[sunnykerr]

On the other hand, our ability to adapt will run out at some point. Maybe.

Meanwhile:

Ottawa awards first medical pot licences under new rules to Saskatoon firm SASKATOON -- A Saskatoon company has been granted the first two licences to produce and distribute medical marijuana under new Health Canada pot rules. Prairie Plant Systems Inc. has been Health Canada's only supplier of pharmaceutical-grade marijuana for 13 years. CEO Brent Zettl says the new regulations mean people won't have to go through Health Canada. "I think it really heralds the beginning of the new method and the new ways in which patients are going to be accessing medical marijuana in the future," said Zettl. "Patients now will be able to see their doctor; with the doctors they'll fill in the medical note and they'll be able to actually access medical marijuana directly from the licensed producer, such as ourselves right now. Health Canada is stepping away from being the provider of it and just acting as the regulatory body." "What it really boils down to is now it's being treated much more like a true pharmaceutical in the way that it's going to be accessed by patients," he added. Prairie Plant Systems has also launched a subsidiary called CanniMed Ltd., which will be the distribution and support hub for patients and physicians, as well as the brand name of the pharmaceutical-grade pot products. Zettl says the company had focused on one type of marijuana with the Health Canada contract. It will soon start selling three brands of pharmaceutical-grade marijuana. Each brand has a different strength of THC and CBD -- the active ingredients in pot. Zettl says that will give patients more choice in how they treat their illnesses. "Certain people respond better to higher levels of THC for managing pain...and they want the higher concentration -- (that's) what we've had from patient feedback -- because they actually ingest it as opposed to smoke it, so they want to have a higher concentration to begin with," he said. "Other patients want to have a high CBD line because they're using it for managing other aspects, such as spasticity." Medical marijuana can be used to treat pain, nausea and stimulate appetite for people with chronic or terminal illnesses, such as inflammation due to arthritis or the nausea associated with chemotherapy. Zettl says the company filled more than 11,000 patient orders last year. He expects the number to grow. Under new federal rules that take effect in April 2014, authorized users of medical pot can no longer grow their own, but must purchase their supply from a licensed producer.

Personally, I am not at all opposed to medical marijuana.

And I think this is the way to go about it.

Obviously, the plan is to still have oversight from Health Canada, though that's not a bulletproof guarantee, but also through doctors who can apply their own medical expertise to the "industry," or whatever.

I'm not sure I'm ready to recognize marijuana as a pharmaceutical product.

However, having doctors involved is reassuring. I find, anyway.

[quaist]

To be honest, I don't see any problem with legalizing marijuana in general.

The Netherlands haven't crumbled over this, and I'd think if you're of age and ready to deal with the usage/non-usage of socially acceptable substances such as tobacco and alcohol, you should be ready to deal with pot as well.

[sunnykerr]

Oh, I am actually all for the legalization of marijuana, but there are enough people against that I've been looking for compromises.

This sounds like something all sides should be able to agree on.

[quaist]

Yeah, I can't seem to find any reason why one would oppose the medical usage of marijuana either.

[sunnykerr]

Well, I don't agree with them, but a lot of people have found reasons to object medical marijuana.

It's a lot of nonsense (well, says me) about marijuana having serious impact on a person's health and it being a "gateway drug."

So this seems like a proposition that may be accepted.

[sunnykerr]

