Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Stockholm —A well-known Swedish doctor and researcher at Gothenburg University has been prosecuted, together with the Vice-Chancellor and the President of the University Council, for failing to hand over sensitive data on patients to outside critics.

The Parliamentary Ombudsman, an official appointed by the Parliament, decided to press charges against Professor Christopher Gillberg, MD, Professor Gunnar Svedberg, (Vice-Chancellor) and Arne Wittlöv (President), for failing to comply with a court order from February 2003.

The court had ordered Gillberg and his colleagues to hand over sensitive data on patients and their relatives to two critics of their research: Eva Kärfve, a sociologist, and Leif Elinder, a pediatrician. The basis for the court’s decision was the section of the Swedish constitution relating to freedom of the press. Since the university was a public body, it was obliged to turn over any documents to any citizen upon request unless the document was protected by a specific paragraph in the Secrecy Law.

The university argued that the material should be protected by a paragraph referring to the confidentiality of information about patients. The courts decided, however, that they could hand over the data (about 70 shelf feet of documents) if they specified a proviso that would preserve confidentiality. The university was thus ordered to first write a proviso (set of conditions) for Kärfve and Elinder and then hand over the data.

Gillberg and the other members of the research group refused to comply. They referred to the promise they had given to the participants in their studies that all the data would be kept completely confidential. They also argued that the data was particularly sensitive since the research concerned psychological and psychiatric disorders among children, and that it was impossible to anonymize the data beyond possible identification. When they had pursued all legal avenues without success, someone apparently destroyed the documents in May 2004.

The Gillberg group received considerable support from other medical researchers and from their university. They felt that important clinical research could be jeopardized unless complete confidentiality could be promised to the patients.

Eva Kärfve stated that she was happy with the prosecution and that it would “strengthen the protection of research in Sweden.”

Saturday, July 8, 2006

The U.S. Army’s surgeon general, Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, told reporters Friday that soldiers exhibiting personality disorders would not be automatically discharged because many can continue to perform their duties well. However, the army did discharge more than 1,000 soldiers last year for personality disorders. Among them was Steven Dale Green, who now stands accused of raping a young Iraqi female and murdering her and her family.

Kiley also said; “There is something very demanding and tough about being in combat. And anything that would be perceived as being weak and not ready and tough carries with it some stigma.”

U.S. Defense Department officials announced last month that they have set up a task force to study the mental health of American troops. The 14-member Mental Health Task Force’s primary job is to produce a required report for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Congress before June 2007 that lays out a long-term plan to improve the effectiveness of the military’s mental health treatments, according to a Pentagon press release.

On May 4, prior to the creation of the task force, U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer said the military faces a “mental health crisis” and criticized the Pentagon for inaction. In a letter to Rumsfeld, Boxer noted that 25 soldiers committed suicide in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2005, up from 20 soldiers the year before.

Friday, December 11, 2009

The United Nations refugee agency reports thousands of civilians continue to flee their homes in northern Yemen as fighting between government troops and Al Houti rebel forces enters a fifth month. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says the situation in the Saada province remains particularly tense as more people arrive there.

The U.N. refugee agency reports clashes have broken out in a number of districts in the Saada province as more people arrive. It says the situation in the Razeh district is particularly serious.

The UNHCR says the civilian population there faces restrictions of movement and lacks basic services such as electricity and water. It says shortages of food and other commodities are pushing prices up sharply and an increasing number of people cannot afford to buy what they need.

U.N. refugee spokesman Andrej Mahecic says the influx of huge numbers of people in neighboring Hajjah and Amran provinces is putting a strain on shelter and aid.

“Over the past month alone, the IDP [internally displaced people] population of al-Mazrak One camp in Hajjah governorate has doubled. There are now some 21,000 IDPs living in a camp initially designed to shelter up to 10,000 people and overcrowding is presently the top concern for us,” he said. “At least some 500 families in al-Mazrak camp are sharing their tents, normally meant for one family, with one or two other households. We estimate another 1,300 families who are accommodated in 48 large communal tents in four transit areas of the camp, are presently waiting for allocation of a family tent.”

The UNHCR reports overcrowding in the camp is hampering delivery of humanitarian services. The agency says it reached an agreement with Yemeni authorities this week to build a third camp. And, plans are underway to set up a camp that would potentially house some 7,000 people.

