News and Issues

Delegates at the Canadian Medical Association’s general council meeting last week called on the Canadian government to reject a backbencher’s attempts to amend the Criminal Code so that a fetus is defined as a human being.

Read the story by André Picard in the Globe and Mail, Doctors call on Ottawa to reject ‘backdoor’ attempt to recriminalize abortion.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and the Breast Cancer Fund last week claimed a “major victory for public health” when Johnson & Johnson, makers of Aveeno, Neutrogena, and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo, announced that it will be removing carcinogens and other toxic chemicals from its baby and adult products globally. 

Read the announcement from Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.

And read more about it on the Breast Cancer Fund website. 

The Canadian Medical Association has just released the 2012 National Report Card on Canada's health care system in which they point to a “widening gap in health status” between the rich and poor in Canada. 

"When it comes to the well-being of Canadians, the old saying that wealth equals health continues to ring true," CMA President John Haggie commented as the CMA released poll results that were used to compile the 2012 National Report Card.

Read more about it on their website.

And read a commentary about this issue, also on their website, The fiendish puzzle of health inequities.

CWHN sends a big thanks to Ted Schrecker at CHNET-Works! for his endorsement of CWHN's work for health equity and also for his promotion of our new website in his recent blog entry for the blog, Health as if Everybody Counted.

Read his blog entry on CHNET-Works!, Fighting back against health inequity and its origins.

Starting August 19, the public can help support the Best Start Resource Centre (Best Start) to address alcohol use and pregnancy by making a donation at any of the more than 620 LCBO stores throughout Ontario.  Donation boxes for Best Start will be displayed at LCBO checkout counters until September 15. 

Read more below.

This week Cancer Care Ontario (CCO) announced updated cervical cancer screening (Pap test) guidelines that outline the right age for women to begin screening and the appropriate time interval between tests.

CCO now recommends that cervical cancer screening start at age 21 and continue every three years until age 70 for all women who are or ever have been sexually active; cervix screening is not recommended for women under the age of 21. The change to the guidelines is part of the Ontario Cervical Screening Program.

CCO has posted a video on their website and other information explaining the new guidelines.

Read the CBC story: New Pap test guidelines in Ontario peg starting age at 21.

Can shopping save the world? The Story of Change — a free new movie from the exciting Story of Stuff project — urges viewers to put down their credit cards and start exercising their citizen muscles to build a more sustainable, just and fulfilling world.

While there has been much made lately of the power of consumers to simply make change in our environment by buying “green”, there is so much more we as citizens can and should do to help create a healthier, more sustainable world.

As Annie Leonard, narrator of The Story of Change, says, “When we shop, it’s good to choose products without toxic chemicals and unnecessary packaging, made by locally-based companies that treat their workers well. But our real power is not in choosing from items on a limited menu; it is in determining what gets on that menu. The way to ensure that toxic, climate-disrupting choices are replaced with safe and healthy alternatives – for everyone, not just those who can afford them – is by engaging as citizens: working together for bigger, bolder change than we could ever accomplish as individual consumers.”

Find out more and watch the movie on The Story of Stuff website.

An alarming new report has been published on the risky use of steroids that are given to pregnant women to try to reduce rates of “tomboyism, lesbianism and bisexuality" or “behavioral masculinization.”

The paper in the Journal of Bioethical Inquiry discusses this very disturbing use of steroids being given to women to engineer the development of their fetuses.

Read about it in Dangerous Experiment in Fetal Engineering (Northwestern Center).

Download the paper Prenatal Dexamethasone for Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia: An Ethics Canary in the Modern Medical Mine for free from SpringerLinks’ website.

Health Canada is informing Canadians that it is assessing the possibility of an increased risk of cancer with long-term use of the drug calcitonin. Patients who are taking a calcitonin medicine who have questions should speak to their health care professional before they consider stopping their calcitonin treatment. 

Calcitonin is a prescription drug available in Canada as a nasal spray used to treat osteoporosis (loss of calcium in bones) in postmenopausal women. It is also available as a solution for injection used to treat Paget's disease as well as severe hypercalcemia (high blood calcium). Paget's disease is a chronic condition that causes abnormal bone growth, while severe hypercalcemia is a medical emergency that can lead to, for example, kidney failure, heart problems and coma.

Read more on Health Canada’s website.

It’s been 10 years since the Women’s Health Initiative halted their historic study of post-monpauasal women on estrogen plus progestin hormone therapy - the largest study of older women ever conducted - due to health concerns.  

What have we learned since then? Are hormones still being prescribed to older women, and is the safety of these drugs still being debated? 

Read about what has happened in the past decade and what the current practice is, in commentaries from the National Women’s Health Network and Our Bodies, Ourselves.

Challenging Unproven Medicine and Saving Lives - National Women’s Health Network

The Women’s Health Initiative Studies, Ten Years Later - Our Bodies, Our Blog

The NWHN is also collecting stories from women who took or were offered hormone therapy before the WHI; who refused it because of the study’s findings; were involved in the study as researchers or participants; and other health care providers, advocates, and individuals affected by the WHI.

To learn more about this project and to participate, visit their website.