Investigation finds Suncor's Colorado refinery meets environmental permits

© Reuters/CHRIS WATTIE 

The Suncor Energy logo is seen at their head office in Calgary

DENVER (Reuters) - A Colorado refinery owned by Canadian firm Suncor Energy Inc meets required environmental permits and is adequately funded, according to an investigation released on Monday into a series of emissions violations at the facility between 2017 and 2019.

The 98,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in the Denver suburb of Commerce City, Colorado, reached a $9-million settlement with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) March 2020 to resolve air pollution violations that occurred since 2017. That settlement also addressed an incident in December 2019 that released refinery materials onto a nearby school.

As part of the settlement, Suncor was required to use a third party to conduct an independent investigation into the violations and spend up to $5 million to implement recommendations from the investigation.

Consulting firm Kearney's investigation found the facility met environmental permit requirements, but also pinpointed areas for improvement, including personnel training and systems upgrades, some of which was already underway.

"We need to improve our performance and improve the trust people have in us," Donald Austin, vice president of the Commerce City refinery said in an interview, adding that the refinery had already undertaken some of the recommendations from the investigation.

In mid-April, Suncor will begin a turnaround at the facility that includes an upgrade to a gasoline-producing fluid catalytic cracking unit (FCCU) at Plant 1 of the facility. That turnaround is anticipated to be complete in June 2021.

Suncor last year completed a similar upgrade of an automatic shutdown system for the FCCU at the refinery's Plant 2.

By 2023, the company will also install an additional control unit, upgraded instrumentation, automated shutdown valves and new hydraulic pressure units in Plant 2.

Together, those upgrades will cost approximately $12 million, of which roughly $10 million is dedicated to Plant 2 upgrades, Suncor said on Monday.

(Reporting by Liz Hampton; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

4/12/2021

UCP POITICAL APPOINTEES

Alberta top court says board was 'unreasonable' to rescind freedoms, reinstates Matthew de Grood's privileges

The board rejected those recommendations despite accepting the same freedoms just one year earlier.

Since then, former justice minister Doug Schweitzer appointed a new chair and several new board members to the Alberta Review Board.

Meghan Grant  4/12/2021

© The Canadian Press Matthew de Grood killed five people at a Brentwood house party in northwest Calgary on April 15, 2014.

The province's top court has overturned the Alberta Review Board's decision to rescind some of Matthew de Grood's freedoms and has put into place conditions that would allow his gradual transition into a 24 hour monitored group home, with his doctor's permission.

De Grood was found not criminally responsible (NCR) for killing five people at a house party in 2014 after a judge ruled he was suffering a psychotic break at the time and didn't understand his actions were morally wrong.

Earlier this month, he appealed the Alberta Review Board's decision to deny further freedoms recommended by the medical team which works with de Grood.

The Alberta Court of Appeal ruled the board should not have rejected the recommendations made by de Grood's treatment team last September.

The court also reinstated other privileges after finding the board was "unreasonable" in taking them away.

"The evidence indicated that Mr. de Grood's schizophrenia has been in remission since 2015 and that there are no troubling behaviours," wrote the appeal court.

The Alberta Review Board (ARB) is tasked with an annual review, prescribed by the Criminal Code, into the progress and treatment of people found not criminally responsible (NCR) of crimes committed while suffering psychosis.

At the trial, a judge heard de Grood believed the devil was talking to him and that a war was about to begin, signalling the end of the world, when he arrived at the 2014 party, which was being held to mark the end of the school year.

He killed Zackariah Rathwell, 21; Jordan Segura, 22; Kaitlin Perras, 23; Josh Hunter, 23; and Lawrence Hong, 27.

In 2016, the judge ruled de Grood was NCR. He's since lived at a secure psychiatric facility and is on medication.

Forensic psychologist and lawyer Patrick Baillie says the court's decision was the right call.

"Matthew is making good progress and will continue to be closely monitored by the treatment team," said Baillie. "That's the way the NCR verdict is supposed to work: with reintegration when it's safe."

Last September, de Grood's treatment team recommended that with his doctor's approval he be given additional freedoms which could see him transitioned into a 24-hour supervised group home.

During de Grood's appeal, the panel of judges heard the board "engaged in speculation," "dwelled on what ifs" and ignored evidence, argued lawyer Allan Fay.
Reinstated freedoms

The court noted that de Grood has good insight into his mental health and has a family fully committed to supporting him.

If de Grood were to be transitioned to a group home, it would be a gradual process beginning with week-long stays closely monitored by his medical team, which would keep an eye on his stress levels and suitability to community living.

The group home staff would also be capable of monitoring de Grood. He would still be under full warrant of committal, so at any time he could be brought back to hospital if there were any concerns.

The court has also ordered de Grood to meet with his treatment team at least once a week, if he is living in the community, and appear before the ARB if ordered.

De Grood's reinstated freedoms include:

Passes for up to three days and two nights in Edmonton. supervised by a responsible adult, with prior approval of the treatment team.

Travel within Alberta for up to one week, supervised by a responsible adult, with prior approval of the treatment team. Travel to and from Edmonton may be unsupervised.
Residence in an approved 24-hour accommodation in the Edmonton area.

Board's political connections

The board rejected those recommendations despite accepting the same freedoms just one year earlier.

The court pointed out that there were no changes in de Grood's condition between the board's acceptance of the treatment team's recommendations on Sept. 18, 2019, and its rejection of the same recommendations a year later, on Sept. 7, 2020.