Canada's veterans charter failing disabled soldiers: ombudsman Canada’s veterans ombudsman says current legislation is failing some of the most severely wounded and disabled soldiers and the government must address its “urgent shortcomings.” On Tuesday, Guy Parent released his report comparing the New Veterans Charter enacted in 2006, with the old system of compensating veterans under the Pension Act. The report highlights serious issues with the level of financial support given to veterans, especially those who were permanently disabled in combat. The report found that hundreds of the most severely disabled veterans will take a financial hit after they turn 65 because they do not have military pensions and some of their charter benefits will end. More than half of veterans who are assessed as “totally and permanently incapacitated” and can’t find work are not awarded impairment benefits. “It is simply not acceptable to let veterans who have sacrificed the most for their country…live their lives with unmet financial needs,” the report says. Benefits that are supposed to help veterans transition from a military to a civilian career, as well as compensation for pain and suffering, are also inadequate, the report found. In Parent’s view, the legislation needs improvement in three key areas: financial, vocational rehabilitation and family support. “We either deal with these issues now or we are going to have to deal with the cost later,” he said at a news conference in Ottawa. Later Tuesday, Parent told CTV’s Power Play that among its many recommendations, his report proposes options to bring a veteran’s income to about 70 per cent of his or her pre-release salary, which is the general standard for most Canadians. Parent noted that injured veterans “are no longer employable because they are not deployable,” and when they leave the forces they miss out on career advancement opportunities, as well as the ability to plan for their futures. “What we’re saying is that, in fact, because there was a loss of opportunity to prepare for their retirement years, that there is a debt owed to them by the government to ensure that that is compensated for,” Parent said. “So we’re not asking for more, we’re asking for at least the same opportunity.” The Royal Canadian Legion said it has been raising the same issues for years and will “actively” push the government to immediately make changes to the veterans charter. The Conservative government overhauled the charter in 2011 to include more money for lost income replacements. Those changes will undergo a legislated review by a parliamentary committee this fall. Last week, Veterans Affairs Minister Julian Fantino announced that the government will launch a “comprehensive” parliamentary review of the New Veterans Charter, which will look at the entire legislation. In response to Parent’s report Tuesday, Fantino issued a statement saying the government is “committed to taking a responsible approach in reviewing the options to ensure veterans have the support they need, when they need it.” Fantino’s office said that “a number of improvements” have been made to the veterans charter since 2006, including reduced wait times for services and the “Hire a Veteran” program. Parent told Power Play that the charter “doesn’t need to be reviewed again.” “All of the pillars have been identified, so whoever is doing the review and however it proceeds should take into consideration that that has already been done and some of our recommendations were already contained in other reports that have been produced over the years,” he said. “Review is enough. It’s time for action.” Veterans advocate Sean Bruyea said that in his view, “a bureaucrat who never served in uniform” will decide what a veteran needs. “What’s not happening, and what needs to happen, is we need Parliamentarians to get out of Parliament, to get down from the Hill and go to communities big and small, meet with veterans, meet with family members, ask them what they need,” Bruyea told Power Play. He said that ultimately, soldiers face risks that civilians do not and their compensation should reflect that. “There’s no other legal organization in this country that can order people into a situation where they know there will be loss of life. Everything is done in all other equivalent civilian organizations to avoid loss of life,” Bruyea said. “They have to be willing to not think about themselves, not think about their families, and be willing to lose their life for Canadians. So that’s why Canadians have a debt repayment to these people, because they’ve given so much.” The New Democrats called on the Conservative government Tuesday to “immediately fix the pressing problems” outlined in Parent’s report. “The government could easily fix many of these problems, for example by removing age 65 restriction on pension eligibility to give the veterans and their families the dignity they deserve,” NDP’s veterans affairs critic Peter Stoffer said in a statement. Liberal veteran affairs critic Jim Karygiannis told CTVNews.ca that a charter review is “long overdue” and that he welcomes the ombudsman’s report and comments. “I’m looking forward to working with the committee in order for us to come up with solutions to the problems that I’ve been hearing from a lot of veterans,” he said.

I consider a serious shameful health situation in Canada.

That we're letting down our veterans like that?

It's completely unacceptable.

[sunnykerr]

