Category Archives: Lifestyle (MC Archive)

Lifestyle-related columns that appeared on Jason Menard’s previous Web site, Menard Communications.

Hospitals Having a (Mad) Cow in Response

Leave a reply

By Jason Menard

The response by University Hospital to the alleged discovery that a man has presented with the human version of Mad Cow disease is almost more terrifying than the presence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the city of London itself.

Let’s see. Because brain tissue samples from the patient, who underwent brain surgery in the north-end hospital on Nov. 30, 2006, tested positive for CJD the hospital has cancelled all surgeries, turned ambulances away at the door, and put the kibosh on most medical procedures — all this because certain instruments may have been contaminated by the disease.

In total, hospital officials estimate that upwards of 1,500 people could have been exposed to the disease. Again, I stress could, because hospital officials state they are confident that they have contained the situation. At this time, they say they’re not even sure if any of the instruments are contaminated. They’re just playing it safe.

But obviously not safe enough. To be honest, the fact that this hospital has essentially been shut down by the presence of this disease makes me more frightened for the standards of quality control that exist in this environment.

When it comes to hospital equipment, the one thing that shouldn’t be scrimped on is sterilization. Unfortunately, Keystone Kop capers like this make me wonder if I should question whether that scalpel about to enter my body has received little more than a rinse and shake under running hot water. Or maybe they dipped it into that unidentifiable blue stuff that barbers use to sterilize their scissors.

Sure, I’m being flippant, but I only am because I’d hate to think that this is an issue to take seriously. Unfortunately, it is.

A few years back my father was at this very same hospital for a quadruple bypass. But if that wasn’t stressful enough, at the time we also had to be concerned about the presence of Norwalk Virus in the area. In Montreal we were regaled with stories of deadly bacteria entering the bodies of surgery patients through antiquated ventilation systems. It almost makes you wonder whether you’re safer taking your chances at home.

I’m a big believer in second chances. I’m also of the mind that everyone should be allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. That is, everyone except doctors and medical staff. Maybe that’s unfair of me. But the simple fact of the matter is that when I go into a hospital environment, chances are I’m entrusting my life to these people’s hands. I’d like to think that they’re capable.

A mistake made in a hospital can often result in dramatic consequences – for the patient. It’s not like a kid missing a spelling error on a test. Even someone who makes a poor business decision – no matter how dramatic or costly it may be — is only dealing with a bottom line. With the medical community, the bottom line they’re affecting is one that can rapidly go flat when something goes wrong.

Is it unfair to expect perfection from our medical staff? Is it wrong for me to expect that my hospitals should be a place of respite from the illnesses in the outside world, instead of being a place for me to catch the latest Superbug?

The fact that University Hospital is taking such drastic measures should assure the public that they are taking this threat – no matter how remote it may be – seriously. They are doing all they can to contain the disease.

But what I would have rather heard is simply this: nothing. I would rather have read an announcement from the hospital saying that a patient in the ward presented with CJD, but due to the rigid sanitation and care standards enacted by the hospital, any potential contamination was eliminated through the standard procedures.

I’m not naïve enough to think that bad things don’t exist in hospitals. There are some nasty diseases and bugs flying around there. But if I know that, my hope is that hospitals are aware of that fact and do everything they can to eliminate any threat that’s out there. Otherwise the ramifications can be huge.

After all, our doctors, nurses, and other medical staff aren’t restricted to the hospital. They don’t live their lives in hermetically sealed facilities only to serve us. They put in shifts, they go out with their families – and they have the potential to spread whatever nefarious illness that they’ve encountered during their normal rounds with the society at large.

There are two solutions: one, which really isn’t a solution, is quarantine; the other is obsessive care with a compulsive attention to detail. If it takes boiling each instrument in lava after each procedure, then that’s what it takes. No half-assed attempts, no cutting corners, and no mistakes.

It’s a lot to ask. But that kind of attention to detail would mean that instead of a health scare we’d be facing a health triumph. And we’d all feel a little bit better about going to the hospital.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Nothing to Cry Over

Leave a reply

By Jason Menard

Good thing that our government and its police forces are fighting the good fight and taking down those severe threats to our society – like a farmer who champions the right to sell and drink raw milk.

Thank goodness we know they care. Now I can feel safe when I go to the store. In fact, I think I’m going to go buy some legal cigarettes, high-fat foods, and copious amounts of alcohol – after all, the government’s taking care of the truly bad stuff, right?

Yes, with amazing speed and co-ordination, last week inspectors from the Ministry of Natural Resources descended upon the Durham, ON farm of Michael Schmidt, confiscating some of his equipment. But that wasn’t enough.

In protest of the Ministry’s actions, Schmidt has engaged in a hunger strike, drinking only water and the demon’s nectar – raw milk. And just recently his bus – from which he sells his organic food – was surrounded by police and public health inspectors. Of course, the little matter of no search warrant prevented them from hopping aboard, but the point was made.