But back in September 2019, there were several different board members and a chair who has since resigned, citing a difficult relationship with the justice minister.

Since then, former justice minister Doug Schweitzer appointed a new chair and several new board members to the Alberta Review Board.

Board found to have 'ignored evidence'

Lawyers who work on NCR cases have voiced concerns that in the last 18 months, the ARB has become politicized under the United Conservative Party with several new board members chair, several of whom have connections to conservative parties.

Several board members have connections to conservative parties, including former Wildrose interim leader and Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Heather Forsyth, former Manitoba PC MLA Gerald Hawranik as well as Gerald Chipeur, who served as general counsel to the Conservative Party and also did work for the provincial PCs.

"The Review Board is a judicial body and should be independent from politics," said Baillie. "The minister saying it's time for a 'reset' and then appointing people with a particular view betrays the need for that separation."

Jacqueline Petrie, who handles NCR cases and board reviews out of Edmonton, said she has concerns about the high-profile ties to the conservative government, politicizing the quasi-judicial board.

"This does seem like more political appointments than fair and arms-length appointments," said Petrie.

The Court of Appeal overturned two of the ARB's recent decisions which restricted the recommended privileges of NCR patients, finding the panel ignored evidence in one case and in the other ruled the disposition was "not fair" and did "not accord with the hearing evidence."

Alberta doctors say trust must be rebuilt after proposed new labour deal rejected

EDMONTON — The head of the Alberta Medical Association says many factors led to the recent collapse of a proposed master agreement with the province, but he says a key one was lack of trust.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Dr. Paul Boucher says before he and Health Minister Tyler Shandro can even begin negotiating the nuts and bolts of a new deal, that trust must be regained.

“I’m not going to bring back another agreement (for ratification) unless I have pretty good confidence that it’s going to pass,” Boucher said in an interview.

“Another failed ratification would be a disaster for everyone as far as I’m concerned.”

Boucher said he and Shandro are meeting again, almost two weeks after the rank-and-file physicians of the 11,000-member AMA refused to ratify the new tentative deal brokered by both sides, voting 53 per cent against it.

Boucher said normally such deals pass with a strong majority. But during the voting process, he said he heard from about 3,000 physicians and many told him their core concern was that the pact left them too exposed to a government they didn’t trust.

“Any agreement really requires both parties to work well together within it,” said Boucher.

“I think a lot of members just weren’t sure that this was going to be the case. And there wasn’t enough clarity or safeguards to ensure that their voices were going to be heard and that they would be treated fairly within it.

“That’s a result of the challenges we’ve had (with the province) over the year.”

Those challenges began in early 2020, when Shandro unilaterally tore up the master agreement with the AMA, using a law passed months prior by the United Conservative government.

That cancellation launched a year of bitter attacks from both sides. Shandro imposed fee changes that led to some doctors withdrawing services, particularly in rural locations, saying the changes were financially unsustainable.

Shandro’s officials dismissed the AMA as a lobby group and Shandro accused the organization of spreading misinformation to its members. The AMA, in turn, sued the government, accusing it of violating Charter rights on collective bargaining by, among other things, cancelling binding arbitration.

All this was going on as COVID-19 swept through the province, filling up hospital wards.

Boucher said doctors were ready to sign a deal for less money, although they still had concerns and questions over remuneration. The four-year deal would have seen compensation stay static at more than $5 billion a year.

But he said a key concern was that binding arbitration had been replaced by mediation, albeit with the mediation decision made public. In addition, the AMA lawsuit would be cancelled.

The AMA considers binding arbitration critical, given it can’t hit the picket line for ethical reasons to otherwise gain leverage on intractable labour disagreements.

“(Arbitration) guarantees you a process. It does not guarantee you a result on either end, but I think a lot of docs just wanted that sense of fairness,” said Boucher.

“And I would have loved to have given it to them. We just couldn’t get that this go round.”

He said Shandro and the government have pivoted from the former approach and have been working collaboratively with the AMA, particularly on the recent COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Shandro has cancelled many of the fee changes he imposed and promised contentious ones won’t ever return.

After the vote failed on March 30, Shandro stated, “Our government will seek to further renew our relationship with the AMA in the weeks and months to come as we work together to ensure Albertans continue to benefit from quality health care.''

Boucher agreed: “We just need to rebuild the relationship.”

He said there is no timeline for a new deal.

“I think it’s going to be some time."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

USING THE STATE TO AVOID BARGAINING

Canada's manufacturers ask for federal help as Montreal dockworkers stage partial-strike


MONTREAL (Reuters) - Canada's manufacturers on Monday asked the federal government to curb a brewing labor dispute after dockworkers at the country's second largest port said they will work less this week.

© Reuters/Shaun Best FILE PHOTO: A truck is loaded with a container at the Port of Montreal

Unionized dockworkers, who are in talks for a new contract since 2018, will hold a partial strike starting Tuesday, by refusing all overtime outside of their normal day shifts, along with weekend work, they said in a statement on Monday.

The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Quebec's 1,125 longshore workers at the Port of Montreal rejected a March offer from the Maritime Employers Association.

The uncertainty caused by the labour dispute has led to an 11% drop in March container volume at the Montreal port on an annual basis, even as other eastern ports in North America made gains, the Maritime Employers Association said.

The move will cause delays in a 24-hour industry, the association said.

"Some manufacturers have had to redirect their containers to the Port of Halifax, incurring millions in additional costs every week," said Dennis Darby, chief executive of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME).

