Saturday, December 24, 2022

Paradox between warming climate and intense snowstorms, say scientists

FREDERICTON — There is a complex, counterintuitive relationship between rising global temperatures and the likelihood of increasingly intense snowstorms across Canada.



Winters are becoming on average milder and warmer than they used to be, but there has also been a noted rise across the country in extreme weather events, such as intense snowstorms, said John Clague, a professor of geosciences at Simon Fraser University, in Burnaby, B.C.

People might think it illogical that parts of the country are seeing more snowstorms as the climate warms, he said. "What climate modelers are finding is that climate change involves more frequent extremes."

"That means during summer, you can have extreme high temperatures, kind of life-threatening high temperatures, such as they've experienced in India and Pakistan in recent years. And you also can have, during winter, these extreme cold conditions."

One of the reasons for the extremes involves the jet stream — defined by Environment Canada as "a narrow band of strong winds about 10 kilometres above the Earth, marking the dividing line between warm and cold air masses."

Clague said the jet stream, which moves from west to east and carries weather systems with it, is moving more slowly than it normally does and seemingly parking itself over an area for a period of time. The mass of cold or hot air that it's carrying lingers in the atmosphere where it clashes with moisture-laden currents, causing heavy snow or rain, he said.

"This interface between this moist, tempered air at lower latitudes, and the cold, drier air — Arctic air — generates snowfall."

Kent Moore, an atmospheric physics professor at the University of Toronto, said it's a paradox that climate change is producing more intense snowstorms. There is some evidence to show that the warming Earth is changing the dynamics of how the jet stream works, he said.

The jet stream can have "larger undulations" as the climate warms, which means it simply doesn't go west to east but sometimes travels north or goes south like a wave, he said. It also tugs Arctic air along with it as it moves southward, he added.

"There's some evidence that as the climate is warming, the jet stream is becoming more wavier," Moore said.

The interplay between diminishing sea ice and a fast-warming Arctic is reducing the temperature gradient from the southern tip of the country to the north, he said. And a wavier — or weakened — jet stream is bringing Arctic air south, creating intense snowstorms, he added.

Oceans on either coast also play a role because the warming climate produces more evaporation of water, Moore said. "That means that there's more water vapour in the atmosphere, which means that there's more snow as well because of that."

Blair Feltmate, head of the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation at the University of Waterloo, said warmer air holds more moisture and has more heat energy than does colder air. "That often results in severe precipitation in the form of more rain in the summer and snow-blasts in the winter,” he said.

Global average temperatures have increased by about 1.1 C to 1.2 C over the past century, he said, adding that Canada has warmed up even more. The southern half of Canada has been warming around two times that of the global average, he said. The northern half, meanwhile, has been heating up around three times faster, he added.

"This is creating atypical or non-typical weather in different areas of the country. It's not just that we might have more snowfall, as we are seeing now, we can have extreme cold snaps as well."

Feltmate said the intensity of the top one per cent of precipitation events that occur in a single year has increased over the last six decades, by about 37 per cent toward the western end of the Great Lakes and 72 per cent toward the east.

Moore, who has studied snowfall in the Toronto region, said the amount of accumulation over a typical winter is becoming smaller while the volume of rain is increasing. "That doesn't mean you can't have a really, really intense storm that dumps a ton of snow in just a few days. That can still happen, even though in the long term, the trend is toward less snow."

Feltmate said the symphony of winter storms from Vancouver to Toronto and the Maritimes can be attributed to climate change. He used a baseball analogy to illustrate the link between climate change and recent severe weather events — the heat dome, atmospheric rivers, post-tropical storm Fiona, and "mammoth" snowstorms.

"It's a little bit like saying you have a baseball player who's gone on steroids. And all of a sudden that baseball player starts to hit five times as many home runs," Feltmate said.

"You can't say that any single home run is due to the steroids. But if he or she is hitting five times as many home runs, then you can pretty much say cause and effect is going on between taking the steroids and hitting home runs. With climate change, we have extreme weather on steroids — and the steroids are here to stay."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2022.

Hina Alam, The Canadian Press
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Canadian doctors raise alarm as Iranian healthcare workers targeted by regime

Story by Negar Mojtahedi • Yesterday 

Iranian hospitals and clinics have become the latest battleground in ongoing protests against the regime.


Tehran physician Dr. Aida Rostami was allegedly killed by Iranian regime forces for treating patients injured in anti-government protests. Her family says her body showed gruesome signs of torture.

“There are informants. Are they your so-called patients? Are they your colleagues, managers?” said Montreal resident Dr. Homa Fathi.

Read more:
Iranian-Canadians call on MPs to take a stand against regime’s deadly crackdown

Fathi, a former dentist in Iran, is referring to undercover officers of the Islamic Republic who often visit public hospital emergency departments searching for people injured while fighting for their freedoms on the streets – and the doctors treating them.

Iranian healthcare professionals are putting their lives at risk and facing death to help treat them.

The regime’s security forces, she said, are demanding names and details of anyone seeking treatment for wounds that could have been received in demonstrations.

Video: Canadian doctors make plea to protect Iranian healthcare professionals

Fathi, in conjunction with her sources inside the country, have created a database to track Iranian healthcare workers arrested, kidnapped and killed by the regime.

“We are sure of the death of five healthcare professionals. Two doctors, one nurse and one medical student. Apart from these healthcare professionals, there are a lot who have been arrested," Fathi said.

"So far, I have the list of 19 healthcare professions arrested. I have the list of 21 healthcare students who have also been arrested."

Iranians wounded by the Islamic Republic’s forces avoid treatment at hospitals for fear of being detained, prosecuted or killed. Many medics are defying the Islamic Republic and treating them either at home or at undisclosed locations.

Read more:
‘Silence is not the answer’: Iranian-Canadians horrified by first-known execution

Vancouver physician Dr. Katayoun Rahnavardi and a network of doctors throughout Canada are trying to help amplify the voices of medics in Iran whose lives are in danger for fulfilling an international oath.

