INepness ol Canada's Refugee Resettlement System

"She did not apply for a temporary resident visa. She applied for a TRP [Temporary Resident Permit]."

"She has already been beaten to within an inch of her life by the Taliban."

Matthew Behrens, co-ordinator, Rural Refugee Rights Network

"Presumably they're [Canada Immigration services] overwhelmed. But they didn't even read the application properly."

"We have met with a number of Members of Parliament and there has been nothing. The minister has the discretion to approve the application. It's very discouraging."

Bessa Whitemore, retired Carleton University social work professor

 

"When we get support for women’s rights in Canada from Afghanistan, we know we have trouble here."

"Farzana was a high-profile women’s rights activist. She worked for the [former] president of Afghanistan on women’s rights issues. She belongs to an ethnic minority [Adell Ghadiya is Hazara, an ethnic group that has faced persecution in Afghanistan]."

"She meets all the criteria. This is the fourth time she’s in exile and she’s lived in some of the very, very bad conditions. It’s not a joke. Our government needs to step up and get this woman over here."

Sharen Craig, retired English teacher

Afghan women's rights activist Farzana Adell Ghadiya, shown with children in Afghanistan, is now in hiding in an undisclosed country. Supplied photo

Canada has been notoriously lax for over a year in meeting its obligations surrounding a promise by the federal government that it would rescue Afghan citizens for whom life in Afghanistan has become impossible. These are men and women who gave support and took positions with the Canadian military and diplomatic mission in Afghanistan when the U.S.-led UN and NATO mission entered the country to dispel the Taliban and to search for members of al-Qaeda being sheltered by the Taliban in the wake of 9/11.

Their security and safety in Afghanistan disappeared with the departure of U.S. and allied troops and their diplomatic missions, as the Taliban through a nationwide violent campaign, swept back into power, overturning the elected government of Afghanistan, and occupying the capital, Kabul. The Taliban undertook a mission to seek out, imprison and murder Afghan citizens who were part of the former government, and Afghans who had worked alongside foreign governments in the country. 

Many Afghan refugees, after seeking temporary haven in neighbouring countries, did make their way to Canada to take up permanent residency, as promised them by the government. Relatively few were rescued directly from the Kabul airport in the final, confused and hectic days of foreign government departures, as a result of unpreparedness; by no means all departing countries, but certainly Canada. 

Special Temporary Resident Permits for Protection became an emergency Canadian vehicle to allow desperate Afghans with connections to Canada to claim priority and swifter entry to the country. Farzana Adell Ghadiya is an Afghan social and humanitarian worker who applied for the TRP yet she received an advisory that her application was rejected for a visitor's visa, a visa she had never applied for. Ms. Adell Ghadriye certainly qualified for the TRP, given her exceptional circumstances.

Leaving her network of Canadian supporters who have diligently been trying to bring her to Canada  under the auspices of the government's own rescue support operation,  upset and confused at the turn of events. It seemed clear to them that immigration officials had casually laid aside the application describing life-threatening circumstances should the woman return to Afghanistan.

This is a woman who engaged in building girls' schools and maternity hospitals, a woman who was employed as chief of staff for the UN Commission on the Status of Women, in the office of the former president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani. Bessa Whitemore, the retired professor of social work, offered a place to stay in Canada for Adell Ghadiya, once she arrives in Ottawa.

The third country in which she has been waiting out Canada's immigration decision under the TRP program might end up deporting her. The unnamed country was where she had been in August 2021 when the Taliban returned to power. She had been delivering equipment and materials for a trade school for women, but her visa for that country is due to expire at the end of 2022. 

Her Canadian supporters, because she is unable to work in that third country of temporary haven, have been supporting her financially to pay for rent, food and other necessities. Those same supporters have good reason to question the government of Canada's commitment to resettling up to 40,000 Afghan refugees in Canada, as 'quickly and safely' as possible.

"It’s so hard to live as a refugee with an unknown future. I can’t work. I can’t have a job. I have no rights here. I can’t continue my advocacy work for the many women and girls in Afghanistan.”

"Afghanistan has a lower youth literacy rate especially for girls and women because of the decades of war that deprived girls of that time. Building schools providing education is an essential capacity building in the country’s progress toward peace, security and sustainable economic development."

"Education brings empowerment and enlightenment to the future of girls and women to defend their rights."

Afghan women's rights activist Farzana Adell Ghadiya

Clarity-AD : Alzheimer's Breakthrough

"This is a historic moment for dementia research, as this is the first phase-three trial of an Alzheimer's drug in a generation to successfully slow cognitive decline."

Lecanemab slows the progression of memory and thinking problems in people with early Alzheimer's, demonstrating a major breakthrough in dementia research."

"This is the first drug that's been shown to not only remove the buildup of a protein called amyloid in the brain, but to have a small but statistically significant impact on cognitive decline in people with early-stage disease."

"Regulators ... will assess the full data to determine whether lecanemab is safe and effective enough to be used in people with Alzheimer's. If it is approved, it is essential that it gets to those who may benefit from it as quickly as possible."

Dr. Susan Kohlhaas, director of research, Alzheimer's Research UK

The brain of a patient affected by Alzheimer's disease in a scan of an axial section. BSIP / UIG via Getty Images

"This is an unambiguously statistically positive result and represents something of a historic moment when we see the first convincing modification of Alzheimer's disease."

"God knows, we've waited long enough for this."

Rob Howard, professor of old age psychiatry, University College London

What is being hailed as a "historic moment" for research focusing on Alzheimer's disease has scientists waxing enthusiastic about the possibilities of a drug identified as capable of reducing memory decline while destroying key proteins known to be associated with the brain-degenerative condition. A study of 1,800 individuals suffering from Alzheimer's found twice-weekly injections of lecanemab to reduce progress of the disease by 27 percent.

