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Health Foundation commits $325,000 to support child, adolescent mental health

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Foundation donors provide furnishings, supplies for program for ages 13 to 17

Thanks to Central Alberta donors, the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation is supporting Step Up Step Down, a program helping youth aged 13 to 17 who have complex mental health challenges.

Step-Up Step-Down will find a new home in the Centre of Excellence, described as a centre for “healing, recovery, and prevention” being built at Red Deer Polytechnic.

“We thank our generous donors for supporting the Foundation’s greatest needs, which allows us to dedicate funds to help young people and families in our community,” says Manon Therriault, Chief Executive Officer of the Red Deer Regional Health Foundation.

Funds raised by the Foundation will provide a fully furnished, equipped and supplied environment to allow staff to provide timely recreational, therapeutic, and extracurricular activities to the youth in care. Funded items include furnishings, equipment, and supplies for the kitchen, bedrooms, sensory and therapy rooms, classroom, living room, gym, outdoor spaces, and indoor activity spaces.

The move into the Centre of Excellence will allow expansion of the Step Up Step Down program up to 16 beds from the current 5 beds and allow the program to provide intensive, comprehensive, individualized clinical services to youth in a live-in and community setting.

Step Up Step Down will support approximately 50-75 live-in treatment families, along with 100 intensive outpatient families per year, reducing stress on the Emergency Department and Pediatric Psychiatric units at the Red Deer Hospital. The facility will serve youth and families from all areas of the Central Zone.

About Red Deer Regional Health Foundation

The Red Deer Regional Health Foundation is a fundraising organization for Alberta Health Services Central Zone, with a mandate to raise and disburse funds for programs, services, and the purchase of medical equipment.

COVID-19

Japanese study shows disturbing increase in cancer related deaths during the Covid pandemic

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From Cureus.com

The study is called:

Increased Age-Adjusted Cancer Mortality After the Third mRNA-Lipid Nanoparticle Vaccine Dose During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan

During the COVID-19 pandemic, excess deaths including cancer have become a concern in Japan, which has a rapidly aging population. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate how age-adjusted mortality rates (AMRs) for different types of cancer in Japan changed during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2022).

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic began in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, and was first detected in Japan in January 2020. In response, a range of healthcare and socio-economic restrictions were implemented to curb the spread of the disease. Since February 2021, the mRNA-lipid nanoparticle (mRNA-LNP) vaccine has been available for emergency use and is recommended for all individuals aged six months and older, especially those at high risk.

As of March 2023, 80% of the Japanese population had received their first and second doses, 68% had received their third dose, and 45% had received their fourth dose [1]. Despite these national measures, 33.8 million people had been infected, and 74,500 deaths had been attributed to COVID-19 in Japan by the end of April 2023.

Additionally, excess deaths from causes other than COVID-19 have been reported in various countries [2-6], including deaths from cancer [7-10], and Japan is no exception [11,12]. Cancer is the leading cause of death in Japan, accounting for one-fourth of all deaths. Therefore, it is essential to understand the effects of the pandemic on mortality rates of cancer from 2020 to 2022. Age adjustment is necessary for accurate evaluation, especially in diseases such as cancer that tend to occur in elderly adults.

Japan has several characteristics that make it ideal for analyzing the impact of the pandemic on cancer mortality rates, including its large population of 123 million, availability of official statistics, and the high 80% accuracy rate of death certificates according to autopsy studies [13].

Conclusions

Statistically significant increases in age-adjusted mortality rates of all cancer and some specific types of cancer, namely, ovarian cancer, leukemia, prostate, lip/oral/pharyngeal, pancreatic, and breast cancers, were observed in 2022 after two-thirds of the Japanese population had received the third or later dose of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA-LNP vaccine. These particularly marked increases in mortality rates of these ERα-sensitive cancers may be attributable to several mechanisms of the mRNA-LNP vaccination rather than COVID-19 infection itself or reduced cancer care due to the lockdown. The significance of this possibility warrants further studies.

