CharonY

I agree with that. But a few issues and I will let the thing rest. Most hospitals in Canada are not government owned, but run by non-profits. The financing is run by the (provincial) government as far as I understand. Moreover, in a malpractice lawsuit usually the medical provider him/herself is getting sued. This is why all physicians are covered by the medical protective association (which is basically a non-profit liability insurance). So in order to sue the government one would likely have to prove that somehow the practice is connected to something the government has issued, like for instance the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta. With regard to the tribunals, I would urge you to read up on the proceedings, even without the torture, there were flawed in many ways, including witnesses changing statements as to who may have thrown the fatal grenade. Either way, the proceedings have been tainted from the get go and it is unclear how it would have ended if it had ended in criminal court. Assuming that it is a sure thing is, at best, a gross distortion of the happenings. But that being said, it should not be an either or situation. Human rights have to upheld for all citizens.

In other words you cannot point to any specific regulation. Sorry, but you are pushing a narrative without evidence. In order to have discussion you should read some reports and maybe look at the odd graph. Let me ask you a few questions: a) which class of opioids has caused the most deaths in the last five years? b) are illegal or legal sources more commonly connected to fentanyl deaths? c) what are the currently the most commonly prescribed opioid drugs? d) are there regulations, and guidelines that affect opioids but exempts fentanyl? Unless you start to look and discuss data I see little value in continuing the conversation.

There is no comparison. First of all so far only one woman is attempting a lawsuit, the rest chose to remain unnamed and it is still unclear whether there will a class-action lawsuit. However, the report may add fuel to that matter. Second, the lawsuit cannot be targeted at the government, it will be against the health provider. I assume that their budget is more limited in terms of what a lawsuit might claim. Third, the Khadr lawsuit (which is off-topic) was based on violation of rights by the government as judged by the Supreme Court (I believe essentially when Canadian intelligence officers engaged in interrogation, but I would have to read up on the supreme court decision). As such the only decision your government could have made was fighting a losing legal battle. Fourth, even if there is circumstantial evidence, Khadr's trial and conviction is considered to be questionable by legal experts. So sorry, except it happening in Canada I do not see a lot of parallels to draw here.

I do not think that the snark is warranted.

You are telling a weird story. The arrest of MDs who were prescribing massive amounts of unneeded or fraudulent prescriptions is clearly not an example of government pushing fentanyl. Also, can you kindly point me to the regulations that would specifically target oxycodone but exempt fentanyl?

The DEA has no medical authority in the end it is the medical professional who makes the decision. There was a crackdown on illegal oxycontin distribution, which first led to a rise in heroin and fentanyl use. Much of the deaths by fentanyl are caused by heroin laced with fentanyl. If we consider prescription drugs as one route of addiction, it does not really matter on which drugs people get hooked on. If opioids of any kind are used for long-term treatment, addiction is almost a certain result. For this specific route alternatives have to be sought.

There are several things to consider. One is the fact that illegal production and distribution of fentanyl has increased since 2012. There is also an increased scrutiny for legal distribution. But even in health care systems that are public (as Canada) the rate of opioid deaths have been increasing in recent years. Interestingly in some areas oxyconting were removed from drug plans, yet overall death rates increased. The reason being that other opioids just rise in popularity. The rate is higher still in the US, but a private vs public health system is clearly insufficient to describe the effects. In both countries there is an overprescription, which ultimately indicates inadequacy in dealing with chronic pain.

What makes you think that the government is pushing fentanyl? Or oxycontin for that matter? Or do you equate not banning with pushing?

Yes. In fact ~5% of our genome is assumed to be of viral origin. it is relevant to note that they are also generally silent, i.e. they do not actively produce viral particle. One theory postulates that longer co-evolution results in viruses become less virulent and eventually just become passengers on the ride.

Actually, seems I am wrong again.

Hard to tell without looking at the actual data, but two possibilities are high template concentration leading to the software messing up baseline correction or, conversely, low concentration/inefficient reaction, starting off with non-exponential replication until template concentration reaches a threshold to allow higher amplification rates. The latter is rather unusual, though. First thing to test would be a dilution of the sample and see how the curve shifts.

That is an interesting point. I am not familiar with Senate proceedings, but do you happen to have an article that explains that part? I think I heard something like that, but cannot really find it. Edit: found it. Apparently Budget Reconciliation (which only requires a simple majority) can only be voted on once per year. That makes it quite more interesting. Though, it does not quite explain why it could not have died at the second vote.