So why all this crying over a little raw milk?

There is a law in Ontario that prevents the sale or gifting of raw milk. Apparently everything has to be pasteurized. The idea behind the law is that e-coli and other nefarious organisms, including salmonella, can be present in the unpasteurized product.

Funny, last time I checked raw beef and chicken is available on your grocery store shelves. My butcher still is able to peddle his trade, so why the disparity?

I’m not a raw milk proponent. Of course I’m not opposed to it. I do like the concept of pasteurization simply because I’m a little less-than-enamoured with where the milk comes from. And I still question to this day, who discovered this product? And how.

But I digress. The point is I’m allowed to make my choice to not drink raw milk. I’ve eaten raw milk cheese, though – and lived to tell the tale. I’ve eaten a Lebanese raw meat product, yet still am able to draw breath. And, most importantly, I’ve been able to sample bits and pieces of the global cuisine simply because I have the right to make my own choices.

So why should it be any different for raw milk aficionados? Currently Schmidt is able to circumvent the law by making all of his customers part-owners of his cows. Because of that they’re able to take advantage of the loophole that allows farmers to drink their own milk products – even if they’re unpasteurized.

It’s a choice and a right people should have. Our commitment to banning raw milk products is based on a shaky foundation of concern for public health when cigarettes are still able to be sold at the local variety store, alcohol is sold in government-run establishments, and high fat foods are prevalent everywhere. So is our government really looking out for our best interests in the long run? Or does the raw milk lobby not have deep enough products.

Cigarettes, alcohol, fat, sugar – and milk? Which one of these things is not like the other?

We play Russian Roulette with every meal we consume. Does everyone follow proper sanitation techniques at home when they’re preparing chicken or pork? Is it possible their meals could be contaminated by less-than-fastidious washing and disinfecting? Of course, but it’s a risk we’re willing to take.

When I go into a restaurant and order a “rare bordering on blue” steak, I know that my epicurean joy could be followed by severe gastrointestinal distress. Having worked in a grocery environment in the past, I’m pretty sure some places play fast and loose with the ol’ health regulations. In fact, if we really knew everything that went into the processing, preparation, and distribution of our foods, we’d probably all go on a permanent hunger strike.

It’s our choice. And unless our health authorities are willing to assume full responsibility for ensuring that we only consume products that are devoid of potential health risks, then they can’t play the selective enforcement game. I can’t buy raw milk without owning cattle. Funny, I can buy smokes and booze, but I don’t own shares in DuMaurier or a backyard distillery…

You want to ban raw milk? Fine. But that should be low down on the totem pole. In fact, we should be allowed to toast the banning of malignant products like cigarettes, alcohol, and saturated and trans fats with that milk first, before we’re forced to give it up.

After all, if this is truly about health – and not about lobbyists’ deep pockets – then doing the right thing should be painfully simple. Until then, the government should not just stay out of the bedrooms of Canadians, but also the refrigerators and pantries as well.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Intelligent Solutions to School Bus Safety

Leave a reply

By Jason Menard

When it comes to school bus safety, who truly needs to smarten up: the school bus designers or those who share the road with these yellow behemoths?

The question comes up again in light of the horrific accident in Huntsville, Alabama, which saw three teenaged girls killed and 30 other high schoolers injured when a school bus was involved in an accident that sent it through the guardrail of an overpass. The bus plummeted 30 feet to the ground, landing nose first.

Of course, nobody on that bus was wearing a seat belt, because as we all know most school buses aren’t outfitted with restraining devices. But would seat belts really help? Our knee-jerk reaction, cemented in the fact that the mantra of wearing a seat belt saves lives has been driven into our skulls, is yes. However, according to the Ministry of Transportation – Ontario, seat belts may in fact do more harm than good – and the buses’ design alone makes them safe for students.

School buses are designed to be compartmentalized, essentially creating little pockets of safety for each child. By installing well-anchored seats with higher backs that are filled with energy-absorbing material and placed closer together, those who have engineered the school buses have done what they can to promote safety for its occupants.

Conversely, putting restraining devices, such as seat belts, into a school bus may cause even more problems. As any parent knows, as children grow, their belt requirements change. In a school bus environment, it’s nearly impossible – and at the very least excessively impractical – to ensure that all seat belts are properly adjusted to the size and weight of a constantly changing series of seat occupants.

A poorly fitted seat belt can cause serious injuries in the event of an accident. And would that make the bus driver liable for any injuries caused by a child’s inability to properly adjust his or her restraining device? Should we expect our children to be able to handle this responsibility on their own?