Cellular 'shipping' wins Nobel Prize Three scientists have won the Nobel Prize for medicine or physiology after discovering how cells precisely transport material. James Rothman and Randy Schekman, both from the US, and Thomas Sudhof, from Germany, shared the prize. They found the way "vesicles" act like a fleet of ships transporting their goods to the exact destination. It is crucial for the way the brain communicates, the release of hormones and parts of the immune system. The billions of cells which make up the body are not empty blobs, instead they are packed with precise machinery. In order for a cell to function properly it needs the right materials in the right place at the right time. Vesicles are tiny bubbles of fat which act as the cell's internal shipping service. They can send material such as enzymes, neurotransmitters and hormones, around the cell. Or they can fuse with the outer surface of the cell and release their contents into the wider body. The prize committee said the findings: "Had a major impact on our understanding of how cargo is delivered with timing and precision within and outside the cell. "Without this wonderfully precise organisation, the cell would lapse into chaos." A defective vesicle transport system is implicated in diabetes and brain disorders. 'Oh my God' Prof James Rothman, from Yale University, found proteins embedded in the vesicles which act as the docking mechanism meaning the cargo is released in the correct location. Prof Randy Schekman, from the University of California at Berkeley, discovered the genes which regulated the transport system in yeast. He found that mutations in three genes resulted in a "situation resembling a poorly planned public transport system". After hearing of the award he said: "My first reaction was 'Oh, my God! That was also my second reaction." Prof Thomas Sudhof, originally from Germany but now at Stanford University in the US, made breakthroughs in how the transport system works in the brain so that neurotransmitters are released at the precise time. Dr Lisa Swanton, from the University of Manchester, said: "Vesicles are like a postman's bag, they have to get to a specific address. "They have worked out the mechanism of sending to the right location, they have advanced the field enormously. "They have revolutionised understanding of how cells are organised which is fundamental to huge number of diseases."

So the funny thing about this is that the author of this story did a really good job in explaining what exactly it is that these three men did to merit the Nobel Prize.

I feel I really do understand it.

At the same time, I have no idea why it's important.

I mean, enzymes and the immune system... it all sounds like good stuff.

I'm just not sure what any of it means in the grand scheme of things.

[quaist]

Yeah, that's about how I feel about it, too.

But from what I understand, knowing how things within our bodies work has always been the first step to developing new cures and medication, so... Maybe the impact these findings are gonna have will only show in the long run.

[sunnykerr]

Oh, I am positive that the scientific and medical communities understand how this is massively significant.

I mean, that's why they got the Nobel, right?

It's just... yeah, don't really get it right now.

But, hey, I suppose it's good news that this sort of research is still going on, isn't it?

[quaist]

I suppose so.

Also pretty good news is that we may be close to developing a malaria vaccine:

A cure for malaria? New vaccine could save millions of lives JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — In what could be a game changer for one of the world’s deadliest diseases, scientists say a vaccine against malaria may finally be within reach. So far, a malaria jab has proved elusive. But an experimental vaccine has shown promise in protecting children against the deadly malaria parasite. The company that makes the vaccine, GlaxoSmithKline, says it will move to have it distributed commercially within two years. This would be a major step forward in efforts to fight malaria, a mosquito-borne parasitic disease that kills as many as a million people every year, most of them babies and children in sub-Saharan Africa. “Many millions of malaria cases fill the wards of our hospitals,” said Halidou Tinto, one of the study’s principal investigators, based in the West African country of Burkina Faso. “Progress is being made with bed nets and other measures, but we need more tools to battle this terrible disease,” Tinto said. News of the potential malaria vaccine comes as international experts meet this week in the coastal city of Durban, South Africa, with many discussions focused on the pernicious problem of drug-resistant malaria strains. Artemisinin-based drugs are now the only effective means of malaria treatment widely available. But quality problems abound. Researchers last year warned that many anti-malaria drugs in Africa are of low quality, some of them fakes from China, and may actually be accelerating the toll of the disease by leading to drug resistance. Studies found that up to 15 percent of all malaria drugs bought in Africa failed basic quality testing. Some of the medicines were counterfeit, while others contained too little of the active ingredient to cure the patient — and leading to parasites mutating into stronger strains. More from GlobalPost: Malaria drugs in Africa are often Chinese fakes, new study says David C. Kaslow, vice president of product development at the nonprofit PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, said the clinical trial shows that a malaria vaccine could be an important additional tool to combat the disease. GlaxoSmithKline is developing the malaria vaccine — known by the catchy code name of RTS,S — in cooperation with PATH, which receives funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Given the huge disease burden of malaria among African children, we cannot ignore what these latest results tell us about the potential for RTS,S to have a measurable and significant impact on the health of millions of young children in Africa,” Kaslow said. But there are concerns about the efficacy of the vaccine. Results from its clinical trial, which involved 15,000 babies and children in seven African countries, were less than ideal. The vaccine was shown to cut the number of malaria cases in children aged 5-17 months by up to half after their first vaccination, and to reduce by around a quarter the malaria cases in infants aged 6 to 12 weeks. Trial results showed that the vaccine continued to protect young children and infants up to 18 months after vaccination, but the effectiveness declined thereafter. Researchers are now investigating whether a booster shot after vaccination could increase protection against malaria in the longer term. GlaxoSmithKline said it plans to submit a regulatory application for RTS,S to the European Medicines Agency, which will evaluate the malaria vaccine's safety and effectiveness, next year. The World Health Organization has indicated that it may make an official recommendation on use of the vaccine as early as 2015, hinging on whether it is granted a positive scientific opinion by the European agency. This could potentially fast-track licensing of the drug for African countries. Professor Eleanor Riley from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine told Sky News that if the vaccine is cheap enough, it has huge potential. “It would be great if the vaccine had 80-90 percent efficacy,” Riley said. “But it has taken us 15 years to get this far with this vaccine,” she added. “The question is: can we wait another 15 years before we roll out a vaccine that is going to save lives?”