I have no clue what you are asking. The active substance is pressed into a tablet form for delivery. In order to work it has to get into your bloodstream and from there to the site(s) of inflammation. Tablets are designed to dissolve in a predictable way. Typically for ibuprofen it is designed to dissolve fast. There is no active digestion component.

How do you propose it to work in tablet form? Also, it does not get digested per se, more dissolved within the body.

Probably. He got shat on by Trump more than once, but if push comes to shove he tended to tout the party line (at the very least after he lost against Obama). I am pretty sure that it has become harder to do so (and not only for him).

To be fair, it was also very strategic to demonstrate his brand of a maverick. He voted yes for the bill to proceed, he made the impassioned speech against the bill, then voted for it (though one could assume that he already knew it would not pass), before finally voting no on the final version. Meanwhile two fellow republicans (Murkowski and Collins) both opposed the bill consistently from the start, but got overshadowed to some degree by McCain. But then one has to consider that if McCain had not voted in the first place, the motion would have not proceeded to begin with. After all it was a 50:50 vote with Pence as tie-breaker. They needed McCain's "yes".

It is a bit odd, as one would assume that in a review a bit more synthesis would be done. I presume the authors were not connected in any way? Either way, my advice is do not get directly involved or named in this. At your stage you are very vulnerable, leave it to your advisor. Depending on the respective relationship typically the original author and/or chief editor are the obvious contact persons to submit the info.

That is an interesting point. One assumption is of course that the medical professional has the best interest of the patient in mind. But even if it is true, personal bias can be an issue. Of course having an external negotiator of sorts would be a logistical nightmare. Also it is almost impossible to find a truly neutral party. The only recourse that a patient has is currently getting a second opinion. But in many cases (including emergencies) that is also not an option. That was the background to the whole thing. In public discourse it appears that people have forgotten that this practice has been going for a long a time and have actually only recently been ended for certain groups. While we are in Canada, the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta was only struck down in the 70s. Only this year in the EU it was found to be unlawful to have laws forcing transgender people to be sterilized to have their gender change accepted.

It depends on the relevance of the passage and where it appears. Some commonly used phrases used in the introduction or methods section tend to get rehashed eventually. However, in a review this probably more of an issue. It depends on whether there are a handful of uncredited passages that are otherwise inconsequential or whether the whole paper is a cut and paste job, for example. As already said, let your adviser deal with it.

Going through lit two things stood out. It is still commonly used and much of the utility is, as John said, for debridement. What has been criticized is that its antibacterial efficacy is undertested. Nonetheless there are publications that ~2% or even lower concentrations seem to have benefits in a variety of applications, including for grafts but also for general wound healing. There are a few that indicate slower wound healing at higher concentrations and in animal studies even concentrations as low as ~200 mM were associated with delayed healing. But at lower than 10 mM would healing improved. By skimming, I could not find any publications with decent data that would support the notion that it could be unsafe (if that was the assertion in the video, I have not watched it).

Ah, gotcha. Good thing is also that they toned down the tone mapping from HDR as in the first gen the standard settings often generated clown vomit. Much of the advances are surprisingly not quantum leaps in the sensor technology, but rather software trickery. The downside is that they may create artifacts that show up in larger prints. On the other, other hand many also provide raws now (though they normally still have at least some level of denoising and sharpening, from what I understand.

I am curious, do you recall the basis for the arguments you had? I was quite surprised as I have collaborations North and South of the border and all medical professionals were quite good in following the guidelines that we put forth. On reflection, the reason may have been specifically because it was a research project and people may take more care than they would do in their day-to-day business.

Well, that is a tad silly (though likely due to the 4k wave), as the sensor size would be fairly limiting and arguably produce better results with a larger pixel pitch (wouldn't it be 2x 8 Mpix, though?). Another thing to consider is that I guess that exposure bracketing in phones is done via exposure time (and maybe iso) as most lack a proper aperture (i.e. you essentially have a fixed aperture, wide-angle lens), which may not always work. But then the brackets may be necessary to deal with the reduced dynamic range. After all the image quality has improved massively.

Well, for online viewing a phone is certainly good enough and far more convenient. After all, monitor resolution is not that high. I have made some largish prints (not that one I uploaded, of course) and for that a tripod/gimbal and Hugin (because I spent too much money on cameras/tripods...) were quite necessary. But in the uploaded one I also only used a cheap compact camera (which likely has worse sensor that today's cell phones) but with a tripod to do multiple exposures, as the sun was just too bright.

Yupp. Unfortunately I did not have some of my better panoramas here that I could resize, but that works fine. More regular-sized photos require a fair bit of cropping, it seems. I do dig yours, btw.