The drug is being heralded as the first treatment to emerge able to slow cognitive decline and to reduce the plaques associated with Alzheimer's. It took no more than six months for changes to become evident once participants began taking the drug. At the same time, researchers caution that the drug is not a cure for Alzheimer's. It was also found, however, that lecanemab slowed the decline in functional thinking of participants.

 

Eisai has been the only Japanese pharmaceutical company with a heavy focus on neurocognitive disorders. (Photo by Kosaku Mimura)

 

A pharmaceutical company based in Tokyo -- Eisai -- manufactures the drug, and has partnered with Biogen, a U.S. biotech company, in the drug's development. Application for approval in the U.S. is expected to take place this year, following which an application for a license early next year, in Europe. The drug, an "anti-amyloid beta protofibril antibody" has been designed to target and to clear amyloid, a protein that builds in the early development of Alzheimer's. 

To date, Eisai's study, named Clarity-AD, represents the largest to test a long-debated assumption that the progress of Alzheimer's may be deterred once the protein has been cleared. The significance of the study results resides in the fact that those taking the drug had lower levels of amyloid in comparison with study participants who were given a placebo. The trial results are recognized by Alzheimer's groups as the first in a generation to indicate a significant impact on cognitive decline.

The study could be "game changing. I believe that research will cure dementia, and this is a vital milestone on that journey", asserted Dr. Richard Oakley, associate director of research at the Alzheimer's Society.

Given the largely disappointing rollout of Biogen's Alzheimer's drug, Aduhelm, last year, any drug that appears to help Alzheimer's patients is welcome. Photo courtesy of HealthDay

"If borne out by the full details of the study, as they are the clearest indicator so far that by lowering amyloid levels in the brain, cognitive decline can be slowed [the results are] exciting."

"The results are consistent in size with those found in earlier phase trials with other anti-amyloid drugs."

"This convergence strengthens the findings. However, the size of the effect, while significant, is small -- the disease is slowed by 27 percent over 18 months."

\"What we cannot know yet is whether that effect increases over time in an individual; that would be predicted but is untested -- time will tell."

Dr. Catherine Mummery, consultant neurologist, National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, central London

China's Police Presence in Canada

"During the past two years, the pandemic made international travels not easy and quite a few Chinese nationals found their Chinese ID cards and/or driver's licences expired or about to expire, and yet they could not get the ID  renewed back in China in time..."

Embassy of China in Ireland

Police in the Chinese city of Fuzhou show off seized counterfeit money in this 2009 photo. Fuzhou security services have now set up at least three branch offices on Canadian soil. Photo by STR/AFP/Getty Images

"I thought I'd have a safe, happy life in Canada. But the Chinese Communist Party was already here", said Sheng Xue, a Chinese Canadian living in Mississauga, Ontario since her escape from China in 1989, following the Ti8enanmen Square Massacre. The People's Republic of China has groping tentacles all over the world, keeping track of expatriate Chinese who sought to find a new home and with it security and a base where they could begin life anew. Beijing, however, looks to keep tabs on all Chinese, irrespective of whether they now live elsewhere than China, and they are particularly interested in Chinese who oppose their government back home.

 

Beijing has also made it quite clear to Chinese living abroad that their first obligation is to China, not any other country which they have chosen to live in as loyal citizens. Chinese living abroad with citizenship in other countries are expected to be compliant with any demands that the People's
Republic makes of them, from defending China from criticism in their new countries of citizenship, to conveying useful information to China through its United Front Work Department, which has offices set up across the world. 

Chinese living abroad are also expected to be cooperative with Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, representing China's interests. Most Chinese who emigrate abroad from Mainland China find it expedient to cooperate in support of the Chinese Communist Party mostly because of China's coercive policies of harassing family members back in China if their members living abroad fail to cooperate. Those originally hailing from Hong Kong tend to be opponents of the CCP, and the long, probing, intrusive arm of the CCP makes certain they are acutely aware that Hong Kong is now under direct control of Beijing.

China-dissidents of the Beijing government based in Canada have warned Canadian authorities for years of the organized harassment from Chinese authorities that they face, despite their Canadian citizenship. Now, investigative reporting has revealed that the People's Republic has installed what can only be identified as Chinese police stations in countries abroad, focused on controlling Chinese living as citizens in countries other than China. In Toronto, Canada, there are three 'service stations' in operation by the Fuzhou Public Security Bureau, a police force from the Chinese metropolis of Fuzhou.

 

The Fuzhou police say it has already opened 30 such stations in 21 countries.

 

The Asian human rights group Safeguard Defenders has revealed the presence of these furtively-operated police stations in a recently published report. According to China, the stations' existence relates to the need to give assistance to Chinese expatriates in the completion of administrative documents like the renewal of driver's licenses. However, according to Safeguard Defenders, the function of the stations is that of outposts for "Involuntary Return" policies, a program that compels Chinese nationals to return to China should the country's security service consider they have violated Chinese law.

"These operations eschew official bilateral police and judicial cooperations", the report states. Chinese authorities claim that 230,000 expats were "persuaded to return" as a result of various charges laid against them. Those charged respond to the persuasion of the threat of extreme sanctions to be visited on their families in China, including asset seizures and prohibitions against government health care or education opportunities.

Canada is among several dozen countries that have become outposts of Chinese law enforcement. A report in The Irish Times highlighted the opening of a Fuzhou Overseas Police Service Station in central Dublin. In Dublin the Chinese Embassy declared the station to function as a place for Fuzhou expats to seek assistance in routine paperwork. 

