universities across the country have put similar policies into effect.

At first it seemed like a pure Godsend. Free to sign their own notes, students quickly expanded the definition of flu-like symptoms to include smoker’s cough, hangovers and an insatiable appetite for TLC’s Cake Boss. One Dal philosophy major has had the virus twice—once in Logic and once in Deduction—and is planning to contract it again before her Epistemology exam. “It’s supposed to come in waves,” she says.

Or not.  Recently the University of Western Ontario started requiring infected students to enter their names into an online database, which could possibly red-flag multiple bouts of the flu.  For students a new question loomed:  how many times could they cry swine flu; and if they did malinger, what happened if they got the real thing?

Strangely, not much. John Doersken, vice provost in academic programs and students at UWO, maintains detecting fakes was never the reason for the database. “The system is in place so that we can provide our public health unit with data on how serious the pandemic is. We can tell on any given day how many students are away on influenza like illnesses.” Or at least, how many claim to be. There’s no telling, admits Doersken, how many students enter their names under false pretences.

And despite acknowledging that some students are likely using the pandemic for their own benefit, Susan Spence Wach, associate vice-president of academic programs at Dal, says their revised no-sick-note policy will remain in effect for now.  “Our main concern is with flu prevention and the care of our student population.” In other words, having some people take advantage of the revised policy is better than what would occur if the policy were left unchanged.  “People with flu-like symptoms,” says Spence Wach, “should not be going out to get sick notes. They should be at home.”
Though no official system is in place, data is also being collected at Dal, says Spence Wach: “On a weekly basis I get reports on student illness; only numbers, never names.”

So while it looks like students jumping on the H1N1 wagon won’t be facing any thorny disciplinary problems, they’re probably the contributing factors in some erroneous public health research—just another chapter in the swine flu fiasco. “For the most part, students aren’t abusing it,” says one Western undergrad, who prefers to remain anonymous.  “However, I have heard of some students who are.  Namely, myself and my roommates.”

Latest swine flu screwup!

By Andrew Coyne - Sunday, November 29, 2009 at 7:12 PM - 109 Comments

Vaccine shortage? That was last week’s phoney crisis. Now it’s the millions of unused H1N1 vaccines:

The federal government will make a decision in the next couple of weeks about what to do with what is expected to be tens of millions of unused doses of H1N1 vaccine, a spokesperson said Friday.

The admission came after Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq revealed the Public Health Agency of Canada will provide 5.7 million doses of pandemic vaccine to the provinces next week — a shipment which could in all likelihood fulfil the country’s H1N1 vaccine needs.

When that shipment is in place, more than 21.5 million doses of vaccine will have been made available across the country.

That’s enough to vaccinate nearly 64 per cent of Canadians — considerably more than have indicated a willingness to be immunized up until now.

“That would be well above anything we’ve ever achieved,” said Dr. Ross Upshur, director of the University of Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics…

The virus was first identified in April. From zero to two-thirds of the population in less than eight months. What a fiasco.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, the Public Health Agency of Canada is reporting the virus may already have peaked:

The data refer to the week ending Nov. 21, the last for which the agency has published nationwide numbers.The surveillance site noted pandemic activity was “still high.”

There were more than 1,500 hospitalizations across the country for H1N1 that week, with 243 of those patients ill enough to be admitted to intensive care. Sixty-one deaths were reported Nov. 15-21.

There have been 30 more deaths since then, taking the total death toll to 309. Between 4,000 and 8,000 people die of flu-related pneumonia every year. PHAC says “many others” die from other flu complications.

UPPERDATE: By way of comparison, as of Nov. 25 the US Center for Disease Control estimates the number of doses “allocated” — “those that are at the distribution depots and ready for project areas to order” — at 61.2 million, of which 51.9 million have been “shipped.” Using the upper number, and assuming an additional 11 million more doses next week, that means the US, with a population more than nine times has large, will have produced and made available about three-and-a-third times as many doses. Meaning Canada is delivering doses at more than two-and-a-half times the rate per capita.

UPPESTDATE: Britain, with nearly twice the population, has delivered 16.3 million doses to date.