Rahnavardi and her colleagues are writing letters and posting to social media to share the stories, names and photos of those workers, and taking part in local rallies to keep the issue in the spotlight.

Canadian creates database of Iranian healthcare professionals targeted

“Everything about what is happening looks and sounds so unbelievable," Rahnavardi said.

"All of these healthcare workers were not protesting when they got arrested or kidnapped. It’s only because they were doing their job to provide medical care to the patients."

She says she had started off with demands not to arrest Iranian healthcare professionals for doing their job but now it has escalated to “don’t kill them, don’t torture them, don’t kidnap them.”

Read more:
‘Oppressions and injustice’: Canadians want fair trial for imprisoned Iranian philanthropists

One well-known case is the killing of 36-year-old Tehran physician Dr. Aida Rostami. She treated demonstrators in secret.

Rostami disappeared on Dec. 12 after a Tehran hospital shift. When her family called the police, they claimed she had died in a car crash.

But according to sources in Iran, Rostami had injuries to her genitalia, and had one of her eyes pulled out. When her family reportedly tracked her body down at the morgue, her body was covered in bruises and showed signs of torture. She was reportedly killed by the regime.

Rahnavardi says Iranian medics are treating injuries of demonstrators who were shot in the eyes, breasts and genitals.

“Over 400 cases of eyes have been shot and removed after the injury. There are documents about that,” Rahnavardi said.

Even during the World Wars, an unspoken rule was that medics were not to be touched.

Doing so today is considered a war crime under the Geneva Convention.

Read more:
Iranian-born Canadian fears for his friends in Iranian prison where he spent 11 years

The dangers facing Iranian doctors have been recognized by medical associations across European and in North America, and the Canadian Medical Association released a statement calling on the Islamic Republic to let doctors do their jobs without interference.

The British Medical Association also released a statement calling on the regime to “cease persecution of health professionals” who treat those injured by the Islamic Republic’s forces, and the World Medical Association is demanding the immediate and unconditional end to violence against Iranian healthcare professionals.

“This is an issue of humanity. It’s my duty, my responsibility as a mother, as a woman, as a human being and as a doctor to be the voice of people who are trusting me, who don’t have help, who don’t have a voice," Rahnavardi said.

"I want everybody to follow their stories and try to provide support."

Video: Iran schoolchildren reportedly killed for protesting



At least 90 protesters detained in Iran face execution or life-threatening charges, CBC News has learned

Story by Nahayat Tizhoosh • Yesterday 

This month, a list was shared with CBC News from inside Iran, of the names of protesters who face execution by regime authorities.


A photo obtained by AFP outside Iran on Sept. 21, shows Iranian demonstrators taking to the streets of Tehran during a protest days after an Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in police custody. Over 18,000 people have so far been detained by the Islamic Republic since the start of the anti-regime protests in September, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.© AFP/Getty Images

In consultation with multiple activists and by accessing reporting by various human rights groups, CBC News can name 90 individuals detained in Iran as being at high risk.

According to information available, at least 19 have been sentenced to death, 65 could face execution and six have been handed lengthy and uncertain prison terms.

The vast majority of these individuals are accused by the regime of "waging war against God" and "corruption on earth" — crimes punishable by death under the Islamic Republic's sharia law.

Protests in Iran erupted in September after a young Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in police custody. The 22-year-old had been arrested by the regime's so-called morality police, allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly, part of the regime's strict Islamic dress code. Her family says she was beaten to death.

Activists shine spotlight on detained protesters

Human rights activists tell CBC News the need to identify and publicize the names of the detained protesters is urgent.

They say the attention and public pressure on the authorities in Iran, will help save the lives of many who are voiceless.

Across Europe dozens of politicians have taken on sponsorship of the vast majority of the names listed.

Many parliamentarians and senators in countries like Germany, Austria and France are amplifying the stories of those who have been detained and are lobbying Iranian ambassadors for their release.

Related video: San Diegans protest as Iranian government turns to public executions (KGTV San Diego, CA)
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Global NewsIranian-Canadians ask MPs to sponsor prisoners after executions in Tehran
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DailymotionIran Executes Second Prisoner Arrested For Alleged Crime During Protests
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Dailymotion'We will not stop,' says World Cup attendee supporting Iranian protesters
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Over 18,000 people have so far been detained by the Islamic Republic since the start of the anti-regime protests in September, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Of those, 506 had been killed — including 69 children and teenagers — as of Dec. 21, 2022.


In less than a month, Iranian authorities arrested, charged and carried out two known executions of Mohsen Shekari and Majid Reza Rahnavard.

Treatment of unidentified prisoners

Iranian-Canadian activist Golsa Golestaneh, who focuses on fact-checking and propaganda, says the two men were "executed in silence" because the regime is often able to "distort the truth" by amplifying false charges and convictions of detained prisoners.

Golestaneh is the spokesperson of an advocacy group called Waves (امواج), made up of young Iranians in and outside Iran who want to have a say in the political opposition to the regime.

At least 19 protesters sentenced to death

"It is extremely important to continue emphasizing the unpredictability of the Islamic regime while recognizing the importance of accuracy, to the extent possible, to minimize the chances of another silent murder."

When it comes to the treatment of unidentified prisoners in Iran, Masoud Kazemi, a journalist based in Turkey, says the regime has a "dark history and horrific track record."

"Detained protesters who are unidentified are subjected to more torture and suffering than others," Kazemi said. "And they are also given lengthier prison terms and are sometimes also sentenced with execution."

65 protesters could face execution


Activists caution that executions are just one of the ways the regime kills prisoners. Golestaneh says that even when prisoners in Iran aren't facing executions, their lives are still at risk.

"The tortures are severe and several people have been killed under it. Some committed suicide or their families were forced to say they've committed suicide inside prison," she said.

Kurdish human rights activist Soran Mansournia, who works on identifying prisoners and those killed by the regime, is urging families to come forward and publish the names of their loved ones.