 

An investigation in Canada by the Globe and Mail newspaper found that the Association was founded with direct Chinese government oversight. Leading to the question: why is Canada permitting China to establish its own police stations in Canada? More to the point, why is the government of Canada allowing Canadian citizens of Chinese extraction to be harassed, bullied and terrorized by the People's Republic of China?!!!

 

Have We All Gone Mad?!!

"The HDSB recognizes the rights of students, staff, parents/guardians and community members to equitable treatment without discrimination based upon gender identity and gender expression."

Halton District School Board

 

"[The -- transgender -- teacher is extremely effective and is] completely accepted and welcomed into the school community as far as the staff is concerned."

Oakville Trafalgar High School, Oakville, Ontario

A transgender Oakville Trafalgar High School teacher operates machinery during class in a video posted to social media. Photo by Screenshot /Twitter

"In this province, in our schools, we celebrate our differences and we also believe that there must be the highest standards of professionalism when in front of our kids."

"And on that basis, I’ve asked the Ontario College of Teachers to review and to consider strengthening those provisions with respect to professional conduct, which we think would be in the interest of all kids in Ontario."

Province of Ontario  Education Minister Stephen Lecce

If some sardonic wit set out to demonstrate just how much of an absurd, insulting farce 'woke' society has become, that individual might portray himself as an imagined 'female', festooning himself with a ridiculously outsized breast prosthetic with protruding nipples, videoing himself in a shop classroom at a high school, as a send-up of the serious way in which institutions from respected medical groups to institutes of higher learning and governments at every level have elevated the notion of transgenderism and its sister isms as an iconic system of equality and fairness in the social system.

 

The incident that has brought public disbelief and attention to the issue of men declaring themselves to have been born the wrong gender and proclaiming themselves to be female, outfitting themselves in all the accoutrements of femininity, expecting to be taken seriously, while others, presenting as women out-compete women in the competitive sports field, and others yet declaring their human right as female men to be housed in the women's section of prisons, alongside public institutions that welcome female men to use bathroom facilities and change rooms formerly solely dedicated for the use of girls and women has overturned the science of biology and created a wide-ranging paradigm of utter dysfunction.

 

That a school board, a teachers' union, staff at a high school, straight-faced seriously lend their support to a male exhibiting the attributes of a misogynistic male making an insulting mockery of the female shape, simply calls into question the malleability of human intelligence, veering from reasonableness to sheer idiocy. Little wonder young children are confused with respect to their legitimate biological genders when they're informed by those in the educational system, contrary to their parents' consent, much less knowledge, that gender is fluid and they can be whatever they prefer. 

It is demeaning to human intelligence exactly how far off kilter from normalcy -- including the normalcy that accepts confusion in human nature, and that there are some individuals whose sexuality is not that of the majority and so be it. The LGBTQ-2 community has behaved in general like a spoiled, distempered child who, having been denied its demands in the past and received unjust punishment, now goes out of its way to pout and preen and demand that whatever it prefers must be respected to the extent that all of society not only recognizes its human exceptionality, but favour and cater to it.

The disingenousness of the transgender community in its outrageous insistence that children at any age be encouraged to select their gender at will, and undergo chemical and surgical alterations to reflect what for most is a casual whim is beyond belief, but even more shocking is the general compliance of society to raising a generation of children vulnerable to such life-changing, life-damaging conditions. Society is condemned should it 'deny' the stated wishes of a male transitioning to female by the simple expedience of declaring themselves female. People shrink at being labelled transgender-phobic.

That no one in any kind of authority has suggested that guidelines be implemented to ensure that such blatant absurdities not occur in a classroom for fear of offending those declaring themselves transgender, with a broadly-based law implemented by the federal government, upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada, and provincial Human Rights Commissions shielding and protecting gender dysphoria claimants' rights, making it an offence not to use preferred pronouns offends sensibility.

Even the Public Health Agency of Canada has adopted gender ideology in guidelines for sex education in schools. Making a student's gender whatever it wishes to be recognized as, on a spectrum dependent on the choice of self-identification. An issue to which no limits apply, as can be seen by a teacher who feels entitled to clownishly exhibiting his penchant for insulting womankind through a mocking exhibitionism which at one time would have led to derisory comments, but at present, is held as a serious entitlement; blonde wig and outrageous prosthetic front-and-centre.

 

Images of a transgender Oakville Trafalgar High School teacher have caused a stir on social media. Twitter

 

 

 

 

Keeping School Environments Safe in the United States

"Arming teachers doesn't make kids safer."

"In fact, it increases the chances that a teacher's gun will fall into the wrong hands or discharge unintentionally."

Shannon Watts, founder, Moms Demand Action 

 

"Without serious training, teachers would not be able to successfully use the guns to stop school shootings."

"I certainly would refuse to be responsible for a weapon in school,"

"Asking teachers to take on the role of cops would change the dynamic between students and teachers in a harmful way."

"In general, adding guns to our society does not decrease gun violence, but instead increases the chance of accidents and unintentional deaths."

Bronx Science history teacher Michelle Sagalchik 

Even trained police officers often miss their target during gunfights. RichLegg / Getty Images

 

In a move born of desperation following a series of mass shootings at schools in the United States there is a growing movement in support of allowing teachers and other school employees to carry guns. It is a potential 'solution' that has been promoted by Republicans and gun-rights advocates who claim the strategy allows schools and their employees to gain a fighting chance of avoiding catastrophe should armed attacks occur. At the present time there are 29 states allowing individuals beside police or security officials to carry arms on school grounds.

