The couple, Sergine and Joel Le Moaligou, are strict vegans who chose to feed their daughter, Louise, no solid food, giving her only breast milk.

After Louise died in March 2008, a post-mortem exam showed the child weighed just 5.7 kg (12.5 pounds) when she should have weighed about 8 kg (17.5 lbs).

The cause of death was listed as a pneumonia-related illness. But the autopsy also revealed the child suffered from a severe deficiency of vitamins A and B12, which may have left her susceptible to infection.

The vitamin B12 deficiency could be linked to the mother’s eating habits, since the only source of the vitamin is meat, dairy or vitamin supplements.

The couple reportedly did not follow their doctor’s advice to take their daughter to hospital when they went for her nine-month checkup and found she was suffering from bronchitis and was losing weight.

The court has heard that the parents chose instead to treat her with cabbage poultices, mustard, camphor and clay.

Good. They should pay for what they did to their innocent child. If this case sets a precedent and sparks a debate on the issue, even better.

If adults want to be stupid, fine. It pisses me off but it’s their decision. But don’t take your stupidity out on your kids – you’ve already saddled them with your genes; no need to make it worse.

Under the portability requirement, every Canadian is entitled to full medical coverage, no matter where he or she lives, and provincial health insurance plans are supposed to be good anywhere in the country.

But that tenet is showing cracks at the Quebec-Ontario boundary. Quebec patients are turned away or pay out-of-pocket for medical services outside their home province, essentially denied portability.

[ . . . ]

And physicians inside Quebec have their own issues to contend with. Louis Godin, head of the Fédération des médecins omnipraticiens du Québec, says the government needs to resolve the problems in its home province before appeasing doctors elsewhere. Two million Quebeckers don’t have a family physician. Meanwhile, in the four faculties of medicine, 250 family-medical spots remained vacant over the past four years because doctors are paid roughly 30 per cent less than their counterparts elsewhere in the country. There’s a lack of medical infrastructure, especially along the boundary, which has resulted in a number of doctors moving to private clinics or simply picking up and leaving for other provinces.

Basically, what this means is that there are much longer waiting lists for elective procedures inside Quebec, due to a severe shortage of doctors and resources. So people go to Ontario to get health services. If they pay up-front and ask to get reimbursed by RAMQ, they’ll only get part of their money back — if they’re lucky. And many doctors in other provinces will refuse to see Quebec patients, because they’re strained enough meeting the demand from the local populace, and because of the bureaucratic roadblocks that get thrown up when they themselves try to bill RAMQ for their services.

This is an inevitable consequence of a system that makes federal promises but relies on provincial jurisdictions to carry them out. Quebec’s healthcare is a mess, and understandably, the rest of Canada doesn’t particularly want to enable or subsidize the mess.

If the Quebec government were truly serious about fixing healthcare, it would pay doctors as much as they’re getting paid in other provinces, make more spots available, and commit funds for infrastructure and services, to stem the steady tide of doctors across provincial borders. Canada already has a hard enough time hanging onto doctors who are seduced by the private salaries and perks south of the border in the US. But this inter-province competition needs to stop.

Of course, it won’t happen. Quebec will point a finger at Ottawa, at once demanding more funding, and then loudly decrying it when it’s offered as “interference” in a provincial matter. Biting the hand that feeds — nothing new for La Belle Province.

So if you’re living in Quebec and are one of the rare few with a family doc, consider yourself lucky. And if not, well, best hope you don’t get sick anytime soon.

Quebecers quickly organized large street demonstrations when the government announced it would charge taxpayers a $200-a-year health premium, then bill patients another $25 for each hospital visit.

[ . . . ]

Quebec’s user fees would have brought an estimated $500 million a year to the provincial treasury.

 The province says it now has to find another way to fill that budget shortfall; health care costs in the province are now more than $20 billion per year and are projected to grow five per cent annually.

Here’s a thought: How about we start by scrapping $20 million annual budget for the Office de la langue française?

Of course, with fifty million potential gunshot wound victims without health insurance, one would think that the Founding Fathers might have anticipated the need for a universal right to healthcare in the Constitution too, no?

The Lancet published the controversial paper by Andrew Wakefield and colleagues in 1998. British parents abandoned the vaccine in droves, leading to a resurgence of measles. Subsequent studies found no proof the vaccine is connected to autism.

Ten of the study’s 13 authors renounced the study’s conclusions, and The Lancet has previously said it should never have published the research. “We fully retract this paper from the published record,” its editors said in a statement on Tuesday.

Predictably, the Jenny McCarthy conspiracy theorists are dismissing this as a… you guessed it… conspiracy theory.

But, crackpots aside, hopefully this will finally parents who just want what’s best for their kids that getting them vaccinated against disease is the responsible thing to do.

THE swine flu scare was a “false pandemic” led by drugs companies that stood to make billions from vaccines, a leading health expert said.

Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, claimed major firms organized a “campaign of panic” to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a pandemic, UK tabloid The Sun reports.

He believes it is, “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century”, and has called for an inquiry.

Maybe Wodarg should go hang out with Jenny McCarthy. I bet they have loads in common.

This is a frequent source of frustration among friends currently in med school, many of whom would like to stay here but can’t get jobs in Montreal. This despite the fact that the province has a shortage of hundreds of doctors, and the shortage is actually worse in Montreal than it is in many outlying regions. Anyone who’s tried to find a GP lately can attest to that.

The Quebec government needs to realize that a stick-only approach only works when you can restrict people from leaving; when they have other, better options, you’d better break out the carrots.

In the meantime, if you get sick, you’ll be better off in Alberta or Ontario.

With public healthcare practically the Canadian religion, passions are undertstandably running high. Half the country is in hysterics because they’re afraid of the door being open to a two-tier system that will favour the rich, deny the poor, and turn us all into the worst Canadian nightmare: the United States. The other half of the country is decrying the decision as too soft, saying that more private healthcare is the only thing that will save us from total ruin and a third-world medical system.

As for me, I’m somewhere in between. I’ve pretty much always considered myself mostly in the public system camp, because I think that some things ought to be universally accessible regardless of ability to pay. Yes, this contradicts my position on university education, and no, I don’t think that’s hypocritical, because higher education is an investment into the future while healthcare is a basic survival tool.

On the other hand, only a fool would deny that our system is badly, badly broken. The universal system works nicely only if it’s universally good, or at the very least, universally adequate. But it falls apart if the only things universal about the system are doctor and nursing shortages, outdated equipment and mile-long waiting lists.

I’m also pragmatic enough to recognize that the ideals of universal healthcare fall apart when it’s personal. It’s all very well and good to say that everyone should get the same treatment… but when it’s my friend or family member, I want the best damn care in existence for them. And if better care exists but a law stands forbidding them to seek it out, then I would be the first to fight that law.

Unlike the Quebec Supreme Court, I don’t believe this is strictly a case of individual versus collective rights. I think it has much more to do with government incompetence and mis-management of funds and resources. The idea of universal healthcare is a good one, but we’ve messed it up royally over the years. There’s a doctor shortage because, as a monopoly, the healthcare system took them for granted, causing them to seek opportunties in the States or elsewhere. There are waiting lists because the government is so busy spending money on useless nonsense, so there’s not enough left for the healthcare system.

In short, in an ideal world, this court case shouldn’t have even been necessary in the first place, because the healthcare system would provide a good standard of care to everyone. But it’s become increasingly clear that without some private involvement to fill in the serious gaps in our system, it will collapse. a judgment forbidding it would be based on a nonexistent ideal and not on reality, which is why the Supreme Court was right to overturn it.

The hospital’s administration will ask staff to address patients using the formal French pronoun “vous’”instead of the informal “tu.”

[ . . . ]

He says staff who repeatedly ignore the new measure will face disciplinary action and could eventually be suspended without pay.

Hey, any hospital that addresses patients by a name instead of by the name of a disease is a positive development.

But as a person who frequently stumbles over her French, I’m a little sensitive to this rule in particular. I’m sure this isn’t much of an issue in Saguenay, where French is spoken by basically everyone, but I personally have a particularly hard time with the tu/vous distinction. Oh, I understand it well enough, but when I’m speaking quickly or I’m flustered, the wrong one often slips out. I blame it on my grade school French curriculum, which – ostensibly to avoid confusion – taught us to say “tu” when addressing any person in the singular second person, including our teachers. It’s hard to break the habit now and I have made some embarrassing gaffes when addressing professors or even clients too familiarly.

Maybe I’m being over-sensitive, but instituting a rule that could result in suspension seems a bit heavy-handed to me. If the lesson the hospital is trying to teach to staff is respect, maybe they could try having a little respect for their staffers. Most likely, a simple memo reminding people to use “vous” would be enough, rather than a rule. Besides, there’s a lot more to respect than pronouns, and any staff members with truly disrespectful attitudes should be disciplined regardless of what exact words they use.

If you’re not reading Imshin, you should be. She has been blogging in her typically insightful fashion lately about Shavuot and Zionism’s true meaning, and about antisemitism at Berkeley.

LGF has the photo that proves just how little the UN can be trusted in the mideast. And Meryl has some biting commentary on the latest news emerging from Israel.

In Canadian news, the election talk that seems to be dominating the airwaves. But Damian Penny and David Janes have a disgusting story of racism interfering in custody cases that proves just how dangerous these “PC” policies can be for innocent children. As for the election, Paul Jané comments on the Liberals’ transparent scheme to make ridiculous healthcare promises at the eleventh hour that they clearly have no intention of keeping. (Anyone else remember the “no more GST” promise? Remind me again why I keep voting for these guys?)