While the government strongly believes a negotiated agreement is the best option for all parties, "we are actively examining all options as the situation evolves," a spokesman for Federal Labor Minister Filomena Tassi said.

Last summer's stoppage of work cost wholesalers C$600 million ($478 million) in sales over a two-month period, Statistics Canada estimates.

($1 = 1.2563 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting By Allison Lampert in Montreal. Additional reporting by Julie Gordon in Ottawa; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Japan to start releasing Fukushima water into sea in 2 years


TOKYO — Japan's government decided Tuesday to start releasing treated radioactive water from the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant into the Pacific Ocean in two years — an option fiercely opposed by fishermen, residents and Japan's neighbours.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The decision, long speculated but delayed for years due to safety concerns and protests, came at a meeting of Cabinet ministers who endorsed the ocean release as the best option.

The accumulating water has been stored in tanks at the Fukushima Daiichi plant since 2011, when a massive earthquake and tsunami damaged its reactors and their cooling water became contaminated and began leaking. The plant's storage capacity will be full late next year.

Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said ocean release was the most realistic option and that disposing the water is unavoidable for the decommissioning of the Fukushima plant, which is expected to take decades. He also pledged the government would work to ensure the safety of the water and to prevent damaging rumours.

The plant’s operator, Tokyo Electric Power Co., and government officials say tritium, which is not harmful in small amounts, cannot be removed from the water, but all other selected radionuclides can be reduced to levels allowed for release. Some scientists say the long-term impact on marine life from low-dose exposure to such large volumes of water is unknown.

The government stresses the safety of the water by calling it “treated" not "radioactive” even though radionuclides can only be reduced to disposable levels, not to zero. The amount of radioactive materials that would remain in the water is also still unknown.

Under the basic plan adopted Tuesday by the ministers, TEPCO will start releasing the water in about two years after building a facility and compiling release plans adhering to safety requirements. It said the disposal of the water cannot be postponed further and is necessary to improve the environment surrounding the plant so residents can live there safely.

Residents, fisheries officials and environmental groups issued statements denouncing the decision as ignoring environmental safety and health, while adding a further blow to Fukushima's image and economy.

Japan Fisheries Cooperatives chairman Hiroshi Kishi said the decision less than a week after he met with Suga “is absolutely unacceptable." Noting the government's pledge not to act without the fishing industry's understanding, Kishi said the decision “trampled on” all Japanese fisheries operators.

Lawyer Izutaro Managi and his colleagues representing residents in Fukushima and nearby areas said the government and TEPCO should not dump the water “only to impact the environment again” — referring to the radiation that still contaminates land closest to the damaged plant. The lawyers alleged in a statement that ocean release was chosen for cost effectiveness and that forcing the plan “underscores their lack of regret" for the disaster.

Protestors also gathered outside the Prime Minister's Office to demand the plan be retracted.

TEPCO says its water storage capacity of 1.37 million tons will be full around fall of 2022. Also, the area now filled with storage tanks will have to be freed up for building new facilities needed for removing melted fuel debris from inside the reactors and for other decommissioning work that's expected to start in coming years.

In the decade since the tsunami disaster, water meant to cool the nuclear material has constantly escaped from the damaged primary containment vessels into the basements of the reactor buildings. To make up for the loss, more water has been pumped into the reactors to continue to cool the melted fuel. Water is also pumped out and treated, part of which is recycled as cooling water, and the remainder stored in 1,020 tanks now holding 1.25 million tons of radioactive water.

Those tanks that occupy a large space at the plant interfere with the safe and steady progress of the decommissioning, Economy and Industry Minister Hiroshi Kajiyama said. The tanks also could be damaged and leak in case of another powerful earthquake or tsunami, the report said.

Releasing the water to the ocean was described as the most realistic method by a government panel that for nearly seven years had discussed how to dispose of the water. The report it prepared last year mentioned evaporation as a less desirable option.

About 70% of the water in the tanks is contaminated beyond discharge limits but will be filtered again and diluted with seawater before it is released, the report says. According to a preliminary estimate, gradual releases of water will take more than 30 years but will be completed before the plant is fully decommissioned.

Japan will abide by international rules for a release, obtain support from the International Atomic Energy Agency and others, and ensure disclosure of data and transparency to gain understanding of the international community, the report said.

China and South Korea reacted strongly to Tuesday's decision.

Koo Yun-cheol, minister of South Korea's Office for Government Policy Coordination, said the plan was “absolutely unacceptable" and urged Japan to disclose how the water is treated and its safety is verified. Koo said his government will demand IAEA create a monitoring regime. South Korea has banned seafood imports from parts of Japan since 2013 and could increase those steps.

China criticized Japan's decision as “extremely irresponsible,” saying it had not considered the health concerns of neighbouring countries.

Kajiyama is set to visit Fukushima on Tuesday afternoon to meet with local town and fisheries officials to explain the decision and says he will continue to make efforts to gain their understanding over the next two years.

___

Associated Press writer Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.

Mari Yamaguchi, The Associated Press

SEE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for FUKUSHIMA 

 

Israel appears to confirm it carried out cyberattack on Iran nuclear facility

Shutdown happened hours after Natanz reactor’s new centrifuges were started

A satellite image of the Natanz nuclear facility. Photograph: Maxar Tech/AFP/Getty

Martin Chulov Middle East correspondent

Sun 11 Apr 2021 

Israel appeared to confirm claims that it was behind a cyber-attack on Iran’s main nuclear facility on Sunday, which Tehran’s nuclear energy chief described as an act of terrorism that warranted a response against its perpetrators.

