That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles...

Duckett's done:

 

Alberta's top health bureaucrat is leaving his position after rebuffing reporters at an emergency meeting on long ER wait times by telling them he was eating a cookie.
After more than a day of discussions, CEO Stephen Duckett and Alberta Health Services agreed to part ways.
Long emergency room waits have drawn growing criticism and sparked an outburst last week from an Edmonton member of the legislature that led to his suspension from the Tory government caucus.
In making the announcement, board chair Ken Hughes said the so called "cookie-gate" incident contributed to the decision.
Chris Eagle, currently a vice president with Alberta Health Services, is taking over as acting CEO.

Meanwhile, my editorial comment from today's addresses the potential firing of Stephen Duckett (it was written before the decision officially came down):

By the time you hear this editorial, the decision may have already been made to fire Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett.
As of late Tuesday evening, the writing seemed to be on the wall that his days as the province's top health bureaucrat were numbered.
Premier Stelmach addressed the media Tuesday and offered nothing in the way of public support for Duckett.
Stelmach referred to Duckett's now-infamous cookie comments as "offensive", but said any decision regarding Duckett's future would have to be made by the AHS board.
Although, if the government thought Duckett was doing a great job and needed to stay on, I doubt they'd stand by and let the board fire him.
So Duckett may well end up getting tossed overboard, and perhaps not undeservedly given how things have transpired under his watch.
Although, while Duckett certainly needs to be held accountable for his decisions, so, too does the government.
For one, it was the government which hired Duckett in the first place. Furthermore, it was the government which designed the system Duckett was hired to run.
What's to say the next CEO will fare any better?
At the end of the day, it's the government which is responsible for the health care system. Duckett may have much to answer for, but that shouldn't make him a scapegoat for the government.
Not only that, but in the midst of a serious situation facing Alberta hospitals, we may be on the verge of embarking on a search for someone new to oversee this massive bureacracy.
The timing is problematic to say the least.

 

Herald Column: Much of What We Fear is Not Scary at All

This week's Calgary Herald column from yours truly looks at some recent stories concerning alleged health risks, and what the scientific evidence and scientific consensus tells us:

 

....How can Canadians ensure that the responses to these issues are based on conclusive scientific evidence, as opposed to the urgings of overzealous advocacy groups, or worse, the rantings of charlatans and conspiracy theorists?
Take, for example, Canada's recent decision to add BPA to the list of toxic substances.
Recent assessments by both the European Food Safety Agency and equivalent agency for Australia and New Zealand reached the same conclusions: that the scientific evidence speaks to BPA's safety.
Furthermore, an international panel of experts convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that the evidence for BPA's alleged health risks is weak, and that it would be premature to ban BPA.
The panel reviewed the most current scientific literature, and found that "BPA is not accumulated in the body and is rapidly eliminated through urine."
There is, at least in this case, some reasonable disagreement, and certainly a need for further research. But it would seem safe to conclude that Canadians have been exposed to far more negative stories about BPA than stories on its safety. And a corresponding course of action by policy-makers has resulted.
Is there a connection between alarmist media coverage and public perception? Undoubtedly.
The problem may lie with us. A recent study from the University of California at Santa Barbara found that the advice and opinions of scientific experts is often ignored or rejected. The experts who are more trusted tend to be those presenting scary scenarios.
Maybe the news media, then, is only giving us what we want. If the mainstream media isn't going to frighten us, there's no shortage of websites that will.
You don't have to look far to find websites touting all sorts of horrible effects of water fluoridation. These conspiracy theories have been sufficiently main-streamed that anti-fluoridation forces have scored some victories, included a decision last week in Waterloo, Ont., to stop fluoridation.
The reality, though, is that the evidence overwhelmingly confirms fluoridation's safety. According to Health Canada, "evidence from all currently available studies does not support a link between exposure to fluoride in drinking water and any adverse health effects."
The Canadian Dental Association concurs: "Scientific studies have not found any credible link between water fluoridation and adverse health effects."
In fairness, much of the coverage surrounding this issue seems cognizant of this.
Why, then, does another scientific consensus seem absent in the coverage of the alleged risks of cellphones and Wi-Fi?
The Ontario NDP is pushing for government-mandated labels for cellphones warning of an alleged cancer risk. One Ontario school has banned Wi-Fi, and other schools across the country are being pressured to do so, too. In Ottawa, a Commons committee has been investigating radio-frequency radiation and its possible health effects.
Again, though, the evidence here is quite overwhelming. For example, in the U.K., the Health Protection Agency recently concluded that a year's worth of Wi-Fi exposure was equivalent to talking on a cellphone for 20 minutes.
More broadly speaking, the WHO says "no adverse health effects are expected from exposure" to wireless networks.
As for cellphones and cancer, the evidence is similarly one-sided.
As summarized by the WHO: "Recent epidemiological studies have found no convincing evidence of an increased cancer risk or any other disease with mobile phone use."
Indeed. A recent 30-year epidemiological study found that cellphone use is not associated with increases in brain cancer. A 2008 metaanalysis found "no overall increased risk of brain tumours."
And on it goes.
There are legitimate concerns to human health we need to focus on, and we need to rely on the scientific process and scientific evidence to guide us accordingly.
Yet, from the anti-vaccine movement to homeopaths and "alternative medicine," we so often are confronted by those going against the preponderance of evidence.
Perhaps, then, it is fear-mongering and pseudoscience we need to be more concerned about.