More vaccine for provinces

By macleans.ca - Friday, November 20, 2009 at 11:37 AM - 1 Comment

Vaccination clinics across Canada are scheduled to receive a shipment of 4.8 million doses of H1N1 vaccine by Sunday, CBC news reports. It’s more than double the largest shipment sent out so far, and will allow clinics to begin serving the general public instead of just high-risk groups. It also brings the total number of doses produced up to 15.2 million, enough to vaccinate about half of Canadians. The new doses are meant to end a shortage that developed when supplier GlaxoSmithKline temporarily halted production of the regular H1N1 vaccine to concentrate on a version for pregnant women, forcing some clinics to shut down.

CBC

Works on vampires, doesn’t it?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 11:57 AM - 1 Comment

Col. Sergiu Vasislita, chief doctor for the 6,500-strong army of Moldova, a small former Soviet republic bordering Romania and Ukraine, plans to feed his soldiers onions and garlic to help them ward off swine flu. Vasislita said 25 grams of onions and 15 grams of garlic will be added to each soldier’s daily diet, roughly a small onion and a couple of garlic cloves. Those are traditional remedies in Moldova, where they are widely believed to boost the immune system. The measure was taken after 24 soldiers fell sick with H1N1 in the past two weeks. More than 1,000 Moldovans have swine flu with 90 new cases reported daily.

Star Tribute

Mitchel Raphael on who's in charge if the PM gets swine flu

By Mitchel Raphael - Thursday, November 19, 2009 at 10:00 AM - 1 Comment

Which MPs are getting the swine flu shot?

When it comes to the H1N1 vaccine, some MPs are weighing their options. Trade Minister Stockwell Day says he will talk to his doctor; he never gets even the regular flu shots. Justin Trudeau has also never had a regular flu shot, but is considering getting the H1N1 vaccine since he is now a father. NDP Leader Jack Layton and his MP wife, Olivia Chow, always get their flu shots and will get the H1N1 vaccine when it is widely available. Liberal MP Ruby Dhalla, who is also a chiropractor, will get it too. She also always gets her flu shots. Because of his asthma, Stephen Harper would be considered in the high-risk category, but he plans to wait a while. (Eventually the PM and his family will all be vaccinated against H1N1.) Should the PM become incapacitated for any reason, not just swine flu, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon has been chosen by Harper to take over, since the Tories have no deputy PM. Continue…

The per capita boast (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, November 18, 2009 at 12:43 PM - 27 Comments

It has now been two weeks since Leona Aglukkaq’s office was asked to provide evidence to support the claim that Canada had the highest per capita supply of H1N1 vaccine. Such evidence has not yet been provided.

In the three sessions of Question Period since the Liberal opposition asserted this claim to be incorrect, the government has avoided making a specific per capita claim to this country’s vaccine supply. The closest Ms. Aglukkaq has come to the assertion was in this exchange last Friday. Continue…

The flu shot is perfectly safe (almost)

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 2:05 PM - 19 Comments

When it comes to the swine flu vaccine—or any seasonal flu shot, for that matter—the myths are as virulent as the disease itself. The shot causes cancer. The shot increases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The shot triggers autism. But while countless Canadians have decided not to roll up their sleeves for the H1N1 vaccine—fearing the needle might do more damage than the flu it’s designed to fight—the actual stats are quite reassuring. According to Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer, only 36 of 6.6 million Canadians have suffered “serious adverse reactions” from the swine flu vaccine, which include life-threatening illness and hospitalization. One elderly person who received the shot has died, but the death hasn’t been conclusively linked to the vaccine. In contrast, 198 Canadians have died of the H1N1 strain since it first emerged in the spring. “Canadians can be assured that to date the frequency of serious reactions is less than 1 per 100,000 doses distributed, which is what we’ve seen with other vaccines,” Butler-Jones told a news conference this morning. “The benefit of immunization, the prevention of serious illness and death far outweigh any theoretical risk associated with being immunized.”

Toronto Sun

H1N1 immunity—without the shot

By macleans.ca - Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 12:31 PM - 0 Comments

Scientists at the La Jolla Institute Center for Infectious Disease in California have found that previous seasonal flus may have primed our bodies to combat H1N1. This may explain why the pandemic flu hasn’t been as deadly as health authorities originally anticipated. The researchers discovered that some of the cells responsible for attacking the flu virus in our bloodstream recognize H1N1 because they’ve been exposed to other influenzas. The cells then create antibodies to fight the virus before we become sick. But the scientists aren’t sure how immune to the pandemic flu this makes us, so they are still encouraging people to get vaccinated against H1N1.

Healthy Day

The Commons: Picking up the crisis where we left it

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 16, 2009 at 5:42 PM - 27 Comments

The Scene. So where were we? Ah yes, that global pandemic.