The apparent attack took place hours after officials at the Natanz reactor restarted spinning advanced centrifuges that could speed up the production of enriched uranium, in what had been billed as a pivotal moment in the country’s nuclear programme.

As Iranian authorities scrambled to deal with a large-scale blackout at Natanz, which the country’s Atomic Energy Agency acknowledged had damaged the electricity grid at the site, the Israeli defence chief, Aviv Kochavi, said the country’s “operations in the Middle East are not hidden from the eyes of the enem

Israel imposed no censorship restrictions on coverage as it had often done after similar previous incidents and the apparent attack was widely covered by Israeli media. Public radio took the unusual step of claiming that the Mossad intelligence agency had played a central role.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said later Sunday that “the struggle against Iran and its proxies and the Iranian armament efforts is a huge mission”

“The situation that exists today will not necessarily be the situation that will exist tomorrow,” he added, without elaborating.

The unexplained shutdown is thought to be the latest in a series of exchanges between the two arch-enemies, who have fought an extensive and escalating shadow war across the Middle East over more than decade, centred on Iran’s nuclear programme and its involvement in matters beyond its borders.

Clashes have more recently been fought in the open, with strikes against shipping, the killing of Iran’s chief nuclear scientist, hundreds of airstrikes against Iranian proxies in Syria, and even a mysterious oil spill in northern Israel, which officials there have claimed was environmental sabotage.

Natanz has remained a focal point of Israeli fears, with an explosion damaging a centrifuge assembly plant last July, and a combined CIA and the Mossad cyber-attack using a computer virus called Stuxnet in 2010 that caused widespread disruption and delayed Iran’s nuclear programme for several years.

Iran’s nuclear chief, Ali Akbar Salehi, urged the international community and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to take action against the perpetrators of the attack. He confirmed that a “terrorist attack” had damaged the electricity grid of the Natanz site. The IAEA said it was aware of the reports but declined to comment further.

The attack was carried out by “opponents of the country’s industrial and political progress, who aim to prevent development of a thriving nuclear industry,” Salehi said.

Malek Chariati, spokesman for the Iranian parliament’s energy commission, claimed it was sabotage.

“This incident, coming (the day after) National Nuclear Technology Day, as Iran endeavours to press the West into lifting sanctions, is strongly suspected to be sabotage or infiltration,” Chariati said.

The developments came as US president Joe Biden prepared to reactivate a bitterly contested deal to offer sanctions relief in return for Tehran limiting its nuclear programme and not pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon. The 2015 pact was the foreign policy centrepiece of Barack Obama’s administration, but was quickly shredded by his successor, Donald Trump, who instead shifted to an aggressive posture to strangle Iran’s economy while bolstering its regional foes.

The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, arrived in Tel Aviv on Sunday, partly to sell Washington’s new position to sceptical Israeli officials, who fear that even a scaled-back Iranian programme would offer cover for building a nuclear weapon capable of reaching the eastern Mediterranean.

After meeting Austin, Israel’s defence minister, Benny Gantz, said: “We will work closely with our American allies to ensure that any new agreement with Iran will secure the vital interests of the world, of the United States, prevent a dangerous arms race in our region, and protect the state of Israel.”

The attack on Natanz came five days after an apparent Israeli mine attack on an Iranian freighter in the Red Sea, which western intelligence officials have long claimed was a command and control vessel used to support the Tehran-backed Houthis in the war in Yemen.

The cargo ship, known as the Saviz, was seriously damaged by at least one mine, which detonated below the waterline. The ship sent several mayday calls, which were received by the nearby Saudi Arabian coastguard. The strike was the latest in a series of reprisal attacks on shipping from each country on regional waters over several years, much of which has gone unacknowledged.

It was followed by a series of Israeli airstrikes in Syria that damaged a military base near Damascus allegedly used by proxies loyal to Iran providing support to the Lebanese militia and political powerhouse, Hezbollah, which remains an essential arm of Iranian foreign policy.

Israel last year broke its silence on eight years of airstrikes in Syria, acknowledging that it had been responsible for about 1,000 attacks, which it says were primarily aimed at preventing Hezbollah from fitting advanced guidance systems to rudimentary rockets on Lebanese soil.

The Israeli strikes in Syria have caused widespread damage to the country’s military infrastructure, already ravaged by a decade of uprising and war, and have driven diplomatic efforts, led by the United Arab Emirates, to pressure the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, to sever an alliance with Iran that has helped him to remain as leader. Despite the urging of several trusted security officials, and the backing of Russia, which has also played a role in securing his regime, Assad has refused the overtures.

Hezbollah, which has provided military muscle on behalf of Iran, remains vehemently opposed to such a suggestion, with senior officials fearing that such a repositioning may be aimed at eventually forcing peace talks with its archfoe.

Western officials believe Israel has become increasingly brazen in its attempts to disrupt the Iranian programme, pointing to the killing of the country’s leading nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, last November, who was shot dead along with his bodyguards on a rural highway. Iran claims that artificial intelligence was used to identify Fakhrizadeh, who was gunned down by a remotely operated automatic weapon. The small lorry carrying the weapon then exploded.

Is AstraZeneca safe? You bet your life

Life’s a shooting match, and no one knows that better than those in the insurance industry.

If you want to know the odds of meeting any sort of misfortune, an actuary is your best source.