6 Protestors given lengthy prison sentences

"In the last two months, at least seven people from Iranian Kurdistan died under the torture of security forces of the Islamic Republic," Mansournia said.

"Many prisoners' lives are in danger and we don't even know their names. I ask all their families to make public the abduction of their loved ones."
Why anger is just another form of fear

Story by Refresh News • Yesterday


One would not intuitively assume that in many cases, behind anger, there is simply fear. After all, a temper tantrum is rather scary for those who have to witness it. So what does anger have to do with fear?

Seen from the outside, people must sometimes seem pretty crazy. They throw dishes, throw smartphones on the floor, yell like they’re insane. They attack the other person or flee head over heels to get out of the situation as quickly as possible.

Are you angry. Anger is an intense, but above all an offensive emotion. At least at first glance. Anger seems strong, dominant, frightening to those who have to witness it.
Personal experiences with anger and fear

Anger has been “my” emotion for half my life. If you look at the basic negative emotions – i.e. anger, fear and sadness – I have the impression that one of these emotions is particularly prominent in all people. In that regard, the world for me was divided into anger, fear, and sadness types. And I think I was definitely an anger guy.

In contrast, I’ve never actually considered myself anxious. The reason I didn’t do that was because I only looked at fear on the surface, as did anger. For me, anxious people were those who didn’t dare to jump into the water from the 3-meter tower in our small town swimming pool. Those who do not dare to get on a moped and drive off without any significant experience. Those who don’t dare to ride the roller coaster, who never do Skydive do and would never travel alone. Those who fear snakes, who flinch when dogs bark, and who would never ever mount a horse. Okay, admittedly, when it comes to fear of animals, I guess I’m not entirely fearless either, because I run away when I see a spider. But other than that, I never actually had any really obvious fears. So on the surface, I was (almost) fearless – which I couldn’t exactly say for myself when it came to anger.

I only know three people who could have held a candle to me when it came to outbursts of anger. When I say that the people who experienced my tantrums were afraid of me, that would be putting it nicely. Often they didn’t even dare to say what they were thinking, in order to somehow appease me.

So for most of my life, I’ve considered myself „angry,“ easily irritable. The anger was part of the image I had of myself. Quite the opposite of fear, which I never wanted to acknowledge as part of me. Fear and anger were difficult to reconcile in my head. So to speak, distant relatives who hardly have anything to do with each other.

I now believe that fear is the source of anger. Of course, that doesn’t mean that people who are less „angry“ don’t have fears. They’re just less likely to harbor those fears aggressions transform and thus externalize them.

Different types of anger

Related video: How to Control Anger and Calm Yourself (Health Apta)
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Of course, there is no question that behind every tantrum there is always fear. After all, there are many different reasons why one can get angry.

For example, if you are angry because you were hit on or groped in the most primitive way in the club for the tenth time, this anger certainly has little to do with fear, but with the fact that you are simply and poignantly concerned about the non-existent behavior of the person concerned excited. Same if you chatted up stupidly from the side on the street or being insulted. There are many things to get upset about, and yes, these things can also cause you to freak out. But from an emotional point of view, it’s mostly about the little things.

But this other kind of anger, which cannot simply be described using the word „freak out,“ is on a completely different level emotionally. It’s a deep-seated anger that’s deep because it feeds on our most intimate fears.

Fear as the source of anger

If you’re angry at your partner because they’d rather spend their annual vacation with friends, then you’re angry because it triggers a deep fear of missing out. Or the fear of not being good enough – and the thought that the partner would prefer to travel with other people for this reason.

If you’re angry because your partner keeps asking if you’d rather hang out with them instead of going out with friends, you’re not angry because of that fact, but because you’re scared, hemmed in and to be controlled.

fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, fear of control – What makes people angry is so individual because everyone has different fears. Often you can’t understand why another person reacts angry – just as other people often can’t understand why you get so upset about a supposed little thing.

Often behind anger there are not just any fears, but the fears that arise manifested in us in our childhood to have. Because in principle it is always the same things that make us angry – just in different variations, which ultimately all address one and the same fear.

However, what fear is present in all „angry“ people is the fear of admitting fears. Because anger is a protective mechanism that ensures that we don’t have to allow ourselves to be afraid – neither of others nor of ourselves.

In my experience, the first and most important step you have to take to release your anger is to admit your fear. From the moment I acknowledged my fears, I was able to work on them – and from there I was suddenly largely free of this deep-rooted anger that I’ve believed for half my life to be a part of me.
Ban on flags: football patriotism equals nationalism?

Story by Refresh News • Yesterday 

Ban on flags: football patriotism equals nationalism?© Provided by Refresh Lifestyle CAEN

It’s here again, the high season of football. As always in the luggage:Fan miles mice and public viewing parasites, Schland chanters and flag-wavers. Surprisingly, it is the latter who are now the topic of the discussion, because the young greens seem to be at loggerheads with the German flag.
Shitstorm from the football fans

„For the European Football Championship, we call on all fans not to leave any room for nationalistic ideas! Football fans flags down”, was on Friday evening on the Facebook site read by the Green Youth of Rhineland-Palatinate. An absolute no-go, not only for the common beer hat wearer. Also the reactions of Bundestag politician and the Greens themselves ranged from amusement to horror. For example, SPD politician Johannes Kahrs tweeted that he would now “hang another German flag over the beach chair”.

Green youth calls on football fans, dte. Rolling up the flag would promote nationalism. If we asked that of others, it would be racism

— Julia Kloeckner (@JuliaKloeckner) June 12, 2016

#GreenYouth doesn’t get it: the fans‘ flags are the opposite of the flags of yore: a symbol of cosmopolitan, friendly Germany!