 

Survey data from 2018, the last year where statistics were available, an estimated 2.6 percent of American public schools housed faculty that are armed. It is logical to assume that since then the count has expanded. Democrats, on the other hand, fiercely oppose the strategy. Joining them are police groups, teachers' unions and gun control advocates, who feel that concealed carry programs in schools have the potential to create more risk for all those involved.

 

Polling in the past has indicated the vast majority of teaching staff have no wish to be armed. In Ohio a new law has drawn controversy, requiring no more than 24 hours of training coupled with eight hours of recertification yearly. "That, to us, is just outrageous", commented director of government affairs for the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio, Michael Weinman.

 

Research has seen little evidence that school employees carrying guns is effective. On the other hand, arming school employees saw slight majority appeal among parents and adults, in recent polls. Laws vary by state but often do not specifically address how teachers must carry or store guns. And that can be problematical, as in one instance two first-graders in Ohio came across a gun when an employee in a concealed carry program left the firearm in an unlocked case close by her desk.

 

And nor is that a particularly rare occasion. Students have also discovered guns left on buses, and in school bathrooms, according to reports in the news.

 

 

Made in Canada: MAID: Medical Assistance in Dying

"Canada has the least safeguards of all of countries that allow it [assisted suicide]."

"It's a state-funded, state-organized, medical system providing end of life."

"What we see in Canada are rates of assisted suicide and euthanasia that are quickly bypassing Belgium and the Netherlands." 

"We need to know more — I’m concerned because MAID is not what was originally put forward . . . it’s clearly no longer an exceptional procedure."

"We’ve already had cases of mental illness being the reason people asked for it."

"Should we accept it becoming some kind of therapy for all kinds of suffering?"

Trudo Lemmens, researcher, University of Toronto

"We're teaching our youth that the needs of the vulnerable should be taken care of up to a certain point, but when those needs become too intense or burdensome, then death is the preferred option."

Catholic Register editorial

?From a disability rights perspective, there is a grave concern that, if assisted dying is made available for all persons with a health condition or impairment, regardless of whether they are close to death, a social assumption might follow ... that it is better to be dead than to live with a disability."

United Nations special rapporteurs

In this photo from late 2020, Minister of Justice David Lametti gives a thumbs up as he rises to vote in favour of a motion on Bill C-7, a bill which extended medically assisted death to Canadians without a terminal illness. Photo by The Canadian Press/Justin Tang

 

Many years ago, much earlier than Canada's enactment of legislation approving MAID -- Medical Assistance in Dying -- the world was aghast at the runaway assisted suicide/euthanasia being practised in several countries that pioneered the process, notably Belgium and the Netherlands. Most people regarded the excessive nature of the wide net of acceptance of conditions that were not life-threatening becoming eligible for assisted dying were extremely uncomfortable with the concept of dispensing with life in such a seemingly casual manner.

Years later, the plight of some people suffering from potentially lethal medical conditions wishing to end their lives and publicly campaigning for a compassionate view of their wish to have the benefit of assisted suicide, moved the majority of Canadians to agree that under certain conditions people should have the right to end their lives and thus end the agony of pain they suffered while living out the end of their severely health-compromised lives.

Since the legalization of MAID in 2016, the government of Canada has relaxed many of the original, deliberately stringent qualifications for MAID, opening access to the procedure to greater numbers of people whose conditions had formerly not qualified as those living with unrelenting pain, facing imminent death. At present the rate of medically assisted death in Canada has risen and continues to rise at a precipitous rate. As a result Canada has become a symbol internationally of how not to provide the comfort of death.

Medically assisted death was given to 10,064 Canadians in 2021, a ten-fold rise from the first year of the practise to five years on. The greater majority of that number of assisted deaths were patients with terminal illnesses, but the stats from 2021 included 219 Canadians "whose natural deaths were not reasonably foreseeable". The British medical journal The Lancet published an article recently over concerns with the assisted suicide regime in Canada.

The Canadian assisted dying regime was compared in a profile by the Associated Press, to policies enacted infamously by Nazi Germany prescribing mass euthanasia for the physically compromised and mentally ill in the population. According to researcher Tim Stanton at the University of British Columbia, Canada's assisted dying regime is "probably the biggest existential threat to disabled people since the Nazis' program in Germany in the 1930s".

The Supreme Court of Canada struck down criminal sanctions against doctor-assisted suicide on the grounds it was in violation of a constitutional guarantee of "life, liberty and security of the person". In their great collective wisdom, the right to life replaced by the right to death as a constitutional guarantee of 'life, liberty and security'. Limited initially to those Canadians whose death was "reasonably foreseeable", Canada legalized medical assistance in dying following the Court's ruling.

Last year the law was expanded to include those with a "grievous and irremediable medical condition". And a year after that expansion in March of 2021, March of 2022 will herald another extension permitting Canadians whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental condition such as depression or schizophrenia to qualify for assisted death in dying. 

A national debate over the potential of legalizing assisted suicide is to be opened in France shortly, where up to 90 percent of citizens support some liberalization of the country's "right to die" laws. In Britain earlier this year a member of the House of Lords introduced a bill to legalize assisted death for British citizens with less than six months to live, with the support of up to 75 percent of the population.

In Germany last year parliament began exploring the legalization of assisted suicide for the terminally ill, with the proviso they undergo mandatory counselling. Globally, eyes are on Canada's outcome of the relaxation of its original law on assisted medical death, where a publicized string of instances found Canadians with chronic conditions being offered death instead of medical care, including one ex-military patient suffering from PTSD.

"When the government runs the system, the right of citizens to end their own suffering can be twisted to serve the state", observed the libertarian Reason magazine. On the cusp of Canada's expansion of MAID to include patients without a terminal illness, special UN rapporteurs observed the move could place Canada in violation of any number of international agreements affirming the rights of the disabled and the elderly.