Why are car insurance rates high? Because people keep crashing cars. In the United States, your lifetime chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident is about one in 100.

You’re far less likely to choke on your own food. Those lifetime odds are one in 2,500. Dying of sunstroke? One in 8,000 (or perhaps one in a million in St. John’s during April).

So, what are your chances of dying from a rare blood clot caused by the AstraZeneca vaccine?

The chance, according to the latest numbers, is about one in 250,000.

You’re almost twice as likely to die from a lightning strike.

A week ago, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) released its initial verdict on the relationship between the AstraZeneca vaccine (which it now calls Vaxzevria) and the occurrence of a rare blood clot condition.

In short, it found the connection is real, but so rare as to be almost insignificant compared to the benefits.

“COVID-19 is associated with a risk of hospitalization and death,” the agency wrote. “The reported combination of blood clots and low blood platelets is very rare, and the overall benefits of the vaccine in preventing COVID-19 outweigh the risks of side effects.”

That’s good enough for Rod Russell.

“I would get this vaccine right now if someone offered it to me. No hesitation,” he told The Telegram Friday.

Russell, a viral immunologist at Memorial University, says he’s afraid bad headlines about the vaccine will induce hesitancy when it’s not warranted.

“This vaccine has been a PR nightmare for the company,” he admitted. “It’s had about five bumps in the road now. I find 2020 and 2021 have been like 10 years wrapped up in two because so much has happened.”

In Phase 3 trials, he said, the developers accidentally gave people half the dose they intended to, but it turned out to work better than planned. Then, they had a question of whether it would be effective for people over 65. That turned out to be a non-issue.

Finally came the blood clot scare, in two waves. The latest caused Canadian officials to recommend halting its use in adults under 55 years of age.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, it’s been given in separate clinics to anyone aged 55-64 who wants it.

Like any medical treatment, vaccines are all about risk-benefit analysis. And historically, vaccines have among the lowest risk profiles on the planet.

“I’m not going to say there’s no risk. Of course, there’s a risk. But if you weigh it out, it’s a risk I’d be willing to take,” said Russell.

“If you’re worried about blood clots, you should get the vaccine, because there’s a lot less chance of getting a blood clot from the vaccine than there is from getting the virus.”

How much less? There’s a one in five chance with the disease.

In other words, COVID-19 itself is about 20,000 times more likely to cause a blood clot than AstraZeneca.

The vaccine risk is more common in women, but Russell notes that both birth control pills and pregnancy are riskier.

“The risk (of blood clots) from birth control is way higher than that.”

The type of clot the vaccine causes — a combination of clots and low platelet count — can be more serious than a garden variety clot.

“People who have received the vaccine should seek medical assistance immediately if they develop symptoms of this combination of blood clots and low blood platelets,” the EMA wrote.

For two weeks after receiving it, recipients are asked to be aware of any of the following symptoms:

• shortness of breath

• chest pain

• leg swelling

• persistent abdominal (belly) pain

• neurological symptoms, such as severe and persistent headaches or blurred vision

• tiny blood spots under the skin beyond the site of the injection.

So far, AstraZeneca clinics in the province have booked up within hours of being announced.

Russell says that’s a good thing.

“I’ve talked to at least five people this past week just around the hospital … and everybody in the hallway is like, ‘I’m getting my vaccine this week!’ So they’re really excited about it,” he said.

Furthermore, with Canada going through a third wave of COVID-19 and growing fears of complacency after more than a year of pandemic measures, Russell says vaccines are the only thing that can end the cycle.

“I have two little girls and I want life to be normal again,” he said.

“The fastest way back to any kind of normal is herd immunity, is vaccination.”

Peter Jackson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Telegram

Canada set to receive 1M Pfizer-BioNTech doses, Moderna playing catch-up

OTTAWA — A batch of more than 855,000 doses of vaccine from Moderna is now on route to Canada, Procurement Minister Anita Anand said Monday afternoon.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The delivery of 855,600 doses was first scheduled for last week, but was delayed because of an ongoing backlog in quality assurance checks at the drugmakers production lines in Europe.

Anand said Monday the doses were picked up by FedEx in Europe Monday, and will arrive in Toronto Tuesday. Innomar Strategies, the company contracted to handle all vaccine distributions except for Pfizer-BioNTech, will receive them, and turn them around for redistribution to provinces and territories.

"The provinces will receive the Moderna deliveries this week," Anand said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

A shipment of about one million Pfizer doses was to arrive Monday, for a total of 1.9 million new doses this week.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin, the military officer overseeing the federal government’s vaccination distribution effort, said last week there could be a similar delay in the delivery of 1.2 million doses from Moderna next week.

“It’s prudent planning on our part right now to bank on the last week of April,” Fortin said last Thursday.

In comparison, Pfizer-BioNTech has been consistently delivering more than 1 million shots to Canada each week for more than a month, a trend that is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.

The Public Health Agency is not expecting any shots of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine this week. Canada has also approved a vaccine produced by Johnson & Johnson, but it is not clear when the first of those doses will be delivered.

The rush to get vaccines into Canadians' arms has grown more urgent as Canada continues to see a massive spike in the number of new COVID-19 infections.

Thousands of new cases were reported on Sunday, including a record 4,456 in Ontario alone. Dr. Theresa Tam, the country's chief public health officer, noted admissions to intensive care units surged 23 per cent last week compared to the one before and said the Canada is approaching the peak of the current pandemic wave.