— Peter Altmaier (@peteraltmaier) June 12, 2016


How embarrassing is that. Now I’m hanging a German flag over the beach chair again. Yes sir. https://t.co/tszQ3AAF1R

— Johannes Kahrs (@kahrs) June 12, 2016



The fine line between patriotism and nationalism


“Nationalism is a form of patriotism. Those who define themselves as patriotic exclude others. The effect of patriotism always has consequences and is particularly evident where it presents itself as an aggressive form and stigmatizes the other as an enemy,” writes the Green Youth. One thing is clear: About the fashionable tastelessness of German flags on the face, as headgear, sunglasses or a Mohawk wig cannot be disputed. Apparently yes about the moral intentions behind it. Above all, the Green Youth itself criticizes the “party patriotism” that occurs during major events such as world or European Championships reigns. Is there a greater danger behind the beer bliss after a Schweinsteiger goal than we thought? Again this year there are enough idiots, riots and brawls. Before the opening game of the German team attacked over 50 hooligans Ukrainian fans in the city center of Lille, there were also massive outbreaks of violence among the English and Russians. Should these idiots but represent all football fans or opportunistic biennial viewers who celebrate the EM peacefully? Is it morally reprehensible to be proud of the National team to be?



What the Green Youth forgot somewhere between the search for clicks and the probably intended call for openness and tolerance: patriotism is not the same as nationalism. Patriotism denotes aloud Federal Agency for Civic Education „a special appreciation of the traditions, cultural and historical values ​​and achievements of one’s own people“, whereas nationalism glorifying one’s own nation and belittling other nations. Whether you should see the achievements of the German national team as your own remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: whoever is proud of the achievements of one’s own country is by no means disparaging the values ​​of another. So a patriot is not a nationalist, even if the line is often very thin.

The Germans and national pride


Terms such as love of fatherland and national pride have been difficult to come off the keyboard, and not just since the events of the last few years. Somewhere there is always this bad feeling, the fear of offending someone or someone xenophobic to give any form of confirmation among us. While in countries like the US it works the other way around, with every self-respecting suburban family displaying at least one flag in their front yard, we have a hard time feeling proud of our country. After National Socialism and a decades-long divided Germany national feeling is not a matter of course for most Germans. In fact, many of us find identification with our country rather uncomfortable. With patriotism we are either sarcastic or, at best, very timid. In principle, this is probably often the smarter option: identifying and boasting about yourself and your character traits instead of some outdated stereotypes. But are feelings of national unity just as dangerous, as Jamila Schäfer, federal spokeswoman for the Green Youth, claims? In an interview with Mirror online she explains: „We fundamentally consider national community feelings to be dangerous“ – suggests that the team could also be supported with a green DFB flag.“ You could. But you don’t have to.


You can be proud – at least for two weeks

Of course we distinguish ourselves with Schland calls and German flags and maybe even find ourselves better than the rest of the group for 90 minutes World. In the same way, we grow together a bit, hug complete strangers when we celebrate a goal and suddenly we are a big, happy one familywho is happy about her own country. After a month you glare at the same people you were holding in your arms just before Subway on. Everyone has to decide for themselves whether that’s so bad.


 













https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/rudolf-rocker-nationalism-and-culture

Nationalism and Culture is the first of the works of Rudolf Rocker to appear in English. Although the author is known as a platform speaker to wide circles ...


Panama aims for 'fair' deal with Canadian miner First Quantum

Story by By Valentine Hilaire and Steve Scherer • Yesterday 

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) -Panama's government is in talks with Canada-based miner First Quantum Minerals over the conditions under which it operates its flagship copper mine, the government's Chief Revenue Officer Publio De Gracia said on Friday.

The official from the country's economy and finance ministry said Panama was looking for a "fair" deal in which the company complies with the obligations its large operations demand.

"These activities are receiving important benefits and it is only fair that they comply with the obligations," he said, adding it was "more unfair" in view of the company's "very low" tax liability, exemptions and credits.

Panama's government on Monday ordered First Quantum to pause operations at the Cobre Panama mine after the company missed a deadline to finalize a deal that would have increased annual tax and royalties payments to the government to at least $375 million.


Related video: Can Canada capitalize on a potential treasure trove of critical minerals? (cbc.ca)  Duration 7:33    View on Watch


A key asset for both parties, Cobre Panama accounts for roughly 3.5% of the country's gross domestic product according to government figures, and according to a financial analyst generates around half of First Quantum's core earnings.

Canada's trade minister has been in contact with her counterpart in Panama in an effort to resolve the dispute, a Canadian government source said on Friday.

"Obviously, we have a keen interest in seeing resolution to this, and are optimistic that both parties are negotiating in good faith," said the source, who is familiar with the discussions.

First Quantum has disbursed more than $10 billion in the mine, according to its web page.

Zorel Morales, the director of Panama's mining chamber, said the dispute with First Quantum could have a dramatic fallout for the country, which has three other similar copper deposits that could generate up to $30 billion in future investments.

Some interested mining firms had categorically said that if the talks do not end well or end up in international courts they would not invest, added Morales, saying solving the dispute was "a matter of life or death" for the sector.

(Reporting by Valentine Hilaire in Panama City and Steve Scherer in Ottawa; Additional reporting by Elida Moreno in Panama City;Editing by Alistair Bell and Diane Craft)



STELTER: Many Canadians would welcome a return to mask mandates, poll shows

Opinion by Ryan Stelter • Thursday -Winnipeg Sun

All I want for Christmas is an N95 mask.


A wayward disposable face mask hangs on a street sign pole.

That is partly a joke as I will be taking some courses at the University of Manitoba next month so I likely will need some more masks as the school still has a mandate.

Interestingly, there are plenty of Canadians who would welcome a return to mask mandates, a new Angus Reid Institute poll shows.


I, like perhaps many of you, have not been so diligent in my mask-wearing as of late. Just 31% of Canadians polled say they are wearing a mask more than half of the time in public spaces.

Nearly a quarter of those who never wear masks say they would support a mask mandate if COVID-19 gets bad again while 65% of those who rarely but sometimes wear one also say they would accommodate a return to mandatory masking.

