Life in Canada

Consumers beware: Misleading labels may hide trans fats People may be consuming more trans fat than they think as a result of misleading labels
Researchers examined 4,340 top-selling packaged foods and found that 9 percent contained partially hydrogenated oils, the main source of trans fat. But of those foods, 84 percent claimed on their packaging to have "0 grams" of trans fat.The amount of trans fat in these products varied from small traces to almost 0.5 grams of trans fat per serving, the researchers said. [5 Foods that Could Change Under a Trans Fat Ban]
Under the rules of the Food and Drug Administration, foods that contain less than 0.5 g of trans fat per serving must be labeled with "0 g" of trans fat.
"This labeling is cause for concern because consumers, seeing the 0 g trans fat on the nutrition facts label, are probably unaware that they are consuming trans fat," the researchers wrote in their study, published in the in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.
Trans fat is a specific type of fat that is formed when hydrogen is added to liquid oils to turn them into solid fats. The FDA has tentatively determined that partially hydrogenated oils are not "generally recognized as safe" for consumption. If the FDA makes a final determination, trans fat would become an illegal food additive.
People who consume trans fat may be at higher risk for heart disease, stroke and diabetes, studies have suggested.
The food products examined in the study ranged from cookies to salad dressing and canned soup.

 "Our analysis demonstrates that industrial trans fat is still common in U.S. packaged foods, particularly in some food categories," the researchers said. For example, half of the foods in the potato chips category, and 35 percent of cookies contained trans fat, according to the report.

What are we doing Canada?

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government is finalizing new restrictions on hundreds of medicines containing hydrocodone, the highly addictive painkiller that has grown into the most widely prescribed drug in the U.S. Is this also true of Canada

The new rules mean that drugs like Vicodin, Lortab and their generic equivalents will be subject to the same prescribing rules as painkillers like codeine and oxycodone. Patients will be limited to one 90-day supply of medication and will have to see a health care professional to get a refill. In many states, only doctors will be able to prescribe the medications, not nurses or physician assistants.

"Today's action recognizes that these products are some of the most addictive and potentially dangerous prescription medications available," said DEA chief Michele Leonhart, in a statement.

The move, announced in a federal notice, comes more than a decade after the Drug Enforcement Administration first recommended reclassifying hydrocodone due to its risks for abuse and addiction. For years, physician groups and the Food and Drug Administration opposed the move, saying it would burden health care providers and patients while driving up costs.

But last year the FDA changed its position, citing the national epidemic of overdoses and deaths tied to prescription painkillers known as opioids.

Deaths linked to the drugs more than tripled between 1999 and 2010, during which sales of opioids increased four-fold.

Anti-addiction groups praised the restrictions, but criticized the FDA for taking nearly a decade to embrace the changes.

"Had FDA responded in a timely and appropriate manner to DEA's urgent request, thousands of overdose deaths and tens of thousands of cases of opioid addiction might have been prevented," said Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, an advocacy group which has been critical of the government's approach to curbing abuse.

The new restrictions will go into effect in 45 days, according to a federal listing scheduled for publication Friday.

For decades, hydrocodone has been easier to prescribe than other opioids, in part because it was only sold in combination pills and formulas with other non-addictive ingredients like aspirin and acetaminophen.

The Controlled Substances Act, passed in 1970, put hydrocodone combination pills in the Schedule III class, which is subject to fewer controls than Schedule II drugs like morphine and methadone. Under Schedule III classification, a prescription for Vicodin could be refilled five times before the patient had to see a physician again.

That ease of access made it many health care professionals' top choice for treating chronic pain, including everything from back pain to arthritis to toothaches.

In 2012, U.S. doctors wrote more than 125 million prescriptions for hydrocodone-containing medications, making it the most prescribed drug in the country, according to figures from IMS Health.

News of the rescheduling was applauded by lawmakers from states that have been plagued by opioid abuse, including those who have been pushing regulators to make the change.