Tam said many of those getting sick are younger than in previous COVID-19 surges, which experts have blamed on virus variants that are spreading across the country.

That has prompted some provinces to start looking at changes to how they are distributing their vaccines.

More than 10 million doses had been distributed across Canada as of Sunday afternoon, according to covid19tracker.ca, with nearly 8 million having been administered.

Almost 20 per cent of the population has received at least one shot.

— With files from Mia Rabson.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 12, 2021.

Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

Note to readers: This is corrected story. A previous version said Canada was only expecting one million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's vaccine to be delivered this week.

New Linux Foundation project takes blockchain and the open source approach to the insurance industry

Veronica Combs 

TECHREPUBLIC

4/12/2021

© Provided by TechRepublic Image: uriz, Getty Images/iStockphoto

Two working groups are using a blockchain and a new collaboration platform to introduce the insurance industry to the idea of sharing data to develop new solutions. The Linux Foundation is developing this service in partnership with the American Association of Insurance Services.

The Open Insurance Data Link platform will reduce the cost of regulatory reporting for insurance carriers, provide a standardized data repository for analytics and a connection point for third parties to deliver new applications to members, according to the foundation. The foundation announced the new project on Monday, April 12 and describes the project as the "first open blockchain platform that enables the efficient, secure and permissioned-based collection and sharing of statistical data."

"From the very beginning, we recognized the enormous transformative potential for openIDL and distributed ledger technology," AIS CEO Ed Kelly said in a press release. "We are happy to work with the Linux Foundation to help affect meaningful, positive change for the insurance ecosystem."

SEE: A new Linux Foundation open source signing tool could make secure software supply chains universal (TechRepublic)

openIDL is also collaborating on joint software development including Hyperledger Fabric, Hadoop, Node.js, MongoDB and other open technologies to implement a "harmonized data store," that will allow data privacy and accountable operations.

openIDL is part of the foundation's open governance network which includes nodes run by numerous organizations and connected by a shared distributed ledger that provides a platform for recording transactions and automating business processes. The network uses open source code and community governance for objective transparency and accountability among participants.

Mike Dolan, senior vice president and general manager of projects at the Linux Foundation, said in a press release that the organization is excited to host this work.

"Open governance networks like openIDL can now accelerate innovation and development of new product and service offerings for insurance providers and their customers," he said.

Other partners include The Hanover Insurance Group, Travelers, The Hartford and technology and service providers Chainyard, KatRisk and MOBI.

Two working groups are using the platform: one focused on floods and the other on property and casualty regulatory reporting. The flood group is developing solutions to evaluate and respond to the U.S. flood risk while the other group is developing solutions to make regulatory reporting more transparent while still protecting proprietary information.

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'Children will die': Transgender advocates warn about risks as more states consider banning gender-affirming care for kids

Marc Ramirez, USA TODAY 

Willow Breshears knew she was different for as long as she can remember. Growing up in rural Arkansas, she said she often felt depressed, her discoveries about herself quashed by social norms and Baptist teachings.


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Now 18 and living in Little Rock, the transgender activist testified before lawmakers as part of an effort to try to stop the passage of a proposed state law that, among other things, would ban doctors from providing gender-affirming care such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy to youths under 18. She and others protesting the measure were unsuccessful.

The mostly Republican Legislature overrode Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s veto last week to make Arkansas the first state to enact such a law. About 30 states are mulling similar legislation – a development advocates say endangers the lives of young transgender people, places ideology over science and disrupts the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship by preventing doctors from providing best-practice care

© Rick Bowmer, AP Robyn and Clay Rumsey's child Dex, 15, of Roy, Utah, came out as transgender at age 12. In consultation with a counselor and doctors, he began wearing short hair and boy's clothes, then used puberty blockers and testosterone. He says he could become depressed and suicidal if a ban on hormone therapy and sex-reassignment surgery for minors passes.

“The only people who should have that say is that transgender person, their family and their doctors,” Breshears said. “This is not a place for legislators to step into.”

Arkansas’ Save Adolescents From Experimentation (SAFE) Act prohibits physicians from referring patients to other providers and, in what some call a particularly heinous move, includes no grandfather clause for youth under treatment.

“That means that if you’re already taking puberty blockers prescribed by a doctor, the state of Arkansas has just gone into your doctor’s office and told them, ‘You cannot prescribe this or do any bloodwork to monitor your levels,’” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, deputy executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “This is truly a phenomenal level of government overreach.”

Critics compare lawmakers to bullies picking on a small but vulnerable population, using transgender youth as pawns in a cultural war while placing their emotional and physical well-being in jeopardy. Such legislation, they say, plays on fear and misinformation and places doctors in an ethically difficult position of providing care at the risk of losing their medical license.

These measures raise the risk of mental health issues among transgender youth already prone to higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts, opponents say.

“There’s only so many people taking puberty blockers in Arkansas,” Heng-Lehtinen said. “But every single transgender person is feeling the effect of this attack. It’s the government, pure and simple, saying, 'You don’t belong.' It’s such an antagonistic and heartless message to send.”

Such fears are not unfounded: Arkansas state Rep. Deborah Ferguson, a Democrat who spoke out against the bill, said that after the law passed, an Arkansas Children's Hospital physician testified that several of the approximately four dozen youth receiving hormonal therapy have tried to commit suicide.

“It is unfortunate that the makeup of our Legislature has changed to the extent that we are weaponizing religion to discriminate against this small minority,” Ferguson said.