More than half of Manitobans polled (54%) would welcome a return to mandatory masking, which is a different outlook from July when only 49% would’ve liked to see a mask mandate.

Flu season has been a bad one, which has particularly hit children hard, coupled with COVID-19 still flying around it makes sense that there are those who would probably begrudgingly throw a mask back on if they become mandatory again.

This isn’t to say that we’re all eager to sling some N95s back over our ears, but I believe I speak for a lot of people when I say that I won’t enjoy it, but I’ll do it as it’s not the hardest thing in the world to do.

The science behind it makes sense and if wearing a mask can help prevent even one person — especially a child — from getting sick, I’d say it’s a success.

When it comes to vaccine passports, there aren’t that many who would welcome a reintroduction of those infamous QR codes. Only 21% support this while 42% say mask mandates nor vaccine passports should be reintroduced.

Not bringing back vaccine passports makes sense. It was helpful for a while and trust me, it didn’t create as much division as some will say. It turned restaurant employees into COVID-19 vaccine checkers and it also created a barrier for some who likely did get all of their shots. Whether it be access to technology or even identification.

It’s interesting to look back now at all the public health restrictions, which were in our lives not that long ago.

Perhaps it’s the fault of the government, or the media, but nearly half of Canadians aren’t thinking about COVID-19 that much anymore. Just last Christmas, we were bracing ourselves for the Omicron wave, which truly blew open the floodgates.

In Manitoba, 56% of people polled said they still think about the pandemic, which is higher than the national average.

Despite what this poll says, in all likelihood mask mandates won’t be reintroduced so you can breathe easy.

As it’s been since March 2022 when Manitoba dropped its restrictions — assess your own risk. You may not like that approach and wish the government did more, but this is the hand we’ve been dealt.

This means as we head into the holiday season filled with get-togethers and parties, stay home if you’re sick. It’s that simple. I believe the pandemic has created this idea that if you’re coughing up a lung but not testing positive for COVID, you’re fine. Nope, stay home.

This Christmas will look different than years past, there will be families and friends getting together for the first time in a long time. Be mindful of what everyone’s gone through and be compassionate.

rstelter@postmedia.com

Twitter: @steltsy94
Canada's grants for master's, PhD students haven't increased since 2003. These researchers want that changed

Story by Mike Crawley • CBC - TODAY

Students doing graduate-level research say Canada risks losing its future scientists to other countries because the dollar amounts of annual grants have remained stagnant for nearly 20 years.


Sarah Laframboise, a PhD student in biochemistry at the University of Ottawa's faculty of medicine, is one of the leaders of the group Support Our Science, which wants the Trudeau government to increase the annual federal grants provided to graduate student researchers.© Pierre-Paul Couture/CBC

A Canada Graduate Scholarship from one of the three federal research funding agencies is $17,500 per year for a master's student or $21,000 per year for a doctoral student. Those amounts have not changed since 2003.

In return for that funding, the recipients are expected to work full-time on their research, and in some cases are explicitly banned from spending more than 10 hours per week on any other paid employment.

"Definitely below the poverty line in any capacity," said Sarah Laframboise, a PhD student in biochemistry at the University of Ottawa.

Laframboise is one of the organizers of a campaign called Support Our Science, calling on the Trudeau government to boost graduate student funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

The three federal agencies fund the research of thousands of grad students every year at universities across Canada.

"These students really deserve a living wage," said Laframboise. "They're struggling to pay rent, tuition, all of these costs."

Grants haven't grown with inflation

Support Our Science has held a rally on Parliament Hill, presented a petition to the House of Commons and prepared a submission for the federal government's budget consultations.

The Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, said he is aware of the call for more funding for graduate researchers.

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"I'm very much seized about that. This is going to be part of our discussions with the minister of finance," Champagne told CBC News earlier in December, adding that students should "stay tuned" for the 2023 budget.


"It's clear that if we want to own the podium, we need to do more to support the researchers, the students and the scientists," said Champagne.

He said the Trudeau government has invested in science and research, but Laframboise argues that those investments have not resulted in better annual funding to graduate students.

Her group wants the government to increase both the value and number of scholarships and fellowships that the three agencies give to graduate researchers.

"They often spend 40 to 60 hours a week in the lab doing their research," Laframboise said. "So when we look at it from this perspective, these students really deserve a living wage."

Inflation has eroded the value of the grants. If the $17,500 amount for a master's student researcher had risen with inflation since 2003, it would today be worth $26,140, according to the Bank of Canada's inflation calculator.

A feeling of 'generalized anxiety'

Jessica Reid, a master's student in fish ecology at Carleton University in Ottawa, says she has had to seek extra funding beyond her NSERC award to support her research and cover her costs.

"I'm one of the fortunate ones," Reid said in an interview. "There's just this feeling of generalized anxiety. Sometimes you are trying to make ends meet, or you're trying to decide between groceries and other things."

When she learned that the NSERC grant to a master's student had not changed for nearly 20 years, Reid said she found it shocking.

"It's quite frustrating to hear that my research and my contributions aren't valued," she said. "You just can't help but feel a bit slighted."

Both Reid and Laframboise believe their research is important. Laframboise's biochemistry work focuses on cancer, using yeast.

"Yeast and humans share about 30 per cent of the same genes," she said. "I study a gene that in humans causes cancer, but in yeast we can study this in a much more robust, easy, cheaper way."

Reid is researching the impact of urban development on the fish of the Jock River, which flows into the Rideau River in Ottawa.

She says the stagnant funding is a factor in Canadian students deciding to leave the country for graduate degrees.

"Feeling like you can't thrive or you just don't have the resources to stay in this field is definitely going to dampen Canada's research ability in the coming years," she said.
The Sex of Your Surgeon Is, in Fact, a Matter of Life or Death

Story by Danielle Groen •

Early this year, a Canadian study published in JAMA Surgery confirmed what many patients, especially female patients, have long suspected: The sex of your surgeon absolutely matters when it comes to your outcome in the operating room. Female physicians got better results. But it turns out that the sex of the patient matters in the OR, as well—and can even mean the difference between life and death.