[sunnykerr]

Yeah...

I'm glad it's in the works, but it'd be easier for me to feel cheerful if there were actual results to speak of.

And here's why, because this is a very worthy area of research of course:

So I posted an article on this topic in the Good News thread yesterday but, as I was re-reading it, a couple of things struck me.

They've been developing it for decades. Their statistics are for really young children. And they specifically reference the incidence of reduction of malaria cases in Africa.

Which makes sense insofar as malaria is typically an African disease... I think.

But, essentially, what it means is that they've been testing their various cocktails for decades on African children.

And, from the African perspective, I can easily see how experimental drugs might seem like better than nothing.

I just feel a bit odd about cheering that sort of stuff on, that's all.

[quaist]

Oh, I didn't realize that you'd already posted the story there earlier -- so sorry for that. You know, usually of course I go through all new posts, but somehow I must have missed out on that one

And naturally, I agree with you. Using children as guinea pigs is horrid.

Maybe we will get to see a fully developed, functioning vaccine at the end, though.

[sunnykerr]

Basically, a functionning vaccine is the least they owe those people.

So, yeah, hopefully that's what happens.

[sunnykerr]

Vitamin D pills' effect on healthy bones queried Healthy adults do not need to take vitamin D supplements, suggests a study in The Lancet which found they had no beneficial effect on bone density, a sign of osteoporosis. But experts say many other factors could be at play and people should not stop taking supplements. University of Auckland researchers analysed 23 studies involving more than 4,000 healthy people. The UK government recommends children and over-65s take a daily supplement. The New Zealand research team conducted a meta-analysis of all randomised trials examining the effects of vitamin D supplementation on bone mineral density in healthy adults up to July 2012. The supplements were taken for an average of two years by the study participants. Bone mineral density is a measure of bone strength and measures the amount of bone mineral present at different sites in the body. It is often seen as an indicator for the risk of osteoporosis, which can lead to an increased risk of fracture. The trials took place in a number of different countries including the UK, the US, Australia, Holland, Finland and Norway. Although the results did not identify any benefits for people who took vitamin D, they did find a small but statistically significant increase in bone density at the neck of the femur near the hip joint. According to the authors, this effect is unlikely to be clinically significant. Free up resources Prof Ian Reid, lead study author, from the University of Auckland, said the findings showed that healthy adults did not need to take vitamin D supplements. "Our data suggest that the targeting of low-dose vitamin D supplements only to individuals who are likely to be deficient could free up substantial resources that could be better used elsewhere in healthcare." Writing about the study in The Lancet, Clifford J Rosen from the Maine Medical Research Institute agrees that science's understanding of vitamin D supports the findings for healthy adults, but not for everyone. "Supplementation to prevent osteoporosis in healthy adults is not warranted. However, maintenance of vitamin D stores in the elderly combined with sufficient dietary calcium intake remains an effective approach for prevention of hip fractures." The Department of Health currently recommends that a daily supplement of vitamin D of 10 micrograms (0.01mg) should be taken by pregnant and breastfeeding women and people over 65, while babies aged six months to five years should take vitamin drops containing 7 to 8.5 micrograms (0.007-0.0085mg) per day. Additional factors Dr Laura Tripkovic, research fellow in the department of nutritional sciences at the University of Surrey, said the study was important but very specific. "I'm not surprised they didn't find any evidence of the effects of vitamin D on bone density because there are so many other factors involved in osteoporosis, like genes, diet and environment. "To pin it all on vitamin D... it's difficult to do that." Dr Tripkovic said it was no good taking vitamin D supplements if people didn't also maintain a healthy, balanced diet containing calcium and take plenty of exercise. She said most healthy people should be able to absorb enough vitamin D naturally, through sunshine and diet. "But if people are worried about their vitamin D levels then a multi-vitamin tablet would do. If you have bone pain and muscle aches then you should go and see your GP and discuss it." We get most of our vitamin D from sunlight on our skin, but it is also found in certain foods like oily fish, eggs and breakfast cereals. However, taking too much vitamin D in the form of supplements can be harmful because calcium can build up and damage the kidneys. Experts advise taking no more than 25 micrograms (0.025mg) a day. The UK guidance is currently being reviewed.

