The impossibility of objectivity

Media Magazine

Opinion

Feroza Master thought objectivity was obtainable – that is, until she went to study in England

Same-sex marriage. Gay bishops. Decline of your own religion.
These are topics that may make some journalists salivate at the thought of instant frontpage bylines. For those who are religious, or for those who have opinions for or against the issue, it strikes them in the gut. People carry a lifetime of experiences that shape their thoughts. Each individual also has opinions on many controversial issues. Some people have a religion. Others do not. But everyone has morals. And whether we like it or not, journalists have to report on these issues. The question is, how do
we do this to the best of our ability?
I think reporters in this country are too focused on objectivity and balance. All you end up seeing in the papers is what each side says about an issue. And they ignore what the citizen says. For example, in an article published on July 21 by the National Post
about the same-sex marriage bill becoming law, it began with the bill being signed. Then they report on politicians who support the law, and those who are against it, and if the law would ever be repealed.
Then it ends with statistics on what the Canadian population thinks. According to the article: “A public opinion poll earlier this week suggested 55 per cent of Canadians would not want the law repealed.” But there are no opinions from Canadians themselves. If a
reporter – not necessarily the author of the article in question – were to ask him or herself what they thought of the issue – if they were for or against it – and then asked themselves their reasons, wouldn’t they realize that other people in the country were
going through the same thought process? Would the citizen want to see that reflected in the media? Why wasn’t it reported?
I didn’t always think this way.
Based on my education in Canada, I was taught that journalists believe in objectivity and balance. They believe they can erase their opinions from their articles and write about issues without any personal opinion ever touching the black-and-white page, or
hitting the airwaves.
My professors always lectured that objectivity was something that can be attainable. Balance, they argued, is important because we must report all sides of the story in order to give an accurate account of events. In fact, all journalists should strive to achieve objectivity and balance in every story. I took these lessons into the workplace. Whenever I sat down to write my script for a TV story, I would ask myself:
“Am I objective? Have I balanced my story?”
By doing so I thought I was doing my job. It wasn’t until many months later that my way of thinking was blown out of the water. I wasn’t satisfied with staying in Canada. I felt as a journalist I should spread my wings and experience other parts of the world. I went to London to get my masters degree in international journalism.
A professor with spiky white hair and square glasses taught one of my first classes. He grabbed a red dry-erase marker and scrawled the word “objectivity” on the centre of the whiteboard. He underlined it several times and asked us, “What does
this word mean to you?”
“To be impartial,” one student replied.
“To represent all sides of the story,” another answered.
I raised my hand and said, “It’s what a journalist should ultimately strive to achieve in
every story.”
My professor was silent. He looked about over the class and shook his head.
He replied, “Every year I ask this. Every year I get the same answers from you. It doesn’t matter where you are from.You want the answer? Let me tell you the ones you gave me were wrong, wrong and wrong.”
My stomach did a bit of a back flip. I felt like my world was caving in around me. How is objectivity not important to a journalist?
The professor continued, “Objectivity in journalism is rubbish. It is impossible to attain. And add to the list the concept of balance.”
I was stunned. I looked about the room. My classmates were also surprised. Four years of journalism school in Canada told me that objectivity is the one thing…the THING to achieve. And now all of a sudden it means nothing? And balance -representing all sides of the story – that is also unattainable? Then what does a journalist do? I was
gobsmacked. But as my professor began to explain his argument, it made sense.
He said many journalists have morals and opinions. Some also follow a religion. Morals, opinions and the teachings of a religion have been accumulated over a lifetime. These experiences form the way a person thinks. Like it or not, a person has