Angela Jerath, an associate professor of anesthesiology at the University of Toronto, and her colleague Christopher Wallis, an assistant professor of surgery in the department of urology, canvassed the records of more than 1.3 million men and women, operated on by nearly 3,000 surgeons in Ontario over 12 years. They controlled for as many factors as possible: the age, income, and health status of the patients; the age and experience level of the surgeons; whether the surgery was performed in a small community hospital or a major medical centre. Overall, Jerath and Wallis discovered, more than 17 percent of patients suffered adverse effects within 30 days of the procedure—8.7 percent of them had complications, 6.7 percent were readmitted to hospital, 1.7 percent died. Not the best.

But when they broke down those results by sex, something more troubling emerged. “We found that female patients treated by male surgeons had 15 percent greater odds of adverse outcomes than female patients treated by female surgeons,” Jerath says. Worse still: Women operated on by a male surgeon were 32 percent more likely to die.


Here, Jerath unpacks those astonishing findings and explains how on earth we can fill the gap in care for female patients.

(Related: Women’s Health Collective Canada Is Addressing the Gap in Women’s Health)


Jerath Angela Highres 
Image: Sabrina Sisco

Why did you want to explore this area in the first place?

Chris Wallis had done some earlier work that looked at differences in outcomes between male and female surgeons, using a similar dataset from Ontario health care. That paper signalled that female surgeons across different specialities are having better outcomes than their male counterparts. And we weren’t really sure why. To be honest, we’re still trying to work out why. But one of the areas of interest was whether the interaction between the sex of the physician and the sex of the patient matters.

How did you go about measuring whether it matters?


We have the luxury of lots of health care databases in Ontario, and they’re completely anonymized. We looked at the pairings between the sex of the patient and the physician—so you’ve got four combinations—and we looked at its impact on death, readmission to hospital, or complications after surgery within 30 days. This was on around 21 surgical procedural groups, from things that are really complex, like cardiac bypass surgeries, to common bread-and-butter stuff, like having your hip or knee replaced. We were able to adjust for a lot of things that affect outcomes, like the age of the patient or the experience of the surgeon. We jam-packed those things into the model and came out with the numbers that you see.
Let’s talk about those numbers.

They’re pretty scary.

What did you think when you first saw them?

I was personally taken aback. We had a lot of internal discussions and went through the data again. Chris had done that earlier work, so we knew there was a signal here, but we just didn’t know how big the signal was going to be. It’s important to understand what those numbers might mean. They’re what we call relative numbers. Women having surgery with a male surgeon, relative to a female surgeon, had a 32 percent increased risk for death. That means if your risk for death coming in for surgery is, let’s say, one percent, then it’s 32 percent of that one percent—so the combined outcome is about 1.3 percent. That’s how to mentally compute what you’re seeing.

But should there be a difference at all?

No. And that needs a deep dive. We saw this difference across a lot of surgeries, and there were 1.3 million procedures in our database. Given that volume, we don’t sense that this is some technical thing in the operating room. The operating room is just one part of your surgical experience, which starts as soon as you step into the hospital and meet the team.

What do you think is going on here?

There may be differences around communication, understanding what a patient wants; perhaps there’s a difference in decision-making. Very few people die in the operating room. Most things happen after surgery, and picking up on those complications early can be life-saving. Perhaps men and women physicians are communicating with their teams differently. Perhaps they’re listening to patients differently. There are a lot of subtleties, which I will say don’t get taught at medical school, that might feed into some of those adverse outcomes. There are likely to be differences in style that we can all learn from.


Better communicators, better listeners—not to truck in gigantic generalizations, but that does sound like women to me. Has that been your experience working as an anesthesiologist in the operating room?


I’d say I work with great people, technically and clinically, everywhere. I find women will communicate a bit more. And if I’m concerned about something and we need to pause or think or go faster or whatever, I find they listen. It is a bit of a generalization. There are some men who do that really well. There are probably some women who do that really badly. But I’m starting to see more women surgeons—more women in leadership generally—from when I was a medical student 20 years ago. To get where they are, women often have to do much more; they’ve got to tap into tons of skills, go the umpteenth mile.

And have you noticed differences in female patients, in terms of how they might discuss their symptoms—or how they might be received by surgeons of the opposite sex?

I find women will ask more questions, but you know, how you ask your questions often dictates what’s underneath. Maybe you’re a bit nervous, or you need more reassurance about why something is important, or you may not want to do a procedure. A lot of conversation often means something else. How we perceive that information, as physicians, is so important.

How do we begin to fill this gap?

We’ve highlighted an issue, and now we need different researchers to come in. Understanding more about risk might be important. Are there patients we’re considering operating on who can get through the operation, but perhaps run into issues more frequently after surgery? And then we need researchers with an anthropological or psychology background to really dive into differences in communication style.
What has the response to this paper been like? I imagine some people in the medical community might be a bit…resistant to the findings.

It’s been a mixed bag. A lot of women feel vindicated and that their work has been recognized. There have been some male surgeons who have come up to me and said, “This is fantastic; you’ve highlighted an important area.” There’s a group in the middle who are quiet. And then there are people who are angry. We’ve had those emails, those messages on Twitter, where people feel their whole practice has been affected and are taking it very personally. Male surgeons in particular have taken it very personally.

Should they?

Our response has been that this is a very macro-level study. That’s what big data is really good at doing—it highlights something. But it’s generalistic. It can never make an inference on your individual practice.

Since we’re on a macro level, I imagine it’s a long process to turn around these disparities in care.

Probably. If there was, let’s say, a lot of funding, it would be easier to carve out lots of topics to start examining which would help accelerate us forward. But a subject like this, which is more embedded in the health equity and disparity space, is becoming more of a core subject. People are understanding that this isn’t just dinner-party conversation. There’s real science to behold here.