"Although there is much more that must be done to curb prescription drug abuse, I am confident that rescheduling hydrocodone will undoubtedly begin saving hundreds of thousands of lives immediately," said Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, in a statement.

This data also highlights a pervasive problem with chemical and Health regulation in Canada.; specifically, the government’s reliance on industry-funded studies in order to assess the safety of chemicals. The long, expensive process of registering a new drug or pesticide often requires years of time and tens of thousands of dollars. The high monetary and temporal requirements needed to register a chemical can lead regulators to dismiss independent science that raises safety concerns (chemical mixtures, synergistic effects, certain health endpoints such as endocrine disruption, disproportionate effects to vulnerable population groups) not accounted for during regulatory decision-making. In an age where the adverse effects of safety-tested chemicals have been widely and increasingly documented, Beyond Pesticides supports an alternative approach that first asks whether there is a less toxic way of achieving a chemical’s intended purpose. The Fund for Independent Science was launched last year to support the continual understanding of the destructive capacity of toxic materials, and sustainable practices that can replace them in the marketplace.

The health and environmental effects of triclosan reveal a laundry list of concerns, ranging from body burden to endocrine disruption, cancer, impacts on fetal development, bacterial resistance, impaired muscle functioning, persistence in the environment, and adverse changes in biotic communities. Although FDA indicates that the agency will release a determination concerning triclosan-containing soaps by 2016, the agency indicated to Bloomberg News that it will only reexamine the registration of Total if concerns are found during the broader review process.

In the meantime, concerned consumers can join the ban triclosan campaign and sign the pledge to stop using triclosan today. Consider a clean sweep of all products in your house, school, and office that contain triclosan. A non-comprehensive list of triclosan-containing products is available here for reference, but the best way to find out if triclosan is present is to read the label. Encourage your local schools, government agencies, and businesses to use their buying power to go triclosan-free. Urge your municipality, school, or company to follow the lead of Minnesota by banning triclosan; organizations can adopt the model resolution which commits to not procuring or using products containing triclosan.

Comment to me for more info

The Nova Scotia government has followed through on a promise, posting its medical mistakes registry on the health department website.

According to the government website, making the information public "raises the level of accountability – and demonstrates a commitment to transparency and openness. The goal is to share lessons learned and prevent the event from happening again."

For the first six months of 2014, 27 serious adverse events were reported. Twenty-one of those incidents resulted in "adverse health effects leading to death or serious disability" while a patient was being cared for at a facility in Nova Scotia, including three incidents where a patient died or was injured after a fall while being cared for by a district health authority or the IWK. I ask what are 'adverse affect's and can I see them in detail

Sharon Fisher was the victim of a diagnostic mistake in 2013.

Her breast was removed after a lab error mixed up her biopsy results with another patient with cancer.

"Oh no, you never get used to it," she says. "I still haven't looked in a mirror and I won't."

Her case prompted the province to create the new policy on reporting serious adverse events.
Sharon Fisher

Sharon Fisher was given a mastectomy by mistake last year after her test results were mixed up with another patient's. (CBC)

The error against Fisher is the kind of incident that would be reported on the new medical mistakes registry.

Before this year, the nine health authorities across the province had their own methods of dealing with mistakes that led to serious disability or death.

The new policy now dictates incidents from all authorities be reported to the Department of Health and Wellness within 12 hours.

Tanya Barnett has long been pushing for a documented approach to medical mistakes and will be taking a close look at what is released Thursday.

Barnett lost her 17-year-old daughter Jessica after test results were read in error by specialists. That led to a faulty diagnosis.

"The trend may be that one particular physician is not doing a very good job," she says. "They need to know that, to take matters into their own hands to fix that."

Barnett posted a YouTube video that chronicled her daughter’s misdiagnosis at the IWK Health Centre. It has been viewed 37,000 times.

Personal injury lawyer Ray Wagner says 27 seems like a low number of incidents for the first six months of 2014, but thinks it will empower patients. What Nova Scotia not telling the truth! .. never?