Too many parents focus on the lack of a seat belt and look at that as a negligent act. They don’t look at the engineering and design aspects that have been implemented to compensate for the lack of a restraining device. In the end, save for any future adjustments and improvements to the design of the bus, it would seem that our children’s safety has been well accounted for. As hard as it may for us inundated with the importance of seat belts throughout our lives, the lack of seat belts in a school bus seems to be the right choice.

So if we can’t improve bus safety on the buses, then we have to look elsewhere for improvements. Specifically, instead of making the buses safer for the road, we have to make the road safer for the buses – and our children.

There are still times when we see people passing stopped school buses, either trying to beat the extension of the stop arm, or in complete defiance of it. There are still drivers who race through school zones at speeds well in excess of the posted speed limits. And there are still those motorists who choose to drive aggressively and erratically through our city streets.

The buses aren’t the problem. We are.

But what can be done? On a couple of occasions I’ve called police to report someone blowing past a stopped bus with its lights flashing. And while the dispatch person has been pleasant, the fact is that the police don’t have the man power to chase after every person who ignores not just the law, but basic common sense.

In fact, the greatest risk to our children doesn’t come while they’re on the bus, it comes as they’re getting off. And no belt in the world is going to protect them from that danger.

Currently there’s a national study looking at the issue of seat belts on school buses. The Ontario government has indicated that it will take the findings into consideration for the future. But chances are the status quo will be upheld.

In the end, assuring the safety of our school-aged children isn’t one that’s the domain of engineering. And no fabric strap or metal buckle will ever replace common sense as a deterrent for accidents.

Slow down. Watch for kids. And try to avoid the giant yellow vehicle in front of you. Then the whole point about seat belts becomes moot. After all, the best way to ensure the effectiveness of safety devices and design is to make sure they’re never called into use.

Inside the bus isn’t where the problem lies. Therefore, the burden falls squarely on our shoulders. If we drive safer, then maybe tragedies like the one in Huntsville can be avoided.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Writers Can Get Caught in Web

Leave a reply

By Jason Menard

Dave, Dave, Dave. You broke two of the cardinal rules of the Information Age: Don’t do anything that you’re not willing to stand behind for years to come; and just because everyone CAN blog, doesn’t mean everyone SHOULD blog.

Too often people think that a strike of the delete key is enough to erase one’s activities from the electronic world. Some think that their thoughts and actions can simply get lost in the vastness of the Internet world — unfortunately, we’ve seen time and time again that nothing is every truly gone.

Dave Burghardt, son of former Liberal MP Jack and a now-former campaign worker for Glen Pearson’s Liberal bid for the London North-Centre riding, is suffering the political fallout from blogging. And while he’s apologized for his self-professed indiscretions and ill-chosen words, the fact is that if he wasn’t going to stand behind what he wrote in the first place, he never should have committed his thoughts to ink – or cyber ink as the case may be.

Simply put, everyone and their mother can blog, but that doesn’t mean everyone should. Most people can write a sentence, but that doesn’t mean they’re qualified to write for a newspaper, does it? So why should the standard be any less on-line? There are a very few responsible bloggers who take their craft seriously. There are a number of quality reporters and opinion columnist who ascribe to the basic tenets of journalism. They provide fair and balanced reports, or informed commentary, based on facts. They avoid libelous situations and stand by their actions.

Then there are the stream-of-conscious bloggers who feel their life story is fodder for the masses. For these people, their self-inflated view that their life is of interest to all generally runs out of gas. These blogs get abandoned once the novelty – or notoriety – wears off.

But these are innocent, mindless blogs. Fluff, as you would have it. Unfortunately, there is a segment of our society who believes in the anonymity of the Internet. They believe that their effects posting – either behind their own name, or through a pseudonym — only exists in Cyberspace and can’t be traced back to their every day lives. But, as Burghardt has discovered, these things can come back to bite you – hard.

It’s a safe assumption to say that nothing is every permanently deleted on the Internet. I’m sure there are ways known to people who are smarter than I am, but for the most part it’s safe to say that anything that ventures into the World Wide Web can be retrieved for years to come. And that’s not a bad thing.

Bloggers need to treat their forum with the same respect that people who write for publications do. They need to understand that their text will have the same permanency that someone who is dealing in newsprint and ink has. In fact, in some cases, those who write on the Web have a longer reach and more permanence than those who write for local publications. While an article that exists only in print may be kept in an archive, only to be discovered when someone blows off the dust from the storage box, those pieces that appear on the Internet can be searched for by people all around the world, in real time, whenever they choose.

Articles can be copied and posted on others’ Web sites. They can be linked to or mirrored. They can be quoted, referenced, or acknowledged on literally thousands of other sites without the original author’s knowledge or permission.

So it’s clear that a simple delete of the files just won’t cut it.

Blogging is still in its infancy. And, in fact, many of those with an on-line presence who deal in the creation of opinions pieces avoid labelling themselves with the term Blogger due to its negative connotations. However, as this forum of expression continues to grow, so too will the understanding that one must stand behind each and every comment one makes.