 

Cookie-Gate

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Stephen Duckett is no longer AHS CEO. More here...

 

The CEO of Alberta Health Services sure likes his cookies:

 

 

After the ensuing firestorm, Stephen Duckett decided to apologize:

 

The chief executive of Alberta Health Services apologized Saturday for his cookie comments as critics renewed calls for his dismissal.

(...)

 

Duckett apologized on his blog and in a written statement on Saturday.
His repeated cookie remarks followed a daylong meeting of about 100 medical leaders from Alberta Health Services pulled together to draft remedies to the emergency care crisis.
"The meeting made great progress," Duckett wrote on his blog. "That success has to some extent been overshadowed by my poor responses to the media afterwards, which I deeply regret and for which I apologize unreservedly."

UPDATE: My Monday editorial comment addresses this subject:

 

The problems plaguing Alberta's emergency rooms are no laughing matter, but the story has taken a very bizarre twist.

Of all the words one might associate with this controversy, "cookie" might be near the bottom of the list.
Unfortunately, though, the word "cookie" has become very relevant in this discussion, and may perhaps come to symbolize the way politicians and bureaucrats are responding to it.
Last Friday morning, Alberta Health Services CEO Stephen Duckett presided over a meeting with health care stakeholders in which the ER crisis was discussed.
One would think that there would be important questions for Mr. Duckett following such a meeting. What's going to be done to fix the problems in the system? What about the crticism of Alberta Health Services this week from Tory MLA Dr. Raj Sherman?
Instead of answering the questions, or even replying with a "no comment", Duckett instead - with a grin on his face - that he was eating his cookie.
When one reporter pointed out that Albertans are interesting in hearing from the top health bureaucrat, Duckett responded by saying again, quote "I'm interested in eating my cookie".
At a time when Albertans are hearing about people dying and suffering after waiting hours upon hours in emergency rooms, it comes across as incredibly arrogant, not to mention indifferent.
Inevtiably it is the politicians who are accountable for all of this. They designed the system Duckett was hired to run - they are obviously the ones who hired him in the first place.
If there are problems at the health superboard then those are problems for the Stelmach government. Not surprising, then, that the Premier on Friday stated that he had not lost confidence in Alberta Health Services.
It's unclear whether the Premier was aware of the cookie remarks at the time. But Albertans now are, and many of them are losing confidence - if there was still any left to lose

UPDATE #2 Well let's see: Stephen Duckett made some newsworthy remarks. Raj Sherman made some newsworthy remarks. Which of the two has been punished?

