Body & Mind – Page 110 – Things Are Good

Malaria Vaccines Cuts Risk in Half

Malaria causes a lot of deaths every year and now researchers have made a giant leap forward by producing a vaccine that cuts the risk of the disease in half!

Malaria deaths have come down from more than a million to an estimated 780,000 a year, according to the latest report from the Roll Back Malaria partnership of the World Health Organisation. Three countries were certified malaria-free in the past four years, and nine more are preparing to move towards elimination â€“ but that is out of 108 where the disease is endemic.

Since bed nets are not always effective, and not always used as they should be â€“ there have been reports of some employed as fishing nets â€“ and drugs can become ineffective, a vaccine could massively improve children’s chances.

While researchers started work on a potential Aids vaccine with extraordinary and, as it turned out, misplaced optimism, many in the scientific community thought a malaria vaccine was a non-starter. Nobody had ever made a vaccine against a parasite-borne disease.

Via the Guardian.

What We Truly Need

Every person has a different take on what one truly needs as opposed to what they want. Over time as a culture we collectively define our needs and those needs change over time. The never-ending question is ultimately what do we need to live and what do we need to be happy.

Obviously, we support looking through the archives of Things Are Good for our tips on bringing more happiness to your life.

Over at the Bucks Blog at the New York Times this issue was recently brought.

From personal experience, I know that the shiny new toy I just had to have often ends up in a pile of things that I eventually need to sell on eBay. Iâ€™m not the only one thatâ€™s fighting this battle. Itâ€™s yet another example of why personal finance can be so complex. Because thereâ€™s no definitive list of the 100 things that every family must have, these end up being very personal decisions.

Read the full post.

UN: Canada Prevented Torture

The Afghanistan war that has been going for 10 years(!) has caused a lot of horrible things to happen to all the belligerents. The American forces have been accused of torture and other horrible actions to Afghanis, and in Canada a few years ago there was accusations that Canadian forces let people be tortured as well. Unlike the American government, the Canadian government has been found by the UN to actually stop torture form happening!

“For those arrested by Canadians, two NDS officials were allocated for further interrogation and those interrogated by them never complained about ill-treatment by NDS officials.”

Between 2009 and 2010, Canadian and British forces reportedly handed over some 2,000 detainees to Afghan authorities, according to the report, with caveats and monitoring in place to ensure they were not tortured.

The treatment of Afghan detainees became a political issue for the federal government after allegations of abuse and mistreatment first arose five years ago.

Insite Can Continue to Operate: Supreme Court

Insite is a safe injection site for drug users which has had proven health benefits for individuals and the community. Through their work Insite has been able to help many addicts stay safe and secure while consuming drugs, this is in stark contrast to doing drugs on the streets which is way more dangerous.

In the past, Insite had to defend itself against the British Columbia Supreme Court and won, and today Insite won in the Supreme Court of Canada. This is a blow to the anti-safety, anti-drug, pro-prison campaign of the ruling Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and will hopefully mark a turning point in how Canadians support drug addicts.

This is a huge victory for results-based and preventative health care and for people who are unfortunately addicted to drugs.

If Insite wasn’t allowed to operate it would prevent injection drug users from accessing the health services offered at the facility, threatening their health and their lives, the ruling said. Withdrawing the exemption would even undermine the purpose of the federal drug law, which includes public health and safety, the court said.
…

Health groups, including the Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Public Health Association, also applauded the decision.

The Supreme Court said that if the health minister, currently Leona Aglukkaq, receives applications for more exemptions, she must continue to exercise her discretion and aim to strike a balance between Charter rights and protecting public health and safety.

Remember don’t consume dangerous drugs!

Denmark ‘Fat Tax’ Starts Saturday

Denmark is moving ahead with a tax on products that make people fat. Denmark already has the lost percentage of obese people in Europe and even they are concerned with the increasing girth of their people. This new ‘fat tax’ will hopefully keep the country’s slim people slim and inspire other countries to institute a similar tax.

Starting from this Saturday, Danes will pay an extra 30p on each pack of butter, 8p on a pack of crisps, and an extra 13p on a pound of mince, as a result of the tax.
The tax is expected to raise about 2.2bn Danish Krone (Â£140m), and cut consumption of saturated fat by close to 10pc, and butter consumption by 15pc.
“It’s the first ever fat-tax,” said Mike Rayner, Director of Oxford University’s Health Promotion Research Group, who has long campaigned for taxes on unhealthy foods.
“It’s very interesting. We haven’t had any practical examples before. Now we will be able to see the effects for real.” The tax will be levied at 2.5 per Kg of saturated fat and will be levied at the point of sale from wholesalers to retailers.

Read the rest of the article.