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos has insisted sufficient protections exist to prevent abuses in the system of medically assisted deaths. Photo by Blair Gable /Reuters

Inventing Brain Imbalance In Service of Pharmaceuticals

"You want to know why it took so long for the truth to come out?"

"I am afraid this has something to do with the toxic relationship between industry and academia. [Drug companies encourage MDs to prescribe often, and heavily and have] paid many academic psychiatrists to promote their products."

Dr. Joel Paris, Montreal psychiatrist

"But the main thing that has got people riled up is that we have dared to draw conclusions about anti-depressants."

"It seems the main criticism is that antidepressants work. It doesn't mater how they work. It doesn't matter that the original idea, the original theory for how they work is unproven. They work, and that's all that matters."

"[To me, it matters] Because whether they work or not depends on how we understand what they are doing. We have to consider other possible ways that they may be 'working' ... which include the fact they are drugs that change normal brain chemistry."

"[When the first SSRI, Prozac was launched in the 1980s] the pharmaceutical industry knew it couldn't market them in the same way as [benzos], so, it had to convince people that they had an underlying disease and needed o take the drugs for an underlying disease."

:If you think something is wrong with your brain and a drug is going to put it right, of course you're going to take it."

Dr.Joanna Moncrieff, consultant psychiatrist, professor of critical and social psychiatry, University College, London

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; J. Scott Applewhite-Pool/Getty Images; Yulia Reznikov/Getty Images

 

Dr.Moncieff is the co-founder of the Critical Psychiatry Network and agrees that sedatives like benzodiazepines can be useful short term in a crisis: "But I think that drugs that affect the brain, we should be cautious about". No evidence exists that such drugs reverse an underlying abnormality of the brain, but "they are doing something to the brain. And by doing that they change our normal mental states."

Dr. Moncrieff points out that specific drugs known as SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibiters that are believed to work by correcting abnormally low serotonin, a neurotransmitter helping to move messages between brain cells thought to play a role in how brains process emotions) represent a drug formulation whose efficacy is taken on trust as a tried-and-true medication for clinical depression, but that in actual fact they are not at all effective.

An international media frenzy broke out with news headlines such as "How were so many duped?" when it became all too evident that the "serotonin theory" of depression, the belief in too little of the brain chemical leading to depression was debunked. The hypothesis weathered well for decades becoming deeply entrenched throughout the psychiatric medical community, a huge assist in promoting a class of antidepressants taken by millions worldwide. 

Several months ago a major review concluded there was no support for the hypothesis that depression is caused by lowered serotonin activity or concentrations, for basically, no convincing evidence of a "chemical imbalance" exists. The paper's authors have been ridiculed and attacked, accused of succumbing to urban myths that link antidepressants to mass shootings. 

The suggestion and subsequent acceptance that a "chemical imbalance" in the serotonin theory first introduced 60 years ago seemed promising. However, said Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke University, involved in creating the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1994, the association was weak and failed to replicate. "Depressions are so remarkably heterogeneous, there can't possibly be any unitary cause", stated Professor Frances; further study "revealed just how ridiculously complicated is brain structure and function".

For their "umbrella" review published in Nature's Molecular Psychiatry, Dr. Moncrieff and her co-authors reviewed high-level studies in six major areas of research which spanned 56 years, involving tens of thousands of people. The studies involved indirect measures of serotonin activity in the knowledge that no "normal level" of serotonin exists. The investigators reviewed studies indicating indirect measures of serotonin activity; serotonin and its breakdown products in people's blood or cerebral spinal fluid comparing levels between people diagnosed with depression and those not diagnosed with depression, as healthy "controls".

 

No overall difference in levels of serotonin was found by the researchers between the two groups. Serotonin comes from tryptophan, an amino acid extracted from the diet. Healthy people on diets lacking tryptophan did not become depressed. Looking at studies of genes involved in the brain's serotonin system, researchers again found no consistent difference between depressed and healthy volunteers.

 

"I think people need to think carefully about why they are taking [SSRIs] and what they think the drug is doing for them."

"If they are taking the drug because they think it's correcting an imbalance in their brain,I would suggest that they could re-evaluate whether they need to take it", said Dr. Moncrieff.

 

According to Dr. Frances, what is often lost in the controversial conversation over chemical imbalance and depression, is that mild depressions are usually caused by life stressors which do not require medications. "Instead, they improve with time, support, reduced stress and/or psychotherapy", while severe depressions do require medication, rarely responding to anything else.

 

It is not just for depression that SSRIs are prescribed, but for social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, OCD (obsessive-cmpulsive disorder), phobias and an even longer list of complaints. Like all drugs, these carry side effects which include agitated feelings, low alcohol tolerance and loss of libido and sexual dysfunction. 

A recent analysis paints a compelling picture that depression isn't caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. But experts say this is already widely accepted and it's also true that antidepressants can be extremely beneficial to some patients — even if we don't know exactly why. (Shutterstock / Chanintorn.v)

Slowing Mental Decline in the Elderly

"There's an urgent need for safe and affordable interventions to protect cognition against decline in older adults."

"Our study showed that although cocoa extract did not affect cognition, daily multivitamin-mineral supplementation resulted in statistically significant cognitive improvement."

"This is the first evidence of cognitive benefit in a large longer-term study of multivitamin supplementation in older adults."

Laura Baker, study investigator, Wake Forest University School of Medicine 

Scientists at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in North Carolina looked at taking cocoa or multivitamin supplements over three years. They found those who got multivitamins had a slower rate of mental decline than others.