 

Maverick MLA Dr. Raj Sherman was kicked out of Alberta’s Conservative caucus Monday but vowed to continue his fight to fix the province’s “broken” health-care system.
In a closed-door meeting that lasted more than two hours, Tory MLAs voted unanimously to suspend the outspoken doctor-turned-politician, who ignited a political firestorm last week when he publicly criticized his own government for its handling of the health-care crisis.
Sherman said he is disappointed but believes Albertans will stand behind him.
“I have to stick to my guns,” he said. “We cannot wait to fix the broken health-care system. ... I believe that it can be better, simply because it must be better, because the lives of our most vulnerable — our children, our parents, our grandparents — depend on it.”
Conservative caucus whip MLA Robin Campbell said the suspension is “indefinite” but that Sherman could rejoin the Tories if he makes unspecified amends.

UPDATE: Further thoughts from me (and others) on the Tuesday politics panel on Access TV's Alberta Primetime

Herald Column: Can (and Should) Libertarians & Social Conservatives Co-Exist?

This week's Calgary Herald column from yours truly draws a parallel between the libertarian-social conservative strain within the US Tea Party movement, and the potential of a similar strain within Alberta's Wildrose Alliance:

 

...The Tea Party was originally meant as a pushback against big government, but there’s an underlying strain between libertarians and social and religious conservatives. The challenge for any such movement is to try and hold those factions together, but still remain focused on a message of limited government.
There is political risk in allowing social and religious conservatives to become the face of any such movement – especially in Canada.
If one wishes to look at how a Tea Party movement might fare here, and whether such strains might arise, perhaps Alberta’s Wildrose Alliance can provide the answer.
The party has capitalized on a growing disenchantment with the ruling Progressive Conservatives– a belief that the government has lost its way, become disconnected from the people, and lost its conservatives principles –both fiscally and socially.
Until now, there has been little strain between these two factions. That is likely due to the potent combination of dissatisfaction with the current government and the strength of Danielle Smith, herself a professed libertarian, as leader.
Smith has managed to keep the focus on the fiscal issues which appeal to all factions: the government’s deficit and reckless spending, the government’s energy policies, and the government’s lack of appetite for real health reform.
Any threat of social issues threatening a fissure has been deftly handled by Smith’s commitment to free votes and direct democracy.
However, at some point, populism must give way to principle.
One example: the recent announcement that Alberta would join other jurisdictions in demanding that Craigslist remove their “erotic services” ads.
Now, a libertarian-inclined voter might wonder why the government is harassing a private company and potentially censoring legal content. For many social conservatives, however, it was one of those cases that the government was to be applauded.
So where does the Wildrose Alliance stand?
There’s an answer of sorts on the party’s website – a news release from Heather Forsyth calling on the government to do precisely what it ended up doing.
One might then conclude that this was the party’s stance on the matter. Not necessarily. Smith said of Ms. Forsyth, “She has good arguments for the issues she cares about. Sometimes we just agree to disagree as a caucus.”
So this is a case of an MLA freely speaking out? That’s a refreshing change in Alberta politics, but it doesn’t answer the question of how Premier Danielle Smith would have responded to the Craigslist matter.
Nor does it explain the joint news release from Heather Forsyth and Rob Anderson on the recent Ontario court ruling which struck down some of Canada’s prostitution laws. Under the headline of “Wildrose Statement on Ontario Court Prostitution Ruling”, the release urged Ottawa to promptly appeal the ruling.
Religious and social conservatives undoubtedly concur. However, a libertarian might see the issue as a matter between consenting adults, not to mention the many problems prohibition has wrought.
As for this news release, Smith said that “in (the) future, such statements will be made by individual MLAs”.  Again, one is left wondering how a Wildrose government would respond.
Other social issues loom. Just recently, Forsyth was speaking out against online gambling. As for Anderson, while still a Tory, he was a staunch defender of Bill 44. These matters do arise in Alberta politics.
In lieu of official Wildrose policy, it seems as though social conservatives in the party are filling the void.
In my view, Smith’s libertarian instincts are the correct ones, and hopefully that’s where Wildrose policy eventually lands.
A message of freedom, liberty, and smaller government is also a stronger basis for electoral success, and a libertarian approach to social issues is more in keeping with that message.
Any Canadian “Tea Party” would be wise to keep that in mind, too.