“Mr. Speaker, the last time the House sat, the Minister of Health claimed that every Canadian who wanted the H1N1 vaccine would receive it before Christmas,” Carolyn Bennett recapped. “Now, she is saying that the rollout will take up to 12 more weeks and run well into next February.”

So it is for the Health Minister. If not for her having to periodically stand and state things as fact, her critics would likely have little to complain about.

“Why,” asked Ms. Bennett, “did the minister mislead the House and why did she not tell Canadians the truth?”

The Prime Minister, the Transport Minister and the Industry Minister were all away this day, so Leona Aglukkaq was offered the chance here to answer the question herself.

“Mr. Speaker, again, we have said all along that we would try and complete the vaccination program by December,” she said.

Her use of the term “try” was perhaps notable, at least in so much as it was not employed two weeks ago when the Minister told the House that, “every Canadian who wants the vaccine will be able to receive the vaccine by Christmas.”

But close enough. Continue…

The flu shot screw-up

By Michael Friscolanti and Cathy Gulli - Monday, November 16, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 34 Comments

Canada is barely a few weeks into the biggest mass immunization campaign in the nation’s history, and by now everyone has heard—or worse, lived—a flu shot horror story. “It’s been chaotic,” admits Dr. David Scheifele, director of the Vaccine Evaluation Centre in Vancouver, which is associated with the B.C. Children’s Hospital. His own experience is no exception. Recently, Scheifele ordered nurses at his hospital to administer the pandemic H1N1 vaccine to the highest priority health care workers, those in the emergency room, intensive care unit, and labour and delivery area. He knew there was a limited supply of shots, so nurses visited the targeted groups with a mobile cart. “We thought that was really smart. No advertising. This was a sensible way to interact with the people who needed the vaccines.”

But pandemonium erupted. “Legions of people were basically crashing the party,” he recalls, including non-priority clerical and medical staff. There was such a “clamour” and so many “irate people incensed that they were being turned away” that the nurses had to return the next day with a security guard. “It is preposterous, the notion that nurses delivering a vaccine would be mobbed and fear for their safety,” he says. “Who could ever have imagined a scenario like that?” Continue…

Swine flu deaths south of the border set to triple

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 12, 2009 at 11:23 AM - 3 Comments

The number of swine flu deaths in the U.S. is set to triple overnight. According to the Center for Disease Control, the new figure, which is expected to be released today, is a result of new surveillance methods, and will likely show that 4,000 people have died from H1N1, up from the 1,200 that were previously reported. While the apparent spike may induce panic, experts insist that getting an accurate read of influenza numbers and deaths is always problematic, as testing for the virus takes a backseat to treating flu-like symptoms. As Dr. Frank James, a health officer in San Juan County, Wash., and clinical associate professor at the University of Washington, explains: “The public will struggle with this change and some will take it to mean that the government does not know what it is talking about, while those that think more clearly will understand the process and outcome and reasons for the difference.” Despite the increase in the death toll, the likelihood of dying from swine flu in the U.S. is still outstripped by other daily hazards, such as drunk driving accidents.

ABC News

'At this point there is no program to vaccinate detainees'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 9:30 PM - 16 Comments

Global gets a statement from National Defence.

“Vaccinations against H1N1 are being offered to members of the Canadian forces and Canadian civilian personnel deployed in Afghanistan. The Canadian forces are providing appropriate medical care to those in their custody. Offering vaccinations to detainees for H1N1 would be based on medical need and at this point there is no program to vaccinate detainees. No vaccine has been provided to any detainee.”

Canadian Press gets the same statement and reviews the claims.

About those Geneva Conventions (II)

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 6:55 PM - 5 Comments

An exchange from last week’s meeting of Parliament’s special committee on the mission in Afghanistan. The full and official transcript of the meeting is not yet online.

Mr. Laurie Hawn (Edmonton Centre – Conservative – Parliamentary Sec. to Minister of Defence): You mentioned that the Afghan prisoners are not POWs but we’re treating them like POWs. That suggests to me that we are perhaps going above and beyond what would be our legal international obligations. Is that a fair statement or not?

BGen Kenneth W. Watkin: One of the challenges with respect to, particularly contemporary armed conflict is so few are between states. The vast majority of the treaty law is with respect to one state fighting another state. With respect for instance to the four Geneva Conventions and in particular Geneva Convention 3 that deals with POWs and Geneva Convention 4 that deals with civilians, there’s a set treaty regime. There’s Common Article 3 to the four conventions which will provide for non-international armed conflicts.