an opinion on a subject. It is impossible not to have opinions on anything.And no one can just push all thought aside. Thoughts and opinions are a part of a person’s mindset. Religion and morality are even more ingrained into the psyche. They form what a person is. How can someone just push aside everything they believe in and dealt with in life and suddenly become objective? In other words, a blank mind full of fact and no opinion with little to write but what various people have to say about an issue. Sure, some of you
reading this would think it is possible. Some of you may think, “Hey, kid. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’ve been doing that for years!”
You may think you’re an expert at it. I don’t believe you. Just because a reporter does not clearly state their opinion in an article, it will still always be there. It’s in the way you structure your article. Every step you take in the information gathering process is subjective. You decide whom to interview. You decide where their quotes will appear in your story. You decide where you get your facts. And like it or not, your opinion of the story or issue you are writing about will effect the way you write your story.You decide who appears first in the story. You choose the quotes, the facts, and the angle.
It’s a subjective process.
So objectivity is impossible.
As for balance, how do you know there are only two or three sides to the story? There could be multiple sides. One cannot go and get all sides of a story. And, if a reporter were to give equal weight to two sides of a story, what if one side does not have more merit than the other? It would not be truthful to give both equal weight. For example, if a majority of scientists believe the next flu pandemic is inevitable, it would not be fair to report scientists as being equally split on the issue.
Throughout my undergraduate degree, I was fascinated with the population decline and possible extinction of my religion, Zoroastrianism* in India and how it affected members of the religion around the world. I wrote many stories about it. I would push
aside my own opinions and report the facts -what the Indian census said, what UNESCO says, what Zoroastrians themselves say. Some believed the decline was real. Others did not. I reported the opinions of both sides and decided to let the readers decide for
themselves what to believe. But after my professor in London made his point, I decided to write about the same topic again. Before I sat down to write anything, I asked myself what I thought of the issue. I found out that I believe the decline is real and I think it
is sad. Then I looked back on all my other articles from undergrad. I realized that though I had not written down my opinions in my articles, the way I structured the story revealed my opinion. I would start out with a quote from a Zoroastrian who was upset about the decline. Then I would give the Indian census numbers.Then I would have quotes from UNESCO and priests. And then for the second half of the story I had quotes from people who thought the decline was not real. I looked at newspapers and asked myself why other journalists wrote their articles in the order that they did. Was it the inverted pyramid that made them write it the way they did, or was it what their subconscious believed was most important?
Before writing another article, I told myself, “Okay, this is what I believe. Now I am aware of it. Let me look back at what information I have gathered.”
My professor also said that a journalist should try to attain fairness. Not fairness to sources, but to the citizen. A journalist must adhere to the facts and make sure the citizen understands them. If it’s true that most scientists believe a pandemic is inevitable, then report that.
As for my article about Zoroastrianism, I thought the way I could be fair is to look at the issue of why some people do not believe the decline is real. I dug a little deeper. I discovered that the census numbers were not that reliable and a lot of Zoroastrians leave
India for other countries. I then looked at the census of those countries. I discovered while there is a slight population decline, most people have just moved away from India.
Through this experience, I discovered that the concept of fairness lets us get to the ultimate goal: to know the facts, accurately report them and verify them. To do this,my professor said the best journalist is the one who acknowledges their opinions, their
morals, their ethics and their religion. Before you begin working on a story, you have to ask yourself where you stand on all the issues. You have to ask yourself whether you agree or disagree with what your interviewees are saying. You have to know your opinions on issues and why you think the way you do. Only then can you be aware of how your opinions could shape your story. And then when you are fully aware of your own thoughts, look at the facts. Ask yourself what the citizen would want to know. Only then can a person attack a story that hits close to home.