 

Editorial Comment: Your Cellphone is Not Trying to Kill You

(Don't forget, my daily editorial comment airs weekday mornings at 6:12 with Bruce Kenyon and the Morning News, and again at 12:20pm with Wayne Nelson and Today So Far)
Monday's editorial comment:

It often seems to be left-wing politicians lecturing right-wing politicians about the importance of scientific evidence and the scientific consensus.

 

Unfortunately, it's politicians of all stripes who seem to fall prey to pseudoscience and fear-mongering.
Case in point: the Ontario NDP.
New Democrats in that province have failed in their attempts to force every cellphone sold in Ontario to have a warning label.
Specifically, they want consumers to be warned about an increased risk of cancer from cellphone use.
The problem for the New Democrats is that there would appear to be no such risk.
Of course, the Ontario New Democrats are not alone in cellphone cancer fearmongering. It's becoming a widespread perception.
If the media is going to continue to cover this controversy, perhaps there is an onus to at least report on what the science says.
For example, a 30-year epidemiological study published in the Journal of the Nationall Cancer Institute found that cellphone use is not associated with increases in brain cancer.
Another study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, followed more than 12,000 cell phone users from 13 countries. Again, the study found no increase in the risk of the most common types of brain tumors.
Neither of these major studies - both recently published - seem to have found their way into the news coverage of this story. On the other hand, it doesn't take much for the fear-mongers to get extensively quoted.
There are legitimate concerns to human health we need to focus on, and we need to rely on scientific evidence to determine what those are and how to respond. When we ignore the evidence, we are lost

 UPDATE: I've already linked to two major, peer-reviewed scientific studies on this matter, but I suppose something like this deserves even more.

 

Here, first of all, is an excellent analysis of the science from Dr. Michael Shermer in Scientific American:

 

...Cell phones cannot cause cancer, because they do not emit enough energy to break the molecular bonds inside cells. Some forms of electromagnetic radiation, such as x-rays, gamma rays and ultraviolet (UV) radiation, are energetic enough to break the bonds in key molecules such as DNA and thereby generate mutations that lead to cancer. Electromagnetic radiation in the form of infrared light, microwaves, television and radio signals, and AC power is too weak to break those bonds, so we don’t worry about radios, televisions, microwave ovens and power outlets causing cancer.
Where do cell phones fall on this spectrum? According to physicist Bernard Leikind in a technical article in Skeptic magazine (Vol. 15, No. 4), known carcinogens such as x-rays, gamma rays and UV rays have energies greater than 480 kilojoules per mole (kJ/mole), which is enough to break chemical bonds. Green-light photons hold 240 kJ/mole of energy, which is enough to bend (but not break) the rhodopsin molecules in our retinas that trigger our photosensitive rod cells to fire. A cell phone generates radiation of less than 0.001 kJ/mole. That is 480,000 times weaker than UV rays and 240,000 times weaker than green light!
Even making the cell phone radiation more intense just means that there are more photons of that energy, not stronger photons. Cell phone photons cannot add up to become UV photons or have their effect any more than microwave or radio-wave photons can. In fact, if the bonds holding the key mole­cules of life together could be broken at the energy levels of cell phones, there would be no life at all because the various natural sources of energy from the environment would prevent such bonds from ever forming in the first place.