 

In recent research, part of a wider trial by Brigham and Women's Hospital where over 21,000 men and women across the United States took part in an investigation into the potential of cognitive improvement trials in the elderly, a conclusion was reached that a daily multivitamin could effectively maintain cognitive sharpness for an additional two years.

Through this research, results indicated that daily multivitamin intake for three years resulted in a significant reduction in cognitive decline, commonly seen when people age. Decline was halted by about 60 percent, equating with 1.8 years, findings that raise optimism that dementia could be prevented with the use of supplementary vitamin intake.

Experts feel the results of the research represented the first positive, large-scale, long-term study to indicate that multivitamin-mineral supplementation for older adults may answer an urgent need to preserve the function of the elderly mind. To the present, evidence on the impact of multivitamins on the brain was limited. Most such trials resulted in the impression there is little impact with regular multivitamin intake.

During the study, researchers looked into whether a daily cocoa extract supplement or alternately a daily multivitamin-mineral supplement reduces the risk of developing heart disease, stroke, cancer and other deleterious health conditions. Multivitamins taken daily will typically contain vitamins A, C, D, E and K,, along with a range of B vitamins and nutrients such as calcium, iron, magnesium and potassium.

Over 2,200 participants between ages 65 and over were enrolled and followed for a three-year period. Tests were completed over the telephone at the start of the protocol and then annually in an evaluation of memory retention and other cognitive skills. At the completion of the study, the research team estimated three years of multivitamin supplementation translated to an approximate 60 percent slowing of cognitive decline.

Benefits were seen to be relatively greater in participants with "significant" cardiovascular disease. Individuals with such a chronic cardiovascular condition already are at increased risk for cognitive impairment and decline, which makes the finding all that more significant. Dr. Baker cautioned that further studies are required in confirmation of the findings prior to making health recommendations.

"With aging, the situation can get worse. A lot of our older adults do not have adequate nutrition for a number of reasons,"

"As we get older, we are more likely to have medical conditions that can compromise micronutrient sufficiency."

"The medications that we take for these conditions can also affect micronutrient sufficiency by interfering with the body’s ability to absorb these essential nutrients from the diet."

Laura Baker, study investigator, Wake Forest University School of Medicine 

Toronto 18 Muhammad Shareef Abdelhaleem : Full Parole Denied

"I'm an intimidating individual and I'm very loud. Everyone here will testify to that. I tend to express myself vocally and vociferously."

"I'm a very loud person. I always cut people off, I vocally impose myself. These are things I have to work on."

:I hope the board does not insist or base their decision on whether for the next 30 years of my life I will ever get angry -- of course I'll get angry. It's a human thing to be angry at certain things."

"I'm being completely honest. You should appreciate the honesty."

Muhammad Shareef Abdelhaleem, 46, charged and convicted of terrorism in 2011

Muhammad Shareef Abdelhaleem, who was a key architect of the Toronto 18 terrorism plot. Photo by Postmedia files

Abdelhaleem obviously thought his 'honesty' would be disarming, would gain him a measure of respect as he addressed the panel comprised of two parole board members in his customary loud, harsh voice. A man prone to outbursts of anger, aware of that, and 'working on it'. He has been on day parole in a halfway house in Montreal for over 14 months. In 2011 he was given a life sentence with no chance to seek parole for a decade. That's the Canadian justice system's version of imprisonment for a life sentence in recognition of a crite of high treason and intent to terrorize and indulge in mass murder.

He and the other 17 arrested when he was in 2006, members of a group named the 'Toronto 18' of which he was a major conspirator, planned to detonate powerful truck bombs at the Toronto Stock Exchange, at a Canadian military base, and at Canada's spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Along with additional plans to storm Parliament and behead the prime minister. Canada's very own, home-grown Islamist terrorists. 

Before all this occurred, Abdelhaleem, the 'key architect' of the terrorism plot, was a high-paid computer engineer with a side-interest in day-trading as an investor. His commitment to Islamist jihad twinned with his passion for acquiring money. So why bomb the Toronto stock exchange, what would that have in common with a revenge jihad attack? He thought he could profit financially from the chaos that would ensue.

That was merely a secondary benefit, not his prime motivation, he assured the parole board. It was the political element that motivated him, wanting to bring the penalty of justice to those harming the interests of global Islam. He felt that after spending over a year on day parole, he should qualify for full parole to enable him to live a normal life. 

More recently, with the Russian attack on Ukraine, he felt outraged that the West was opening wide to accepting Ukrainian refugees, valuing their lives over those of Syrian refugees. Ukrainians are not Muslim, Syrians are. Another discriminatory signal that Muslim lives are worthless. His mind failed to grasp the significance of an Islamic regime having been the cause of the death of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Syria and his belief that Western democracies have the obligation to rescue Muslims from Muslim rule.

The fact that brutal sectarian violence, pitting two sects of the same faith against one another seems not to bother this man; only his perception that non-Muslim democracies have an obligation to rescue Muslims from their Muslim rulers. Managing to overlook the acceptance of refugee Afghans and Syrians that did take place, among others fleeing violence in Muslim countries. When he mentioned his anger over the issue to  his anti-violent extremism counsellors they responded "maybe they're afraid of letting in terrorists" reminding him of his own plans to commit mass violence in Canada.

When a Board member asked Abdelhaleem his thoughts regarding the potential loss of life and damage to infrastructure his terror group planned to mount had the plot succeeded, his response was somewhat less than reassuring: 

"There's no doubt that this would have been devastating to certain families should they have lost loved ones."

"Somebody must have woken up the morning of my arrest, some worker in one of those buildings, and thought, 'Wait a minute, I could have died today'. It must have scared the living bejesus out of him. I can empathize with that."