* Zoroastrianism is an ancient Iranian faith that was
the religion of the Persian Empire until the Arab
Invasion of 660 A.D.
Zoroastrians are mostly found in Iran and India.

S

Copyright 2006 Media Magazine, a publication of the Canadian Association of Journalists

For pain relief, spray on some Mary Jane

The London Globe and Metrovox.co.uk

HE WAS TOO young to be on his deathbed. The 35-year-old man had smoked three joints of cannabis a day for more than 10 years. He had lung cancer and he could not breathe on his own.

“By the time I got him, it was too late,” says Dr Onn Min Kon, a lung cancer specialist at the Chest and Allergy Clinic at St. Mary’s Hospital, London.

The man died within three months. Granted, 80 per cent of Dr Kon’s patients will die within a year of coming to him. But most of them are in their 50s or 60s and have smoked tobacco all their lives. However, Dr Kon is seeing five to six young people a year with lung disease caused by smoking marijuana.

“This should not be happening,” Dr Kon says. “I am seeing young people with lungs that look like they’ve smoked 40 years. There are big holes in them.”

Its destructive effect on the lungs is caused by the way cannabis is inhaled. Unlike cigarettes, a person has to inhale one-third more smoke than tobacco to get high. And to get the full effect of the drug, a person has to hold the smoke in their mouth four times longer than tobacco.

It’s that high and state of euphoria that gives MS and cancer patients pain relief. Patients with the degenerative nervous system disease MS struggle with involuntary and painful muscle spasms. The pain is sometimes too strong for narcotics to soothe. Like cancer sufferers, MS patients reach for marijuana.

But why do people with cancer and other diseases reach for a drug that is killing them?

With a special licence from the British Government, the drug company GW Pharmaceuticals has created a drug called a “cannabis derivative” called Sativex. It’s sprayed in the mouth and contains the active ingredient in marijuana – THC.

“This spray is better than smoking,” says GW Pharmaceutical spokesman Mark Rogerson. “Smoking kills you. As far as we’re concerned it’s not an acceptable delivery mechanism for a medicine. And you’re rolling it up with other substances such as tobacco and setting fire to it. So you’re destroying at lot of material in the process of burning it.”

The company has secret greenhouses hidden in the English countryside where they grow thousands of marijuana plants. They then extract the THC to create Sativex.

In a clinical trial run by GW Pharmaceuticals, the company examined 177 patients with severe cancer pain. These patients were in the advanced stages of cancer and strong narcotics such as morphine no longer helped. GW Pharmaceuticals says 40 per cent of patients using Sativex showed more than 30 per cent improvement in pain.

But UK regulators are sceptical. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said they wanted more evidence about the benefits of the drug before it grants approval for it to be distributed in the country. The MHRA says there are no problems with the drug’s quality or safety. It is preventing approval solely over the issue about the drug’s efficacy. It says it’s uncertain as to how the drug helps decrease the severity of muscle spasms in MS patients. Now MHRA wants GW Pharmaceuticals to do another study. The company is seeking a hearing at the Medicines Commission, the senior advisory body to the MHRA.

If GW Pharmaceuticals wins the case this summer, Sativex will immediately be granted a product licence in the UK. In the meantime, the drug has already passed the first approval phase in Canada and could be on the market there within six months.

GW Pharmaceuticals don’t blame the MHRA for their scepticism. Previous trials of similar sprays have been disappointing. Dr John Zajicek of the UK MS Research Group is a co-author of a 2003 study that examined how patients with MS react to cannabis in the form of a liquid spray. While Zajicek’s spray contained a high amount of THC, there was only a small decrease in pain. Zajicek concluded that smoking the drug is the fastest way for THC to enter the bloodstream. GW Pharmaceuticals says Sativex is more effective than previous sprays because it has a different chemical composition.

Cannabis remains an illegal drug, although it was recently re-classified as a Class “C” drug. That means the maximum penalty for possession is two years in jail – quite a hefty sentence for someone smoking a drug for medicinal purposes.

Dr Kon would welcome a spray. He is pleased with GW Pharmaceuticals’ results, but remains sceptical.

“What I don’t want to see in 40 years time is a bunch of breathless 20 and 30 years, having not looked at this question properly. That’s the nightmare scenario: people think smoking pot is completely fine without knowing the side effects.”