Here's more published research:

 

Cellular phone use and brain tumor: a meta-analysis (Kan P, Simonsen SE, Lyon JL, Kestle JR. Journal of Neuro Oncology)  "...We found no overall increased risk of brain tumors among cellular phone users"
 

Recent Studies Show Cell Phone Use Is Not Associated With Increased Cancer Risk (Journal of the National Cancer Institute) Another reassuring piece of evidence that cellular phones do not cause cancer appears in this issue of the Journal. Researchers evaluated whether a cohort of nearly half a million cellular phone subscribers in Denmark had a higher incidence of cancer than the general population, with a particular interest in leukemia and cancers of the brain and salivary gland. The answer was a resounding no. This article comes on the heels of two case–control studies reported in December by the American Health Foundation and the National Cancer Institute, both of which also found no association between cell phone use and the risk of brain tumors.

 
Mobile phone radiation and the risk of cancer; a review: "The preponderance of published research works over several decades including some with over ten years of follow up have not demonstrated any significant increase in cancer among mobile phone users"
 
A case-control study of risk of leukaemia in relation to mobile phone use: "...This study suggests that use of mobile phones does not increase leukaemia risk"
 
Evaluation of carcinogenic effects of electromagnetic fields (EMF): "The balance of epidemiologic evidence indicates that mobile phone use of less than 10 years does not pose any increased risk of brain tumour or acoustic neuroma"
 
Electromagnetic fields (EMF): do they play a role in children's environmental health (CEH)? "Preliminary results do not seem to indicate a substantial increase in risk. There are presently no scientific data supporting the concept of a special vulnerability of children and adolescents to high-frequency EMF, even if the usual caveats (developing organisms and structures may be more vulnerable, decades of life to come) are considered"


Epidemiologic evidence on mobile phones and tumor risk: a review: "...the available data do not suggest a causal association between mobile phone use and fast-growing tumors such as malignant glioma in adults"

Cellular phones, cordless phones, and the risks of glioma and meningioma: "...In conclusion, no overall increased risk of glioma or meningioma was observed among these cellular phone users"

Mobile phones have not been found to be associated with any biological or adverse health effects , according to the UK's largest investigation into the possible health risks from mobile telephone technology.  The Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research (MTHR) Programme published its conclusions on September 12 as part of its 2007 Report. The six-year research programme, chaired by Professor Lawrie Challis, Emeritus Professor of Physics at The University of Nottingham, has found no association between short term mobile phone use and brain cancer. Studies on volunteers also showed no evidence that brain function was affected by mobile phone signals or the signals used by the emergency services (TETRA)

 

The Future of the Marijuana Debate

(Don't forget, my daily editorial comment airs weekday mornings at 6:12 with Bruce Kenyon and the Morning News, and again at 12:20pm with Wayne Nelson and Today So Far)
Friday's editorial comment:

Proposition 19 may have failed in California, but it has succeeded in showing that the debate over marijuana prohibition is far from over.
In fact, it would seem more likely that it;s a question of when and not if legalization finally occurs.
Proposition 19 would have effectively legalized and regulated marijuana in California - however, the White House made it clear that it would still remain illegal under federal law.
On Tuesday, 53.9 percent of California voters rejected Proposition 19. However, the fact that it even got on the ballot in the first place shows how far along the debate has come in the United States.
It's impossible to imagine such a thing happening 25 years ago. With polls showing over 40 percent of Americans supporting legalization, it would indicate that this is not the beginning of the end for this issue, but rather the end of the beginning.
This is good news. Prohibtion has been a costly failure, and there is no logical reason why marijuana should be illegal while alcohol and tobacco are not.
If the US is having this debate, it should make it safer for us to have this debate here, since one of the longstanding arguments was that the US would never tolerate us taking a more moderate approach on marijuana.

An Angus Reid poll earlier this year showed over 50 percent of Canadians support legalization. It's an idea whose time has come.