There is a treaty and additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions which specifically deals with non-international armed conflict. In terms of customary international law which relies that assessment on the treaties themselves, that sets a well established and a high standard of treatment. Certainly the approach of the Canadian Forces is a matter of doctrine is to apply that high standard in terms of anyone who they detain and in that is standards of humanity and care in treating.

About those Geneva Conventions

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, November 10, 2009 at 4:44 PM - 35 Comments

The military says prisoners in Afghanistan will be offered the H1N1 vaccine. The military says this is in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq says this is outrageous. Canadian Press says Canada doesn’t recognize the mission in Afghanistan as falling under the Geneva Conventions.

I confess some confusion. But here are the Geneva Conventions. And here is an excerpt from a joint statement issued a year ago by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

First, we need to ensure security in the five southern Afghan provinces. This is where Canada has just recently transferred command of ISAF forces to the Netherlands. There is still hard work to be done there with boots on the ground. We are confident that Allies understand the importance of standing together and ensuring that ISAF has the forces, resources and flexibility for success in these provinces. It is our shared interest to always adhere to International Law. We operate in strict accordance with Geneva conventions. That will also improve NATO’s image in that part of the world.

Compared to what?

By Andrew Coyne - Friday, November 6, 2009 at 8:28 PM - 71 Comments

H1N1 overplayed by media, public health: MDs

Public health officials and journalists have overstated the importance of the swine flu, a former Ontario chief medical officer of health says.

Dr. Richard Schabas, chief medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties in eastern Ontario, said the H1N1 influenza outbreak needs to be put into proper perspective.

About 200,000 people die in Canada every year from all causes combined, including about 4,000 from seasonal flu.

“By the time all the dust has settled on H1N1, somewhere between 200 and 300 people will have died in this country,” Schabas said Thursday during a panel on media coverage of H1N1 on CBC-TV’s The National.

The panel also looked at the front-page coverage given to the death of Evan Frustaglio, a 13-year-old hockey player from Toronto. Evan died on the eve of the H1N1 vaccine becoming available, and demand for the vaccine jumped overnight, catching health officials by surprise.

A healthy child in Canada is about 20 times more likely to be killed by a car than by the H1N1 virus, Schabas said, but that isn’t going to make the national news…

So, a wildly over-played “crisis” to begin with. What of the other main media story-line, the allegedly incompetent handling of the crisis by public health authorities, notably the feds?

A great many commenters on this site seem quite certain they know how fast authorities “should have” responded, when vaccinations “should have” begun, etc. They are, of course, talking through their hats: they have no idea how long it takes to develop a vaccine, what sorts of consultations governments are obliged to engage in before deploying them, what sort of testing they have to undergo, etc.

Neither do I. But it seems to me the only sensible way to measure these things is in relative terms. Is 200 deaths a lot, or a little? Set beside the 4,000 who die every year of ordinary flu, it looks less terrifying. LIkewise, a plausible benchmark for how long something “should have” taken is how long it took in other countries. That’s not giving anybody a “pass.” You can still fail even if you’re graded on a bell curve.
Continue…

They were late on account of they were early

By Andrew Coyne - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 6:12 PM - 72 Comments

From today’s Globe:

Fewer than half of the available doses of H1N1 vaccine have been administered to Canadians, leaving millions of vials in warehouses or health-unit fridges across the country while people anxiously wait for their shots.

By the end of the week, 6.5 million doses of vaccines will be in circulation, with at least 1.8 million to come next week, according to federal officials.

However, numbers compiled from government sources show that provincial authorities have so far injected fewer than three million doses, or less than half of the available supply.

While blame for the lack of progress in getting needles into arms has fallen on everyone from the federal government to the provinces and the vaccine maker, public health officials said yesterday that the provinces weren’t ready because they thought Ottawa’s approval process would go more slowly.

Perry Kendall, British Columbia’s public health officer, said delivery of the shots is lagging because of Ottawa’s quicker than expected approval of the H1N1 vaccine. The infrastructure for administering the inoculations, which includes volunteers and vaccinators, was ready to begin rolling on Nov. 9, but Health Canada gave its approval the week of Oct. 26.

So there you have it: the reason for the flu-shot lineups is not that the federal government was slow to order the vaccines, but because the feds moved too quickly for the provinces. More doses delivered, faster, would have only meant bigger stockpiles in provincial warehouses — according to provincial officials.