"But I don't get to the point of tears about it because at the end of the day it did not occur."

No, it did not come to fruition, but only because the terrorist plan in its wide scope and potential had been infiltrated and apprehended, not because the group hadn't intended to fully carry out their carefully planned atrocities. So does that sound like someone who fully appreciates the consequences of his intended actions? And in so doing feels the least bit of remorse? Strangely enough his parole officer and a halfway house advisor recommended his release on full parole.

 

Describing him as a 'conformist' meticulous with rules, polite and responsible. One who participates in deradicalization counselling, enrolled with the intention to begin college in the fall. Two restrictions were proposed by his parole officer; not to associate with anyone involved in crime or radicalized activity and to have no position of leadership in a spiritual or religious activity or group. The Parole Board reached their decision after several days of deep thought. 

"It is difficult to believe and disturbing to think that he would accept a role in a plot that had the potential to cause significant amounts of death and destruction simply as a means to gain acceptance of a group of individuals."

Correctional Service of Canada

The psychologist who worked with Abdelhaleem reached the professional conclusion that remorse was 'incomplete'. For his part, at the hearing, Abdelhaleem found the psychological report wanting. That the psychologist had a personal dislike for him because he tended to argue back when told he had a “parasitic” relationship with his family, who send him an allowance to help support him. "Venal and vindictive", was how the psychologist was labelled by Abdelhaleem. Neatly encapsulating precisely what his own personality obviously is.

Shareef Abdelhaleem watches as a Crown attorney questions a witness during a Toronto 18 trial in 2010. Photo by Pam Davies/File

"It was the opinion of the Board that the seriousness of your actions and their potentially devastating nature called for caution."

"The Board concludes that you will present an undue risk to society and your release will not contribute to the protection of society by facilitating your reintegration into society as a law-abiding citizen on full parole."

"After a few years of a hedonistic lifestyle including the use of alcohol, drugs and extravagant spending, you decided to reconnect with your faith [Islam]. You attended a mosque more assiduously. You eventually met radicalized people and engaged in activities that led to the current offences,"

"Several psychological risk assessments are included in your file, the most recent being from October 2020. In her report, the psychologist identifies narcissistic and obsessive-compulsive personality traits. She notes that you are vulnerable to substance abuse and have anxiety and depressive effects, but do not meet criteria for having a clear-cut problem."

"Your family members support you in your social reintegration, and you maintain employment."

"However, you are still struggling with adjustments to the community and work has to be done in developing skills to reach full autonomy. More specifically, you need to work in the areas of self-esteem, sense of belonging, fear of displeasing others, and a need for approval."

"You do not demonstrate any radical thinking on any subjects, but you appear to be sensitive to injustice in the world."

"You generally did well in incarceration and since your return to the community. You have shown your capacity to respect rules as well as your special conditions and have been able to work with your caseworkers in what appears to be an open and transparent manner. There is no doubt for the Board that you have made progress up to now."

Parole Board of Canada

 

The Success of China's "Zero-COVID" Policy

"We've been locked up in our home for more than 40 days. We are short of everything, especially food."

"There are so many difficulties, I feel like crying just by mentioning them."

"We only eat naan and congee [flatbread and porridge]. There is no milk or vegetables."

Gulnazar, resident of Ili, Xinjiang region, China

"All supermarkets and small stores where you can buy groceries are closed."

"The online shopping platforms designated by the government are also having shortages and you cannot buy stuff or receive deliveries."

Guiyang resident posted on Weibo

Millions of migrant workers in Shanghai were unable to earn any income during the months-lockdown as China pursued a zero-Covid policy. Photograph: Aly Song/Reuters

 

China, the very place where the pandemic raised its head, remains fixated on a "zero COVID" policy, no exceptions and no complaints permitted. But there have been and continue to be plaintive messages posted on social media from people desperate for food and medical care. Tens of millions of people are once again under weeks-long coronavirus lockdowns. And they're there, locked into a now-too-familiar scenario of SARS-CoV-2 punishment they can do nothing about, while a meeting of the Communist party is set to begin. 

There will be no relief for these people hit with this misfortune until that key meeting has been concluded -- if then. By orders of Communist Party leader and President of the country, Xi Jinping; "zero COVID" must be maintained and protocols upholding that goal are not to be questioned. Localized outbreaks are kept from spreading through these lockdowns at a tremendous economic and psychological toll on a long-suffering population.

This is a momentous occasion for President XI as he prepares to launch a third five-year term in office in October, irrespective of the precedent of stepping down following two terms in executive office. So at least through that meeting, the 20th National Chinese Communist Party Congress is over, lockdowns are to continue. Some faint hope is offered that post-meeting some of the sweeping COVID controls may be rescinded.

Ili prefecture in northwestern Xinjiang region is where some of the most serious reports are emanating from. One woman who gives only one name, explains that local authorities locked their apartment door from the outside, opening it only when medical workers appear to perform coronavirus tests. Neighbourhood committees in some cities deliver free groceries to those in lockdown. But this woman says the neighbourhood committee where she is locked down offers only to sell food at higher-than-normal prices and even that not frequently enough.

 

Residents stand behind barricades in a sealed-off portion of Shanghai   Aly Song/Reuters

 

Online postings in Ili speak of an inability to take their sick children to hospital. Some post of the death of elderly family members during lockdown. Widely reported on Chinese social media leading the Ili government to apologize for problems in the lockdown response while also rejecting reports as mere rumours. Four people were punished with five to ten days' detention each for "spreading rumours" about the lockdown. Residents are warned to watch their words.