Next: How Heart Disease Affects Women Differently Than Men

The post The Sex of Your Surgeon Is, in Fact, a Matter of Life or Death appeared first on Best Health.
How equity, diversity and inclusion policies are becoming a tool for capitalism

The Conversation

Story by Aryan Karimi, Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of British Columbia • Thursday

In capitalistic economies like those in the West, wealth and status accumulation often drive our every endeavour.


At corporations and organizations like universities, policies meant to promote equity, diversity and inclusion are being used to enhance wealth and status.
© (Sam Balye, Unsplash)

Education, skills training and social networks, among other aspects, become tools that we use in this rat race to push ahead for our interests.

Such questionable ethics seem ripe for a reassessment.

I once believed equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) policies for government and industry could help.

In 2016, while at the University of Alberta’s Office of Employment Equity, I co-authored a preliminary Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Educational Framework. At the time, my understanding was that EDI policies were primarily a set of tools that we could use to have conversations about individual stories and backgrounds, unconscious biases and our common traits as human beings.

As such, EDI conversations would mean that people could share their concerns and shed prejudices; they could feel that they were being seen and heard for who they are.

My goal was to implement EDI policies to prepare future generations for “democratic citizenship.” Increasingly, however, I am seeing a 180-degree shift in how EDI is understood and used at individual and institutional levels.

Three components of EDI


Recent employment data on public service employees and large higher-education institutions across Canada show a remarkably diverse workforce. This is an admirable achievement. But diversity shouldn’t be mistaken for equity and inclusion.

Liberal MP Arielle Kayabaga speaks as she joins Ahmed Hussen, minister of housing and diversity and inclusion, at a news conference in Ottawa in October 2022 on support for Black community initiatives.
© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The equity component of EDI policies emphasizes the need to lift up individuals. They require an equitable redistribution of institutional resources. The inclusion component calls for conversations to help us learn about different ways of life.

The problem is that in our capitalist economy, equity and inclusion have been sidelined. Instead, diversity — involving characteristics that include gender, race and sexual orientation — has become yet another tool to accumulate resources and social status.

Take the case of contested identity claims, the “pretendians” who claim to be of Indigenous heritage. In Canada and the United States, pretendians can leverage EDI policies and abuse their supposed Indigenous status to gain employment and financial resources or capital.

Read more: We need a better understanding of race, 'status' and indigeneity in Canada

Meantime, Indigenous people — many of whom don’t have basic resources to begin with — are left behind, if not intentionally kept back by the state and various institutions.

In both public and private sectors, EDI policies are seemingly falling short of creating an inclusionary workplace. Instead of providing institution-wide opportunities for dialogue among employees to create inclusionary spaces, institutions now see the diversity component of EDI as a means of ticking boxes and improving their institutional status.

Diversity becomes a ranking tool

For example, in the case of universities, it used to be common to count the total numbers of publications and professor-student ratio to rank them. Now diversity has become an additional metric.



This means that universities are motivated to hire from marginalized groups. This helps the institutions climb in the ranks, attracts more students who might be mindful of diversity and ultimately makes the university eligible to receive larger financial grants and donations.

Again, diversity has not necessarily meant a more equitable campus community, although some certainly pursue this goal. The newly hired members of the marginalized groups often remain on the margins of these institutions.

Read more: Being the 'only one' at work and the decades long fight against anti-Black racism

These individuals — token representations of diversity — help enhance the institutions’ rankings while losing their own voice and identity to the very same institutions. Their politics, stories and self-expression have to either fade into the institutionalized way of life at their workplace, or, to survive, they must learn not to challenge the dominant traditions.


A cyclist is seen on the University of Saskatchewan campus in Saskatoon, Sask., in May 2022.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Heywood Yu

Diversity, but no equity or inclusion

EDI initiatives now seem to be focused primarily on diversity without equity and inclusion. And diversity has become a metric of assessing achievements and rankings. It’s no surprise that individuals and institutions like universities might use diversity to compete for resources and status.

Unfortunately, the singular focus on diversity doesn’t recognize an equitable redistribution of resources and an inclusionary workplace as important goals and values.

Research shows that diversity without effective communication and collaboration across groups results in “silo” scenarios. Power struggles increase as individuals team up as group members and categorize others as outsiders who must be kept from accessing resources.

Using diversity for status and financial benefit is the antithesis of EDI as a tool for democratic and equitable citizenship where all voices are heard and supported. There must be a better way to promote EDI without falling into the capitalistic trap of competitions for resources and status.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:
Gender parity and queer awareness needed in mathematics
Pharma's expensive gaming of the drug patent system is successfully countered by the Medicines Patent Pool, which increases global access and rewards innovation

Story by Lucy Xiaolu Wang, Assistant Professor of Resource Economics, UMass Amherst • 

Biomedical innovation reached a new era during the COVID-19 pandemic as drug development went into overdrive. But the ways that brand companies license their patented drugs grant them market monopoly, preventing other entities from making generics so they can exclusively profit. This significantly limits the reach of lifesaving drugs, especially to low- and middle-income countries, or LMICs.


Drug patents don't necessarily spur companies to innovate so much as restrict access to their IP.
Andrii Zastrozhnov/iStock via Getty Images Plus

I am an economist who studies innovation and digitization in health care markets. Growing up in a developing region in China with limited access to medications inspired my interest in institutional innovations that can facilitate drug access. One such innovation is a patent pool, or a “one-stop shop” where entities can pay one low price for permission to make and distribute all the treatments covered by the pool. My recent research found that a patent pool geared toward public health can spur not only generic drug access in LMICs but also innovation for pharmaceutical companies.

Drug patents in the global landscape


Patents are designed to provide incentives for innovation by granting monopoly power to patent holders for a period of time, typically 20 years from the application filing date.