And that’s about all we’ll be hearing about that.

The Commons: In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 5:44 PM - 17 Comments

The Scene. Like a young man on the verge of a break from school—and indeed the House will not be in session next week—the Prime Minister seemed lighter this day. Rising from his seat before Question Period, he stopped by to visit with John Baird and Chuck Strahl, the three demonstrably laughing at something or other the Prime Minister had to say. Returning to his spot, Mr. Harper chuckled with Lawrence Cannon about something on Jim Prentice’s BlackBerry.

Yes, indeed, all was fun and frivolous. And then Bob Rae stood up.

“Mr. Speaker, we now know that more than half of the vaccines that have been produced are in fact in storage and not in people’s arms,” the Liberal reported. “Experts are also telling us that the peak of the epidemic is expected to be at the end of November and not at Christmas, so I would like to ask the Prime Minister this: What exactly is going to change to ensure that Canadians in fact are inoculated before the end of November?”

The Prime Minister rose to respond, appearing largely unperturbed by Mr. Rae’s suggestion that something was amiss. Continue…

Health care workers need second shot

By macleans.ca - Thursday, November 5, 2009 at 11:50 AM - 1 Comment

About 100 Montreal health care workers need a second shot of H1N1 vaccine after they were given improperly mixed injections. People preparing the vaccine, which comes in powdered form and must be mixed with a liquid dilutant, didn’t fully understand government guidelines and created a batch with too much adjuvant—a substance used to boost immune response. Despite the mistake, public health officials say those affected are not in any danger.

CBC News

Alberta fires health official behind Flames' queue-jumping

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 6:13 PM - 2 Comments

Alberta health officials have fired the most senior person responsible for allowing players on the Calgary Flames to be vaccinated against H1N1 before others in the province. “This circumstance was a clear departure from [protocol],” read a statement signed by Ken Hughes, board chairman of Alberta Health Services, and Stephen Duckett, CEO and president. “We set the expectation that this should not have happened and should not happen again.” The firing is the first since Alberta announced it would investigate how Flames players skipped the queue while others lined up for hours to get their shot. Dr. Gerry Predy, the senior medical officer of health for Alberta Health Services, said Wednesday he believes the preferential treatment reserved for the hockey players was likely an isolated incident, “but nothing is 100 per cent.” The province recently decided to shut down clinics meant for the general population and reserve the dwindling supplies of vaccine for high-risk groups.
National Post

Notes on a non-crisis

By Andrew Coyne - Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 2:45 PM - 421 Comments

A summary of what we know now:

- The federal government put in an order for 50 million doses of swine flu vaccine — enough to vaccinate everyone in the country 1.5 times — with GlaxoSmithKline in early August. As of this week, GSK has delivered to the feds, and the feds have shipped to the provinces, 6.7 million doses. But at last count only 2 million had been administered. The feds have delivered nearly twice as many doses, per capita, as the Obama administration (deliveries in the US have lately crested 30 million), and claim to have the highest per capita delivery rate in the world, but even if they had delivered twice as many again, they’d only ensure that 10 million doses were backed up waiting to be administered.

- Perhaps the vaccinations should have been ready sooner. But two decisions, both medically defensible, contributed to this. One, they held off producing the H1N1 vaccine, on the advice of the public health officer, to produce the seasonal flu variant — understandably, since it’s far more deadly, at least in the short run. And two, they slowed production of the adjuvanted (more potent) vaccine this week, in favour of the unadjuvanted variety, which the World Health Organization had recommended as safer for pregnant women. The WHO has since changed its mind.

- Even at that, we might have got by without the lineups of the past week. Not two weeks ago, the public gave every indication of giving the whole thing a pass. Polls showed only a small minority intended to get vaccinated. So the authorities were likely planning on the basis of a leisurely take-up rate. Then 13-year-old hockey player died suddenly of the disease, and everyone flipped — from apathy to mass panic, in the space of a couple of days. Couple that with large numbers of queue-jumpers, healthy adults who are not among the high-priority, and you have a recipe for incipient chaos.

- There is no emergency. The current flu outbreak kills at a fraction of the rate of regular, seasonal flu, which hardly anyone worries about. The child who died of the disease was freakishly unlucky. Obviously the sooner the better, but it’s debatable whether anyone will die because the vaccinations are administered in November rather than October, since you have to take the already tiny proportion of people who would have been susceptible to dying from it, divide that by the proportion of those who would have caught it in the absence of a vaccine, and divide that by the proportion of those who would have had the foresight to get themselves vaccinated.

