Kingston Secondary School will have its automated heating, ventilation and air conditioning system inspected next week following the publication of a student-written article that found the concentration of carbon dioxide in the school exceeded safe levels.
Principal Darren Seymour sent a letter to students, staff and parents last week in response to the article that appeared in “The Bears Bulletin.”
Comments closedThe appointment of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will be a “health disaster” in the United States, warn disinformation experts. His penchant for conspiracy theories and anti-vaccination rhetoric is likely to colour the direction of US health agencies.
Timothy Caulfield, a professor at the University of Alberta who studies health misinformation, would never have imagined that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could be at the head of federal health agencies. “I never thought that someone so dangerous and so malicious would be elevated to such a level of power. I’m very concerned.”
He is not alone in fearing the impact on medicine and science in the United States. David Gorski believes that the health of Americans is clearly at stake. “It’s going to cause generational damage and it’s going to reinforce people’s distrust of science,” says the professor of surgery at Wayne State University, an expert in medical misinformation and editor-in-chief of the Science Based Medicine website.
Comments closedDonald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.
Comments closedLong before the COVID-19 pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was building up a following with his anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, and becoming one of the world’s most influential spreaders of fear and distrust around vaccines.
Now, President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate Kennedy to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which regulates vaccines.
Comments closedWorking days lost to long Covid could be costing the economy billions of pounds every year as patients struggle to cope with symptoms and return to work, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.
Comments closedComments closedDuring his last time in office, Trump botched the pandemic response, he spread misinformation everywhere, he contributed to restricting access to reproductive health care, he tried to repeal [the Affordable Care Act] and he set the world back on climate action. For me, it’s extremely worrying to have someone in charge with such a poor track record on health and science.
Just over 52,000 New Brunswickers have received the latest COVID-19 vaccine, and more than 91,000 have received this year’s flu shot since they became available on Oct. 3, according to the government.
Comments closedAs bird flu infections continue to rise among livestock and humans in the United States, surveillance is ramping up in Canada.
Wastewater testing for the H5N1 bird flu virus is set to begin in the coming weeks in Ontario communities considered at high risk, said Rob Delatolla, whose University of Ottawa lab will lead the wastewater surveillance as part of a research program based at the University of Guelph. That will likely mean testing wastewater in communities in agricultural regions of the province. It is unclear whether there will also be testing in larger cities.
Comments closedAustralian life expectancy has gone backwards for the second year straight after a surge in COVID-19 deaths in 2022.
An Australian girl born today is expected to live to 85.1 years, and a boy to 81.1 years.
Australians still have the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world after Japanese, Swiss and Koreans.
Comments closedA Kingston, Ont., doctor celebrated for organizing drive-thru vaccination clinics that helped thousands get shots at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic is now being ordered to pay back more than $600,000 in fees for those same services.
Dr. Elaine Ma said she organized 45 mass vaccination clinics that administered roughly 35,000 doses between April 2021 and the following February.
Her work was recognized by the Ontario College of Family Physicians, which granted her its Award of Excellence in 2021, in part pointing to Ma’s role in boosting local vaccination rates.
Comments closedVaccine production is nearly three years behind schedule at a federally owned plant in Montreal and the future of a deal between Ottawa and an American company to make COVID-19 vaccines here is now under review.
Comments closedA regional public health department in Idaho is no longer providing COVID-19 vaccines to residents in six counties after a narrow decision by its board.
Southwest District Health appears to be the first in the nation to be restricted from giving COVID-19 vaccines. Vaccinations are an essential function of a public health department.
Comments closed(Montreal) The rehabilitation process is long for patients with long COVID, which can limit professionals in their acceptance of new patients. This issue, added to the other ills of the healthcare system, means that some 4,000 patients end up in the network of long COVID clinics, half of whom are on the waiting list.
Comments closedWhile on the front line at the height of the COVID-19 health crisis, many healthcare workers are struggling to access care after contracting long COVID. Only 12% of healthcare workers who suffer from it have received rehabilitation care, according to a research report by the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ).
Comments closedThe number of sick days employees working for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat took during the month of September skyrocketed as the department urged public servants to make their way back to their offices at least three days a week.
According to departmental data, TBS employees took a total of 2,191 sick days between Sept. 1 and Sept. 30.
That was up significantly from previous years. During the same period in 2023, employees took 1,708.9 sick days. In 2022, they took 1,477.9 sick days and in 2021 they had 1,075.4 sick days. In 2020, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, TBS employees’ sick days totalled a mere 827.6 days.
Comments closed