From the YouTube channel of Dr John Campbell

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Addictions

Liberal MP blasts Trudeau-backed ‘safe supply’ drug programs, linking them to ‘chaos’ in cities

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First responders in Ottawa dealing with a crisis                                           Fridayman 0102 / YouTube
From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

‘There is certainly the perception by a lot of Canadians that a lot of downtown cores are basically out of control,’ Liberal MP Dr. Marcus Powlowski said, before pointing specifically to ‘safe supply’ drugs and injection sites.

A Liberal MP has seemingly taken issue with “safe supply” drug policies for increasing public disorder in Canada, policies his own party, under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, has endorsed.

During an April 15 health committee meeting in the House of Commons, Liberal MP Dr. Marcus Powlowski, while pressing the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), stated that “safe supply” drug policies have caused Canadians to feel unsafe in downtown Ottawa and in other major cities across the country.

“There is certainly the perception by a lot of Canadians that a lot of downtown cores are basically out of control,” Powlowski said.  

“Certainly there is also the perception that around places like safe supply, safe injection sites, that things are worse, that there are people openly stoned in the street,” he continued.   

“People are getting cardio-pulmonary resuscitation performed on them in the street. There are needles around on the street. There is excrement on the street,” Powlowski added.  

Safe supply“ is the term used to refer to government-prescribed drugs that are given to addicts under the assumption that a more controlled batch of narcotics reduces the risk of overdose – critics of the policy argue that giving addicts drugs only enables their behavior, puts the public at risk, disincentivizes recovery from addiction and has not reduced, and sometimes even increased, overdose deaths where implemented.

Powlowski, who has worked as an emergency room physician, also stated that violence from drug users has become a problem in Ottawa, especially in areas near so-called “safe supply” drug sites which operate within blocks of Parliament Hill.   

“A few months ago I was downtown in a bar here in Ottawa, not that I do that very often, but a couple of colleagues I met up with, one was assaulted as he was going to the bar, another one was threatened,” said Powlowski. 

“Within a month of that I was returning down Wellington Street from downtown, the Rideau Centre, and my son who is 15 was coming after me,” he continued. “It was nighttime and there was someone out in the middle of the street, yelling and screaming, accosting cars.” 

Liberal MP Dr. Brendan Hanley, the Yukon’s former chief medical officer, testified in support of Powlowski, saying, “My colleague Dr. Powlowski described what it’s like to walk around downtown Ottawa here, and certainly when I walk home every day, I encounter similar circumstances.” 

“Do you agree this is a problem?” Powlowski pressed RCMP deputy commissioner Dwayne McDonald. “Do you agree for a lot of Canadians who are not involved with drugs, that they are increasingly unhappy with society in downtown cores which are this way? Do you want to do more about this, and if you do want to do more about this, what do you need?”  

McDonald acknowledged the issue but failed to offer a solution, responding, “One of the success factors required for decriminalization is public support.” 

“I think when you are faced with situations where, as we have experienced in our communities and we hear from our communities, where public consumption in some places may lead to other members of the public feeling at risk or threatened or vulnerable to street level crime, it does present a challenge,” he continued.   

Deaths from drug overdoses in Canada have gone through the roof in recent years, particularly in British Columbia after Trudeau’s federal government effectively decriminalized hard drugs in the province.

Under the policy, which launched in early 2023, the federal government began allowing people within the province to possess up to 2.5 grams of hard drugs without criminal penalty, but selling drugs remained a crime.  

The policy has been widely criticized, especially after it was found that the province broke three different drug-related overdose records in the first month the new law was in effect.  

The effects of decriminalizing hard drugs in various parts of Canada has been exposed in Aaron Gunn’s recent documentary, Canada is Dying, and in U.K. Telegraph journalist Steven Edginton’s mini-documentary, Canada’s Woke Nightmare: A Warning to the West.  

Gunn says he documents the “general societal chaos and explosion of drug use in every major Canadian city.”  

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