Advocates said access to gender-affirming medical care is linked with better mental health, including a lower incidence of suicidal thoughts. Bills denying such care have been condemned by major medical groups around the country, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.

“This legislation throws away decades of medical progress,” said Jack Turban, a fellow in child and adolescent psychiatry at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California, calling it “dangerous and anti-science.”

For Breshears, the Little Rock activist, her gender-affirming care was “life-changing and lifesaving,” she said. “I started hormones at age 13, and I can say that without that, I might not be here today.”

Breshears came out as gay when she was 12, even as she knew the label didn’t really fit. It wasn’t until after her family moved to Little Rock, where she began attending youth programs at an LGBT rights organization, that she learned the language that could describe who she was.

“I had heard the word ‘transgender’ a couple times before that but never really in a positive way,” said Breshears, who leads those same youth programs. “That’s what really helped me flourish. I was a woman, but I never really knew the words to describe that.”

Though her declaration splintered her extended family, her mom and grandmother “have been super supportive,” she said.

Breshears scoffed at notions pushed by lawmakers that those under 18 are too young to decide for themselves.

“It’s not something where you just wake up and decide you’re trans,” she said. “Any parent of a trans child is going to tell you they knew from a very young age. The first thing my mom said when I told her was, ‘You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for you to tell me that.’”
'Explicit attempts at erasing trans youth'

Arkansas’ SAFE Act, though citing the relatively low population of people it describes as having struggled with “distress at identifying with their biological sex,” says gender-affirming treatments prescribed by doctors haven’t been fully proved safe and claims without citation that the majority of individuals come to identify with their birth gender in adulthood, making such care unnecessary.

State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, a Republican who was the bill's primary sponsor, quoted a Swedish study saying transgender individuals who'd undergone gender reassignment surgery were more likely than the general population to suffer mental health issues and far more likely to commit suicide. That 2011 study also said such surgeries eased gender dysphoria and improved care afterward.

Though Arkansas' is the first of its kind to become law, the Human Rights Campaign says nearly 60 such bills have been introduced nationwide in the past two years despite no evidence of any youth receiving inappropriate care.

Thirty of those bills, the group said, would likewise deny gender-affirming care and medical services to transgender youth. They’re part of a larger tally of nearly 200 anti-LGBTQ bills considered in state legislatures, the organization said.

Twenty-nine states are debating bills that would prohibit transgender girls and women from girls' and women's sports. Trans athletes and their advocates say groups that support such bans use harmful traditional definitions of gender.

Such legislation has been on the rise in the past two years, despite surveys showing that most Americans support transgender rights overall, including the right of transgender youth to participate on sports teams that feel most comfortable to them, and that a majority of parents would support their teen’s request to transition to another gender.

In a statement, CEO Kevin Jennings of LGBT civil rights organization Lambda Legal, said such measures “are rooted in animus and ignorance about what it means to be transgender. They disregard medical science, standards of treatment for transgender youth and basic human dignity.”

Lambda Legal, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, promised legal challenges against the Arkansas law.

“These states are truly heading in the wrong direction and straight to the courts,” said Avatara Smith-Carrington of Lambda Legal’s south central regional office. “These bills are explicit attempts at erasing trans youth from public life.”

Clair Farley, executive director of San Francisco’s Office of Transgender Initiatives, said the escalation of such bills is a result of Trump administration rhetoric and rollbacks of transgender protections in housing, health care, employment and public accommodations.

Farley, whose upbringing as a trans youth in Montana inspired her to pursue advocacy work, said that such bills are even being discussed is upsetting for youth fearful society won’t accept them for who they are.

“Growing up is hard enough for anyone and can be particularly difficult for transgender youth, especially those living in conservative and rural environments,” Farley said.

Sam Brinton, vice president of advocacy and public affairs for The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ suicide prevention organization, said survey results, to be published next month, found that 90% of LGBTQ youth said politics negatively affected their well-being.

“If your state legislator is debating whether you should exist or have rights, you can imagine that that is basically destroying your sense of self,” Brinton said.

Transgender youth face higher levels of anxiety and depression, especially if they lack family support or experience bullying at school and mistreatment from teachers and officials. In The Trevor Project’s survey on mental health of LGBTQ youth in 2020, more than half of transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents said they had seriously considered suicide.

“Being transgender in and of itself does not lead to these risks,” said Paula Neira, board secretary for GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBTQ Equality and clinical director for the Johns Hopkins Center for Transgender Health. “What increases it is how you are treated and whether you are able to receive care.”

Denying gender-affirming care to these youth is a form of discrimination, advocates say, that will increase the stigma they probably feel in society.

Hannah Willard, vice president of government affairs for Freedom For All Americans, a national LGBTQ advocacy organization, said the human cost of these bills “cannot be overstated. This is causing unparalleled levels of despair and heartbreak, and it sends a terrible message to kids that they are broken and damaged and don’t deserve access to the care we all deserve.”

In a statement issued by the Human Rights Campaign, Arkansas State Manager Eric Reece called the law “a cruel and shameful way for legislators to score political points by targeting transgender youth, who are simply trying to navigate their adolescence.”

Parents of trans youth fear harm of removing gender-affirming care

For parents, the possibility of seeing their children’s support systems ripped apart is devastating. Among the states considering similar bills is Alabama, where parents Christa and Jeff White worry about the effect passage could have on their 12-year-old transgender daughter, a middle schooler they chose not to name to protect her privacy.