However, this intention is complicated by strategic patenting. For example, companies can delay the creation of generic versions of a drug by obtaining additional patents based on slight changes to its formulation or method of use, among other tactics. This “evergreens” the company’s patent portfolio without requiring substantial new investments in research and development.

Furthermore, because patents are jurisdiction-specific, patent rights granted in the U.S. do not automatically apply to other countries. Firms often obtain multiple patents covering the same drug in different countries, adapting claims based on what is patentable in each jurisdiction.

To incentivize technology transfer to low- and middle-income countries, member nations of the World Trade Organization signed the 1995 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS, which set the minimum standards for intellectual property regulation. Under TRIPS, governments and generic drug manufacturers in low- and middle-income countries may infringe on or invalidate patents to bring down patented drug prices under certain conditions. Patents in LMICs were also strengthened to incentivize firms from high-income countries to invest and trade with LMICs.



The 2001 Doha Declaration clarified the scope of TRIPS, emphasizing that patent regulations should not prevent drug access during public health crises. It also allowed compulsory licensing, or the production of patented products or processes without the consent of the patent owner.

One notable example of national patent law in practice after TRIPS is Novartis’ anticancer drug imatinib (Glivec or Gleevec). In 2013, India’s Supreme Court denied Novartis’s patent application for Glivec for obviousness, meaning both experts or the general public could arrive at the invention themselves without requiring much skill or thought. The issue centered on whether new forms of known substances, in this case a crystalline form of imatinib, were too obvious to be patentable. At the time, Glivec had already been patented in 40 other countries. As a result of India’s landmark ruling, the price of Glivec dropped from 150,000 INR (about US,200) to 6,000 INR () for one month of treatment.

Patent challenges and pools


Although TRIPS seeks to balance incentives for innovation with access to patented technologies, issues with patents still remain. Drug cocktails, for example, can contain multiple patented compounds, each of which can be owned by different companies. Overlapping patent rights can create a “patent thicket” that blocks commercialization. Treatments for chronic conditions that require a stable and inexpensive supply of generics also pose a challenge, as the cost burden of long-term use of patented drugs is often unaffordable for patients in low- and middle-income countries.

One solution to these drug access issues is patent pools. In contrast to the currently decentralized licensing market, where each technology owner negotiates separately with each potential licensee, a patent pool provides a “one-stop shop” where licensees can get the rights for multiple patents at the same time. This can reduce transaction costs, royalty stacking and hold-up problems in drug commercialization.

Patent pools were first used in 1856 for sewing machines and were once ubiquitous across multiple industries. Patent pools gradually disappeared after a 1945 U.S. Supreme Court decision that increased regulatory scrutiny, hindering the formation of new pools. Patent pools were later revived in the 1990s in response to licensing challenges in the information and communication technology sector.

The Medicines Patent Pool


Despite many challenges, the first patent pool created for the purpose of promoting public health formed in 2010 with support from the United Nations and Unitaid. The Medicines Patent Pool, or MPP, aims to spur generic licensing for patented drugs that treat diseases disproportionately affecting low- and middle-income countries. Initially covering only HIV drugs, the MPP later expanded to include hepatitis C and tuberculosis drugs, many medications on the World Health Organization’s essential medicines list and, most recently, COVID-19 treatments and technologies.

But how much has the MPP improved drug access?


I sought to answer this question by examining how the Medicines Patent Pool has affected generic drug distribution in low- and middle-income countries and biomedical research and development in the U.S. To analyze the MPP’s influence on expanding access to generic drugs, I collected data on drug licensing contracts, procurement, public and private patents and other economic variables from over 100 low- and middle-income countries. To analyze the MPP’s influence on pharmaceutical innovation, I examined data on new clinical trials and new drug approvals over this period. This data spanned from 2000 to 2017.

I found that the MPP led to a 7% increase in the share of generic drugs supplied to LMICs. Increases were greater in countries where drugs are patented and in countries outside of sub-Saharan Africa, where baseline generic shares are lower and can benefit more from market-based licensing.

I also found that the MPP generated positive spillover effects for innovation. Firms outside the pool increased the number of trials they conducted on drug cocktails that included MPP compounds, while branded drug firms participating in the pool shifted their focus to developing new compounds. This suggests that the MPP allowed firms outside the pool to explore new and better ways to use MPP drugs, such as in new study populations or different treatment combinations, while brand name firms participating in the pool could spend more resources to develop new drugs.

The MPP was also able to lessen the burden of post-market surveillance for branded firms, allowing them to push new drugs through clinical trials while generic and other independent firms could monitor the safety and efficacy of approved drugs more cheaply.

Overall, my analysis shows the MPP effectively expanded generic access to HIV drugs in developing countries without diminishing innovation incentives. In fact, it even spurred companies to make better use of existing drugs.

Technology licensing for COVID-19 and beyond

Since May 2020, the Medicines Patent Pool has become a key partner of the World Health Organization COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, which works to spur equitable and affordable access to COVID-19 health products globally. The MPP has not only made licensing for COVID-19 health products more accessible to low- and middle-income countries, but also helped establish an mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub in South Africa to provide the technological training needed to develop and sell products treating COVID-19 and beyond.

Licensing COVID-19-related technologies can be complicated by the large amount of trade secrets involved in producing drugs derived from biological sources. These often require additional technology transfer beyond patents, such as manufacturing details. The MPP has also worked to communicate with brand firms, generic manufacturers and public health agencies in low- and middle-income countries to close the licensing knowledge gap.

Questions remain on how to best use licensing institutions like the MPP to increase generic drug access without hampering the incentive to innovate. But the MPP is proving that it is possible to align the interests of Big Pharma and generic manufacturers to save more lives in developing countries. In October 2022, the MPP signed a licensing agreement with Novartis for the leukemia drug nilotinib – the first time a cancer drug has come under a public health-oriented licensing agreement.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

Read more:

The US drug industry used to oppose patents – what changed?

Lucy Xiaolu Wang receives research funding from Cornell University and the Institute for Humane Studies.