I don't know about bone density, but I do know that vitamin D supplements have always helped me stave off seasonal depression during the winter.

Because that exposure to the sun gives us way more than good bones, although it also contributes to that.

So I'm not making any recommendations. I'm not a doctor.

I'm just saying, this is all well and good, but vitamin D has several benefits that shouldn't be overlooked.

[sunnykerr]

Outcry over China plan to ban HIV patients from public baths A government proposal to bar HIV patients from using public bathhouses has been condemned in China as discriminatory. The proposal orders public bathhouses to display signs prohibiting "people with sexually transmitted diseases, Aids and infectious skin diseases". It has been posted online for public consultation by China's State Council. But Aids activists and ordinary users of Weibo, China's version of Twitter have strongly criticised the move. "There is no evidence that people can be infected with HIV in public bathhouses," Wu Hao, from the Beijing Research Centre on Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Aids, was quoted as saying by the Beijing Morning News. "Apparently, the rule to bar HIV patients from entering public bathhouses is way over the top," he said. The paper also quoted an unnamed Aids activist as saying he was extremely disappointed with the draft proposal. "Banning HIV patients from using public bathhouses and spas will only exacerbate people's misunderstanding, discrimination and fear of HIV/Aids, and will not help reduce the transmission of the disease," he said. The proposal has also been condemned by the United Nations' Aids agency. Hedia Belhadj, China country coordinator for UNAIDS, said it was concerned by the provision and called for it to be removed, the AFP news agency reports. She said that there was no risk of transmission of HIV in a spa or bathhouse setting. "UNAIDS recommends that restrictions preventing people living with HIV from accessing bath houses, spas and other similar facilities be removed from the final draft of this policy," Ms Belhadj told AFP. The proposal has also drawn strong criticism from China's Weibo users. One user said that the decision to ban HIV patients using public bathhouses must be based on scientific facts about the ways HIV was transmitted. "In reality, many public bathhouses have already implemented the ban. The practice is discriminatory and must be stopped, and must not be institutionalised. "HIV patients are already very vulnerable. They should be protected and respected. We must not further harm them with discrimination," the user said . But there are also Weibo users who agree with the ban. One Weibo user said that HIV patients should be advised not to use public bathhouses or at least they should check whether they have any open wounds before entering. According to government figures released in 2012, China has 430,000 people infected with HIV. But the United Nations has said that the real figure could be 620,000 to 940,000. Among them, 146,000 to 162,00 have developed Aids.

A good reminder that AIDS continues to flourish all over the world.

As do really stupid prejudices about the ways in which it is spread.

I have a feeling those two "facts" aren't exactly a coincidence.