- Should the government have relied on a single supplier? Maybe, maybe not. But the Liberals are ill placed to make this point, since the contract to supply the flu vaccine was signed with Ste. Foy, Quebec-based Shire BioChem (later bought by GSK) in 2001, by the Chretien government: a 10-year contract worth $323.5-million. CTV reports the Liberals received a $56,000-plus donation from Shire BioChem that same year.

- The Auditor General makes some good points about emergency planning — in general. But she was auditing the Public Safety department, not Public Health, and she did not look specifically at the H1N1 issue. Doubtless there has been some bungling, but this was a) mostly by the provinces, who are responsible for administering the vaccine, b) no worse than garden variety government bungling, c) probably made worse by the confusion of overlapping roles between three levels of government. Some provinces have done a better job than others, and within each province some regions have done better than others.

- Bottom line: This was an inherently difficult undertaking: the largest vaccination program in the country’s history. The task now should not be to point fingers, but to learn so we can all do a better job the next time, when the stakes may be very much higher.

There's a shortage of vaccines, and it's all the fault of [Your Government Here]

By Andrew Coyne - Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at 4:57 PM - 142 Comments

Obama will fix H1N1 vaccine shortage: White House

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama is frustrated with shortages in the availability of the H1N1 flu vaccine but the problem was being tackled, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Tuesday.

“We’re working each and every day to fix this,” Gibbs told a daily news briefing.

Gosh. You mean other countries are having trouble delivering vaccines on time, too? It’s not just a matter of the Harper government’s incompetence or miserliness? It’s just, you know, a logistical nightmare ?

Apparently so:
H1N1 Spreading Faster Than Vaccine, CDC Says
Children swine flu deaths spike in US amid vaccine shortage
Behind The H1N1 Vaccine Shortage
H1N1 vaccine shortage could be political pitfall for Obama
Critics say vaccine woes show administration’s lack of preparedness
CDC Chief ‘Frustrated’ By Swine Flu Vaccine Shortage
H1N1 vaccine shortage stings politically

Other parellels: while Republicans charge the Obama administration with mishandling the epidemic, vaccine shortages are also cropping up as local issues — just as in every province of Canada, the opposition is blaming the provincial government.

And of course, on either side of the border, there’s someone ready with the same cheap, inflammatory analogy:
Liberal launches political storm by comparing H1N1 response to hurricane Katrina
Limbaugh: H1N1 vaccine shortage “ought to be Obama’s Katrina”

The Commons: 'Merry Christmas, everybody'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, November 2, 2009 at 6:42 PM - 60 Comments

The Scene. Witness first Bob Rae, master of the indisputable contention.

“Mr. Speaker, it is clear that the federal government has two clear responsibilities,” the Liberal offered after the Speaker called for oral questions. “The first is to ensure a steady and reliable supply of vaccines for H1N1. The second is to provide leadership and information on a coherent pandemic response.”

So far, so good. The House did not rise up unanimously to second Mr. Rae’s assessment, but no one stood to shout him down either.

Then, though, the question. “I would like to ask the government a very simple question,” Mr. Rae finished. “How could it have failed so miserably to execute these two critical responsibilities?”

Well then.

The Health Minister was preoccupied with her Blackberry. In her place stood John Baird, officially the Minister of Transport, but on this day the de facto Minister of Pandemic Influenza, Economic Stimulus, Ethics in Governance and, in the case of some controversy concerning public funds directed to the riding of Tony Clement, Small Town Sidewalks. Continue…

A tale of two swine flu vaccines

By Kate Lunau - Monday, November 2, 2009 at 12:26 PM - 5 Comments

Not all swine flu vaccines are created equally—just ask the Germans. On Monday, Germany launched a massive campaign to inoculate its population against the H1N1 virus, which has already infected 23,000 people there. But media reports revealed the country would employ two vaccination programs: top officials, the military, and other essential workers would get a different—and possibly better—vaccine than the general population.

The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel reported that Chancellor Angela Merkel and other government workers would get the Celvapan vaccine, which is “widely seen as safer” than the Pandemrix shot most citizens would receive. Public outrage reached fever pitch after the tabloid Bild accused the government of offering “second-class medicine” to regular people. Continue…