I’m in favour of the Canadian move. Yes, better birth control education is essential. But there’s got to be something wrong with taking away options for women who are raped, or people whose method of birth control doesn’t work (e.g. a condom breaking), or simply for people who are too stupid to be having kids anyway. A fifteen-year-old who can’t figure out how to use a condom should not be having a child. The medical evidence says that this pill is safe enough to be sold OTC, so the politics should recognize that and not put up unnecessary roadblocks.

So here’s my ten-second breakdown.

Healthcare: Mainly a provincial issue, but very little new money to help bail out the provinces. Instead of spending it on medicare or on, oh, important stuff like equipment, doctors and nurses, and patient care, the government’s gonna create yet another useless level of bureaucracy, this one to address “public health” (like the SARS crisis). Never mind that there are hundreds of times more people needing everyday healthcare. But it seems that there can never be enough levels of waste for the Libs.

Taxes: Breaks for small businesses and aid for venture capital financing. Both good things. Nothing much for big business (cause, of course, the Liberals can’t be seen to be getting too cozy with the devil). Oh, and a big chunk of cash to find “environmentally-friendly technologies”. I guess that’s the only way a Liberal government can fund business. Anyway the most important question is how much more of my own money will I get to keep on each paycheck. The answer? Not a whole helluvalot. Thumbs down.

National Debt: A commitment to pay it down considerably. This is good. The people don’t always see the debt as a priority, but reducing the debt means reducing interest payments, and that can only help the economy. Let’s see if the government keeps this promise. (Echoes of the “we will cancel the GST” promise sounding in anyone else’s ears?)

Defence: Peacekeeping only. Money for missions in Afghanistan and Haiti. Oh, and a throwaway gesture that says that troops don’t have to pay tax on earnings while deployed abroad. Nothing that could be perceived as Bush-cozying or war-mongering. Heaven forbid Canadian troops get planes that don’t need to be held together with duct tape!

Education: Also a provincial area. Textbooks are now deductible for students. And “learning bonds” to give minuscule amounts of money to low-income students… in about 18 years or so. That’s about it.

Stupid Liberal Wastes of Money: Refreshingly few. Of course, these are usually the small-ticket throwaways that may not have hit the headlines yet. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for a “multiculturalism fund” or a “help the CBC produce more aboriginal-related programming” fund increase. Excuse me while I roll my eyes.

Miscellany: Money for farmers hit by mad cow. Yeah, ok, that one sucked for them. And I certainly wouldn’t want to have to grow my own food, so I guess we can throw them some bones.

Overall: It’s balanced, so that’s good. It’s not excessive with a bunch of stupid spending to buy votes. So that’s also good. But not enough of the fat has been trimmed, and not enough of taxpayers’ money is being put back into taxpayers’ pockets. That about sums it up for me.

Update: Paul has a one-word summary of the budget: YAWN.

A poll conducted last month by Environics and CROP for the Centre for Research and Information on Canada shows support in Quebec for a two-tiered health care system has been steadily rising over the past three years. While only 38 per cent of Quebecers supported the concept in 2001, that figure rose to 49 per cent in 2002 and 53 per cent this year.

However, the picture in Quebec is distinctly different than in the rest of the country. The poll found 52 per cent of Canadians think governments should increase health care spending rather than allow private companies to deliver health care services to those who can afford it. Only 37 per cent favoured allowing the private sector to deliver services while 9 per cent would limit the availability of some treatments and medications.

The Gazette article is sensationalizing somewhat. People said they favoured the private system providing some services to supplement the public one. They weren’t asked outright if the rich should have better healthcare than the poor; I am sure that the results would have been drastically different if the question had been phrased that way.

But since when did Quebec ever position itself to the right of the other Canadian provinces on any issue before?

SARS has killed a 14th Canadian and infected a new cluster of Toronto hospital workers even though they were protected from head-to-toe in gowns, gloves, masks and eye shields.

[ . . . ]

“We were using what both Health Canada and the (Atlanta-based) Centers for Disease Control consider to be maximal precautions for these patients,” she said, adding it’s possible some potentially infected staff was not present at the intubations.

That raises serious questions about how the virus was spread and whether the current precautions are enough to protect health care workers.

The medical community has called for Canada to spend the $100 million necessary to research and develop a vaccine against SARS, without delay:

“I would say it would be (Prime Minister Jean) Chretien’s best legacy if he would ante up the development money that may be needed for that,” Patrick said, adding that top medical officials across the country were issuing the same appeal.

According to news reports, voices of the federal opposition, as well as Ontario premier Ernie Eves, have joined in the call. But apparently, the government is dragging its heels at approving the money.

And that really makes me wonder about our priorities. I mean, what are our tax dollars for, if not for cases like these?