The official case count in the entire population would cause joy in any other country, but not China. A mere 949 locally transmitted cases were reported nationwide on Sunday, within an immense population of 1.4 billion people. Residents in lockdown are unable to work to sustain themselves through a regular income, ending up surviving on fast-disappearing savings. President Xi projects an image of himself as a populist leader who has declared elimination of poverty central to his administration.

In Guiyang where a lockdown in parts of the city commenced on September 5, a wildlife park published a public plea for food to keep its tigers, pandas and other wild animals from starvation. In Lhasa, the capital of occupied Tibet, parts of the city began locking down a month ago.  Shanghai's earlier months-long lockdown echoes what is occurring once again in parts of China. In Shanghai, supply chains were disrupted in the wealthy city, leaving residents begging for food, pleading for ill family members to be permitted to go to hospital.

Beijing maintains China is unable to halt lockdowns since a substantial number of the population, in particular the elderly who were not given priority status, remain unvaccinated. The country's refusal to import the most effective foreign vaccines against coronavirus, relying totally on domestic vaccines that provide much less immunity explains in part its predicament. Censorship and detentions aid the government in suppressing domestic criticism of its "zero COVID" policy.

Residents line up to register to get their routine COVID-19 throat swabs at a coronavirus testing site in Beijing, Monday, Sept. 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, Rest in Peace

"When you're in your 90s, especially, anything can potentially take you."

"She didn't look as robust as she may have maybe a few years ago. But remarkably, here's a woman still carrying on a significant schedule of overseeing her government."

"I'm glad that whatever it was that took her, she was one who probably didn't suffer long and was able to die at home, surrounded by family."

"Which is what everybody hopes to achieve."

Dr.Samir Sinha, director of geriatrics Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto

"She has changed [a] bit since the pandemic and her recent mobility issues."

"Maybe it's just dawning on people now that she's an old woman, but we didn't really think of her like that. We think of her as the queen."

Robert Hardman, royal biographer

The Duke of Edinburgh was at the Queen's side for more than six decades of reign, becoming the longest-serving consort in British history in 2009   Tim Graham/PA

 

Gone. Certainly it was expected. The certainty was that her time was limited. In the past several years she had undergone a series of shocks. Psychological shocks have their deleterious impression on both mind and body. Yet she was resilient; her profession, born and bred, was that of a queen. And she was a queen like few others in our relatively modern era. She was the Queen of a vast imperialist empire. Not of her doing, but that of her predecessors. The Queen of the British Commonwealth of Nations.

 

According to actuaries, life expectancy in one of her 'colonies', the Dominion of Canada, is currently 82. Anyone who lives as long as age 90 can expect to live on average another six months. Queen Elizabeth II far outdid the most optimistic of longevities. Most commonly the fortunate die quickly of a vascular event like a heart attack or strike; they're the fortunate ones. At the other end are those who contract chronic and protracted illnesses like dementia, and in those circumstances death can take years to arrive. 

Onlookers were struck when published photographs showed the queen receiving her new prime minister, Liz Truss a mere two days before the event of her unexpected death. Though she was using a cane, her smile lit up the photograph, just as much as her frail, shrunken figure fixed the eye on an-end-of-life example of the vagaries of hanging in and hanging on. Keen observers recognized in the photograph a "blue hand", leading to speculation of the presence of peripheral vascular disease, problematical blood circulation that could progress to narrowing and blockages in blood vessels.

Queen Elizabeth II's health was slowly spirallng downward in recent years. Buckingham Palace reported her passing to have been peaceful. No statement was issued giving any specific cause of death. In April of 2021 when Prince Philip died in Windsor Castle, age 99, cause of death was officially recorded as "old-age". He too died peacefully.

His peaceful death, however, after 74 years of marriage to his queen, would have been devastating for her. He was, as she described him, her "constant strength and guide" and with his passing a void appeared that nothing and no one could hope to fill. In his absence a series of health problems developed for the queen. Although she was fully vaccinated, in February she tested positive for COVID. Initially experiencing mild cold-like symptoms she described the virus as leaving her feeling "very tired and exhausted".

She also suffered vague "episodic mobility issues" that kept her from a number of public engagements including Platinum Jubilee celebrations and the May State Opening of the British Parliament; only the third time in her 70-year reign she missed the "main ceremonial event of the parliamentary year". She stayed overnight in hospital for "preliminary investigations" in October, cancelling a royal trip to Northern Ireland.

Her distress over her oldest son-and-heir's second son's decision to leave the Royal Family to strike out on his own in the United States as a celebrity figure with his wife, estranging them from the family when both brought public attention and in some quarters admiration, in charging discrimination levelled at the Duke of Sussex's wife and their biracial child cannot have had much of a helpful effect on Queen Elizabeth. Nor the revelations of her favourite son Prince Andrew's sordid indiscretions with underage women.

JANE BARLOW//Getty Images

"She looked frail. She looked like she lost weight. She looked like her mobility was more impaired. She's not the same person as before. She's becoming frail."

"[eighty percent of people who reach age 90 have some degree of frailty], and when you have frailty, you have these inadequate responses to stressors, or noxa, in which a minor change can generate a huge change in your health -- like death."

"Sometimes people, after having a fall, pass away. A person has frailty, is managing well at home but has weight loss, weakness, balance issue, and they fall and have a hip fracture."

"We do a beautiful surgery, we replace the hip, and, after two, three days they pass away."

"It's a vicious circle -- you have low energy, so you move less."

"[But the queen didn't have signs of cognitive impairment. I think that's why she was able to reach 96 -- she had good genes [the Queen Mother lived to 101] but also she was cognitively healthy."

Dr. Manuel Montero-Odasso, geriatrician specializing in mobility and brain health