Mahecic says the number of IDPs settling with local populations outside the camps has increased as well. He says local communities are bearing the brunt of the continuing displacement in Yemen. He says aid agencies are looking at ways they can assist host families.

The U.N. refugee agency reports an estimated 175,000 people have been affected by the conflict in Yemen since 2004, including those displaced by the latest crisis.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Susan Stanton, the former city manager of Largo, Florida, has been hired as the new city manager for Lake Worth. Stanton was fired from her job as Largo’s city manager in 2007, apparently when her gender transition became public knowledge.

“We said all along that we’d pick the best candidate regardless and that’s what it’s all about, we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t,” said Jeff Clemons, the mayor of Lake Worth. He added that the city’s commission voted in favor of Stanton 4 to 1.

Stanton was the city manager of Largo for 14 years before she was fired by the city’s commissioners in 2007. Stanton alleged that when she went public, the commissioners voted to fire her. Five of the seven city commissioners voted for Stanton’s termination. According to the commission, Stanton was fired because “of poor judgment” and lack of trust.

After her termination, Stanton was in second running for the city manager position of Sarasota, but the commission instead voted in favor of Robert Bartolotta. Stanton has applied for over 100 city manager positions in Florida since 2007. She also began a campaign to enact laws to protect transgender and homosexual people from discrimination in the workplace.

Sunday, April 28, 2019

On Friday Ford Motor Company announced the United States Department of Justice was performing a criminal investigation of Ford’s internal emission testing practices. Ford said in a financial filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that the criminal investigation started on some unspecified date after Ford voluntarily disclosed the matter to the federal government on February 21.

Ford said in their filing the matter “currently focuses on issues relating to road load estimations, including analytical modeling and coastdown testing”, and “does not involve the use of defeat devices” which were an issue with another automaker previously.

“Ford is fully cooperating with the government, and we’ll keep them posted on what we’re finding through our investigation and technical review”, Ford told The Verge. In the filing itself Ford also made this point, writing “In addition, we have notified a number of other state and federal agencies. We are fully cooperating with all government agencies.”

In February, Ford announced investigating itself, following employee concerns that emission testing calculation could be inconsistent. The employees were reportedly concerned about the calculation of “road load”, a measurement of ordinary resistance factors such as tire resistance and aerodynamic drag.

Ford started its investigation by hiring law firm Sidley Austin, according to The Verge.

According to the filing, Ford voluntarily disclosed this matter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on February 18, and also to the California Air Resources Board on February 21.

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

US doctors are to interview 12 patients with a view to performing the first ever transplant of a human face.

The Cleveland Clinic will choose between seven women and five men to find the person most suited for the experimental procedure, which is a radical and controversial solution to extreme facial scarring or disfigurement.

Having practiced the procedure on bodies donated for medical research, the Cleveland Clinic team believe they have a 50% chance of success. The procedure will not live up to science-fiction predictions and give the recipient the appearance of the donor; the underlying bone structure is the deciding factor in the final appearance. The new face will end up resembling neither the donor nor recipient.

Surgeons in several other countries have announced being ready to perform this procedure in the past. However, the risk and non life-threatening nature of disfigurement have meant that gaining approval for the groundbreaking surgery has been difficult. Like many other transplant operations, the recipient would be required to take drugs to prevent tissue rejection for the remainder of their life. These drugs can have side effects and carry their own risks involving the patient’s immune system.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

A police officer has shot and killed his wife and two of their children at the train station in the French city of Noyon in the department of Oise, the local prosecutor said, after the wife had informed the officer of her intention to separate from him. Their sons were aged three and five; a third child, twin to the five year old victim, survived the attack and is in the care of child services. The killings took place around 11:30 local time (0930 UTC) on Sunday.

The wife, born in 1983, called the gendarmes (police) in the morning, and they arrived to find her explaining to their five children about the domestic argument which had escalated. The husband returned while the police were present, and they reported he seemed calm and did not interfere with the children being moved to a neighbor’s home, so they departed. The woman reportedly chose to leave her house when her husband was not there, and headed to the station, where the husband awaited them armed.

After assassinating his family, the police officer committed suicide. The wife’s family lived in Guiscard, near Noyon. The station at Noyon was closed after the incident. Late on Sunday, the police were searching for a witness who escaped after observing the events.