Meanwhile, further thoughts here on the Proposition 19 aftermath from Reason TV:

 

 

Politics Trumps Principle on Potash

Canada is open for business! Well, most of the time...

 

Ottawa has rejected a nearly US$40-billion takeover bid by BHP Billiton to buy PotashCorp.
Industry Minister Tony Clement made the decision after reviewing the blockbuster deal to see if it would be of ``net benefit'' to Canada under the Investment Canada Act.    He says the takeover offer would not benefit the country.
Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan  is the world's biggest producer of potash, a key component used in fertilizer.
BHP has attempted to woo Saskatchewan, saying that it would make the province the headquarters of its global potash operations and ensure the provincial government coffers aren't hurt by the takeover.

We spoke with Maclean's magazine national editor Andrew Coyne about this decision - you can listen via the audio player at right. As you can tell from this column, Andrew has some strong views on the subject:

 

...Someone else, then, will have to make the real argument: that foreign investment—yes, even in mining—is a good thing, something to be encouraged, not punished, in the name of, among other things, Canadian ownership. One of the principal attributes of ownership, after all, is the right to sell. It seems an odd defence of our sovereignty that would deprive Canadians of that right.
Why would they want to sell? One, if the price offered is worth at least as much as the discounted stream of future returns they might otherwise expect to earn on the shares. And two, if there is some other use to which they can put the capital thus liberated that pays at least as high a return. So to forbid the sale is not only to deprive the Canadian owners of these firms from obtaining the best price for their shares, but to deprive other Canadian companies of the new investment they might otherwise hope to receive from the proceeds.
(...)
Well yes, you may say, but surely it’s sensible to attach some conditions to the sale. To what end? It isn’t just that such undertakings are routinely violated: it’s why they are that should give us pause. The jobs and investments that last, the kind we should want, are not the ones companies yield up grudgingly, under duress, but the ones they take on willingly, because they make sense on their own terms.
Indeed, the new owners’ ability to run the operation with fewer jobs rather than more ought to be a point in their favour. The prosperity we now enjoy did not come about because employers hired more workers than they needed, but because of their ruthless determination to hire as few as they could get away with—and because by and large governments have acquiesced in this. If instead they had insisted on protecting every existing job, we would still have 80 per cent of the workforce in agriculture, as we did a century ago.
We get that when it comes to domestic owners. Why should it be any different for foreigners?

For what it's worth, here's my own editorial comment on the matter:

 

Once again, unfortunately,  politics trumps priniciple, as Ottawa has has rejected a 40-billion-dollar takeover bid by BHP Billiton to buy Potash Corp.

 

Industry Minister Tony Clement made the decision after concluding that the takeover would not offer a, quote, "net benefit" to the country. But what does that even mean?

 

It seems abundantly clear that foreign investment is a net benefit to Canada, so it's plausible to wonder whether this decision might mean the precise opposite of whatever a net benefit might happen to be.

 

A recent study (PDF) from Jack Mintz at the U of C confirmed just how important foreign investment is to our economy.

 

As Mintz says, "Rather than being hollowed out, we are hollowing out other countries."
In other words, we are a major player in the global economy, to it is critically important that we stand up for free and open international trade.
 Of course, we like to talk a good game when it comes to global markets and international trade. We're quick to scold other countries who might be tempted to throw up protectionist barriers.
 Yet here we are doing the same. When folks get wrapped up in nationalism, it seems easy to forget our principles.
Fact is, there doesn't seem to be any legitimate reason to reject this deal.  The Saskatchewan government owns the resource and would continue to own the resource.
And for all the nationalist arguments we;ve been hearing, it's worth noting that Potash Corp is 51% foreign-owned and its American CEO is based in Chicago.
We need to be sending a message to the world that we're open for business. Instead, Ottawa's decision sends a very confusing and potentially damaging signal to the rest of the world.
How disappointing.

More from Mintz here on why the Potash Corp deal should go ahead.