"It enables patients to be able to look at the data and say 'I'm going in to this particular location for this particular procedure. There have been some problems with, for instance, post-operative care, maybe there's been a higher infection rate. I'm going to be more vigilant, I'm going to ask more questions,'" he says.

Both Wagner and Barnett are already questioning the registry and how the numbers are recorded.

According to the government's website, every year the nine health districts and the IWK have about about 100,000 inpatient and day visit surgeries and procedures, 665,000 emergency room visits, 100,000 ground and air ambulance transports, and more than a million diagnostic imaging tests.

Former Alberta premier Alison Redford. Brampton Mayor Susan Fennell. Canadian senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin. Former Liberal cabinet minister and disgraced London mayor Joe Fontana.

These are public representatives. They are accused of inappropriate spending. Most have not admitted it, and to be fair, their actions may have been perfectly appropriate.

But it does not look good.

It does not look fair.

It does not look right.

It does not look transparent.

It does not give voters faith in the public trust.

It does not inspire confidence in political leadership.

Is it any wonder that Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, with his empty rhetoric and facile promises about ending "the gravy train," gets so much traction among everyday working taxpayers?

Do we have any right, as Canadians, to accuse governments of Asia, Africa or South America of the rampant corruption we associate with so-called "banana republics" when we have sophisticated leaders who are sometimes no better, and sometimes much worse?.

In too many cases, there is insufficient documentation or information from government employees and politicians for a proper investigation. And those involved seem unwilling to clearly and simply explain their actions.

No wonder voters everywhere are so cynical.

Finally, how has it come to this? How do otherwise intelligent, thoughtful politicians, who are well aware of the checks and balances of our system and the role of the media, allow themselves to become embroiled in such scandals?

If they are not guilty of inappropriate behaviour, why don't they simply explain themselves better?

Do they feel entitled? If so, why?

How is it that Redford and her staff, for example, felt it appropriate to use government planes for "personal and partisan purposes," or to take government planes on official business, when flying commercial would have been less expensive?

How is it that Fennell and her staff, for example, felt it was appropriate to break spending rules 265 times over seven years?

How is it that disgraced former Fontana, for example, felt it appropriate to doctor his personal expense form?

Is it stupidity?

Or is it what Alberta Auditor General Merwan Saher last week labelled the "aura of power?"

If so, we have work to do before democracy decays further.

How is the question I ask and look for constructive cooments

When it comes to reining in medical costs, delivering more health care and bringing it right to the patient's home can, for a select group of patients, save money.

These particular patients are elders struggling with multiple chronic medical conditions, such as congestive heart failure, stroke, diabetes or dementia. They make up just 5 percent of the people on Medicare, but they account for about half of all Medicare spending.

In a conducted by MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., 722 such patients were provided with home-based health care delivered by a team: a physician, a nurse practitioner, licensed practical nurses and social workers. The visits were frequent, and there was someone on call for urgent situations 24/7.

"We prevent crises," says Dr. K. Eric De Jonge, the chief of geriatrics at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, and the lead author of the study. He says that having a doctor who has access to the patient's electronic medical records on call at all times cuts down on "having to call 911 and going to the emergency room, which often ends up in a hospital admission."

In fact, the study found that patients who received this home-based care had 20 percent fewer ER visits, 9 percent fewer hospitalizations and 27 percent fewer stays in a nursing home than similar Medicare patients in the control group. The death rate among these very vulnerable patients was high, but was about the same for both the study group and the control group.

The bottom line: In a two-year period, Medicare saved $8,477 for each patient getting home-based care.
MedStar Washington Hospital Center is one of 18 facilities nationwide participating in a Medicare demonstration project to gauge the impact of home health care on very frail patients. De Jonge says for such a system to work on a larger scale, Medicare would have to change the way it pays health care providers.

"You have to start paying people for their results," says De Jonge, "as opposed to the volume of how many things you do to the patient. Then this program could really take off."