On-line or in print, a responsible opinion writer will adhere to strict journalistic principles of truth and fact-checking. The writer should be aware of libel issues and avoid writing anything that could be considered to contravene the laws of this country. And that takes research, understanding, and knowledge. Most importantly, you have to realize that your commentary today can resonate for years to come. I am proud to say that I stand behind each and every piece I’ve written over the past decade – and I can do so in confidence because I’ve taken extreme care to write what I believe, based on facts, knowledge, and opinion.

One’s opinion may change over time – which is the natural effect of growing older. But if you’re going to venture into the world of on-line commentary, make sure that you understand its permanency. If you want to write hate literature, or any other sort of commentary that you feel may affect you negatively in the future, then be smart about it and use pencil and paper – or maybe even an Etch-a-Sketch. That way, when you erase it, it’s permanent.

If you choose to write things that you feel will cause you embarrassment in the future, resist the lure of positing on-line. After all, if you play with fire, you’re likely to get burned. Ask Dave Burghardt about that.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved

Misplaced Call for Restraint

Leave a reply

By Jason Menard

Some lawyers need to obtain a sense of perspective before they start throwing around accusations – after all, the bigger the glass house, the more shards can come crashing down. And, in the case of a St. Thomas man charged with sexually assaulting his child, this so-called lack of restraint may help to prevent similar episodes from occurring.

Bob Upsdell, the lawyer for a St. Thomas man who has been charged with sexually assaulting his own child live on the Internet – an act which allegedly was witnessed and acted upon by an undercover officer – is tossing the word restraint a little too loosely when it comes to castigating the police for releasing information about the trial.

Restraint? Restraint? Perhaps, if the claims are true, his client should have shown a little more restraint when it came to abusing his own offspring. Instead of chastising police and superciliously stating that they need to “restrain their need for validation of the work they do,” perhaps this lawyer should realize that he’s dealing with a client that allegedly should have shown more restraint in his need to validate his need for sexual gratification by fondling his own child.

When treading through filth like this, one must tread lightly. Upsdell instead has jumped in with both feet – and now those feet are lodged firmly in his mouth.

As repugnant as the charges may be, everyone is entitled to a fair trial. But the nature of this crime – allegedly willfully violating the parent/child trust for sexual gratification – is so abhorrent that the normal rules of decorum need to be thrown out. When one has seemingly shown so little regard for one’s humanity, it’s hard to take a position of moral superiority, but that’s what Upsdell has done.

Yet Upsdell is simply trying to protect the rights of his client. As any good lawyer should, he has his client’s best interests at heart. And in an attempt to ensure a fair trial, he’s well within his right to argue that police comments have the potential for tainting the jury pool. But knowing public sentiment for the crime his client has been literally seen doing, he should have come out in a less accusatory tone.

In the end, all Upsdell has created is more animosity for his client. I would think that one’s hard-pressed to find someone who sympathizes with his client’s plight. In fact, I would think the only reason that people are in agreement with the generalities of Upsdell’s argument. If all the reports are true, then it’s safe to say that no one wants to see the accused go free. As such, the general public are just as invested in making sure that all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed.

Sympathy for his client is in short supply, and appealing for that is a wasted effort. However, appearing conciliatory and co-operative will help ensure that public image only stays at the repugnant level. Actions like this only move it closer to the abhorrent category.

The fact of the matter is that you’re never going to find a virgin jury pool — and, honestly, do we really want to have a group of people who are so removed from the news and realities of the world that they are unaware of this case deciding the fate of anyone, anywhere?

All you can hope for is that a jury of this man’s peers – and thankfully that doesn’t mean a pool of other alleged sub-human child molesters – will be able to execute their responsibility with all the respect and attention it deserves. We don’t live in a vacuum, so the reality is that we have to trust that people are able to separate speculation, emotion, and hearsay from the cold, blunt facts.

The jury pool’s already been tainted by Upsdell’s client’s alleged actions. If true, he has no one to blame but himself for that. And when you’ve shown a complete disregard for the rules and regulations of our society – and, in fact, the very essence of human decency – then taking a stand based on human rights is one that’s not based on the firmest of footing.

Could the police have shown a little more restraint in releasing the evidence? Maybe. But I, for one, am happy that their actions may help to prevent actions like this in the future. Knowing that there are police acting undercover in chat rooms and watching the going’s-on may give just one person pause to reconsider his or her actions. It’s not going to solve all the problems. And if the Net becomes too unsafe, people who are of the mind to commit these atrocious crimes will simply find another venue.

But if only one child has been saved from just one incident of molestation, then I for one applaud the police’s lack of restraint. If only Upsdell’s client practiced the same standard of restraint that his lawyer expects of others.

2006© Menard Communications – Jason Menard All Rights Reserved