“The idea that this could put my daughter in danger is not OK with me,” said Christa White, a stay-at-home mom and women’s rights activist. "This is potentially devastating, not just to our child, but to all transgender children undergoing these treatments. Children will die."

The family, including two older teenage sons, lives in northern Alabama, near Huntsville. In addition to seeing a pediatric endocrinologist who prescribes hormone blockers, they said, their daughter receives regular counseling.

“We’re covering all angles to try to do what’s best for her,” Christa said.

Her path began unremarkably, they said, and at first, her parents figured she was “just being a kid,” Christa said. “Nothing extreme. She was dressing gender-neutral, and she liked strong female leads in movies.”

Then came a series of conversations that progressed as their daughter became exposed to terminology her parents used with LGBT friends.

“She always prompted the conversations,” Christa said. “I’d just say, you let me know and we’ll talk about it. And finally, it clicked. She knew what she was before, but she didn’t know the wording. And she blossomed. There was no looking back. It was just, like, ‘This is me.’”

Jeff White, a software engineer, said although they’ve lost a few friends and family members along the way, he and his wife feel lucky their daughter’s path was not as challenging as it could have been.

“Her confidence has really grown,” he said. “And her relationships with her friends as well. Her whole life experience has been changed.”

She’s a happy, regular kid, into Star Wars, anime, video games and long phone chats with her friends.

That’s why the thought that her gender-affirming care could be ripped away is so upsetting.

“We don’t want to go backwards,” Jeff said. “We’ve seen the positive effect that transitioning has had in her life. We don’t need the government coming in and deciding for us what innate qualities of a person are acceptable. We want her to be free to be herself.”

Though they haven’t discussed the legislation with their daughter in major detail “because we don’t want to scare her,” he said, she knows something is up.

“We don’t know what our plan is,” Christa said. “We’re going to fight it in some way. If we’re allowed to go out of state, we will. We will do all we are able to do to help her down this path.”

0Trans athletes are speaking out against bills that would ban trans kids from competing

For doctors treating transgender youth, Arkansas law creates 'an impossible situation'

Advocates note that decisions about such care are made only after a methodical series of discussions among the patient, parents and physicians.

“It really is very careful and thoughtful and deliberate,” said Lee Savio Beers, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. “There’s often a misconception that it’s something people rush into. But it takes place over a long time, and the path for one patient may be different than for another, and it heavily involves the family.”

When a child’s identity doesn’t match the gender assigned at birth, it can be agonizing, especially as the changes of puberty begin to set in. Treatments such as hormone therapy, Arkansas Rep. Ferguson said, give youth a chance to pause development while they come to terms with who they are.

Turban, the Stanford School of Medicine fellow, said he’s seen patients “so distressed by their chests developing that they bind their chests tightly despite medical issues like trouble breathing and skin infections,” he said. “Some kids will even have rib fractures.”

Legislation that bans doctors from providing gender-affirming care would put them “in an impossible position,” Beers said. “We take an oath that we’re going to provide the best possible care, and bills like this tell us you can’t provide that care. We’re being forced to have to decide.”

One aftereffect of the law, she said, may be that if doctors can no longer make referrals, patients will seek help on their own, even if it’s out of state. Without guidance, they could end up with lower quality or substandard care.

“This completely violates the physician-patient relationship,” Beers said. “It’s an incredibly dangerous precedent.”

Arkansas pediatrician Susan Averitt, who runs a private practice north of Fayetteville, said she and her colleagues find the law frustrating.

“We feel like it’s legislating what we can discuss with our patients in our clinics and the way we provide care,” Averitt said. “Our role is to help guide them and either provide care ourselves or refer them to specialty care, and this limits my ability to provide good guidance and care within my own office.”

Such decisions “are being made by people who don’t have medical training and don’t understand the science and medicine taking place,” Averitt said. “But for some reason, they feel like they’re protecting children. It’s based on fear and misinformation. We don’t do surgeries on patients under 18, so they’re not receiving experimental treatment – just support, and in some cases, hormonal care.”

If the law stands, the hospital clinic to which she would normally refer patients, set up to meet the needs of transgender youth, would probably cease to exist. It breaks her heart, she said, to think about how it will disrupt the relationships doctors built with young transgender patients, and she worries those youths will suffer mental health issues and suicidal ideation as a result.

“They will feel like society doesn’t accept them,” she said.

Brinton of The Trevor Project said the law will make trans youth less likely to come out as such or to talk to someone about their experience, even as research shows that having an understanding adult in a youth’s life reduces suicidal ideation by 40%.

Willard of Freedom For All Americans said the law will exacerbate Arkansas' pandemic-related economic problems, making it hard to recruit and retain medical talent, especially in the state’s rural areas.

“Doctors are not going to want to relocate to a state that threatens to revoke their license for just doing their jobs,” Willard said. “There will be a massive medical fallout.”

Advocates hope science and time will be on their side, noting the generational divides in terms of how the public views transgender issues.

Heng-Lehtinen of the National Center for Transgender Equality said that as Americans become more aware of trans individuals in their communities, attitudes will come around.

Though that might sound Pollyannaish, he said, the same thing happened with same-sex marriage equality.

“More and more trans people are coming out at a younger age,” he said. “That’s why younger generations are more supportive. They see their friends. They see that trans people are in their neighborhoods and schools. That does fill me with hope that at the end of the day, people will see that we’re on the right side, but there’s a lot of urgency to do that as fast as possible so that we save lives.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Children will die': Transgender advocates warn about risks as more states consider banning gender-affirming care for kids