Copyright 2005 City University London

A challenge greater than apartheid

The London Globe and Metrovox.co.uk

A 77-YEAR-OLD man stands tall behind the podium at Chatham House in London, his hair untouched by grey. He looks out at the packed room. His serious deep brown eyes hidden behind his black wire-framed glasses suddenly turn sad and teary. There is one thing that stands in his way of a sense of peace.

“AIDS has struck down two members of our family – two of our beloved children. There are no ways to convey the pain of watching your child lose their life,” he says.

This is no easy confession for Chief Mangosuthu Gatysha Buthelezi. The South African home affairs minister is a prominent figure in South African politics. As President of the Inkatha Freedom Party, he pushed for the end of apartheid a decade ago. He is about to start a new fight – eliminating the stigma associated with HIV/Aids.

There is a culture of silence around the disease in South Africa. A prejudice exists that only poor people get it. The government denied the existence of Aids for years, only recently admitting it was a problem. President Mbeki has been slow to accept its prevalence. Former president Nelson Mandela admitted last year that his son died of Aids. Now other politicians, including Buthelezi, are trying to break the silence surrounding the disease by exposing Aids deaths in their own families

“We live in a time of great adversity,” Buthelezi said. “One in 10 South Africans is infected by HIV/Aids. That means one in 10 people who work in your office or sit next to you in a taxi or your Sunday church service have HIV/Aids.”

He sighs when he says, “We face a challenge ever greater than apartheid.”

Buthelezi says HIV/Aids thrives on a cycle of poverty. Those who are poor cannot afford antiretroviral drugs – medicine that can slow the progression of the disease. Parents die young, leaving orphans to grow up on their own.

“It has created brand new levels of awfulness. Child-headed households. Terminally ill parents who cannot perform their daily tasks at home. We have funerals every weekend,” Buthelezi said.

By slowly eating away at its people, the disease threatens the economy. “HIV/Aids is depleting our workforce by thousands, frightening away foreign investment,” Buthelezi said.

Medecins Sans Frontières (MSF), an organisation committed to improving the health of people around the world which also works in South Africa, says stigma has caused the government to act slowly.

This is because Aids targets the poorest and most marginalised people such as prostitutes, drug addicts, children born with HIV and children who lost their parents to Aids.“These people are at a compromised level of access to healthcare and are perhaps at the bottom of the list of people who are receiving government support,” says Nathan Ford of MSF.

Ford works for MSF’s Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines, which pushes drug companies and governments to provide more Western medicines for those in developing countries.

He says the problem is bigger than stigma. He wants the governments of the developed and developing world to force pharmaceutical companies to lower the price of antiretroviral drugs – essential medicines to the fight against Aids.

Antiretroviral drugs are the main treatment for HIV. It’s a cocktail – a mixture of three drugs – usually two drugs from the nucleoside family and one drug from the non-nucleoside family. Patients take more than one drug at a time in order to keep their system from getting resistant to it too quickly. The treatment can keep a person from becoming ill for years at a time.

However, since millions of people in Africa have HIV, pharmaceutical companies have to try and meet the corresponding demand for pills. This business could also be very lucrative for them. In order to keep the money coming in, they have to make sure no other company can replicate their drug. This is done through patents and other forms of intellectual property rights.These are a thorn in the side of the fight against HIV/Aids. Patents give the pharmaceutical company the right to prevent other companies from selling the same drug for 20 years from the filing date of the patent application. This allows the pharmaceutical company a monopoly over the drug, charging as much money as it wants for it.But developing countries can’t wait 20 years for a patent to expire and prices to come down. South Africa took 39 pharmaceutical companies to court in 2001 over the right to buy and use generic drugs in the country.

South Africa has 5.5 million people with HIV/Aids. About 500,000 urgently need antiretroviral drugs.Former President Nelson Mandela passed a bill in 1997 that allows the health minister to import generic versions of patented drugs. These are usually bought from companies in India, Thailand or Brazil. Drug companies argued that this violates their patent, which allows drug companies to have a monopoly on the drug formula for 20 years after the drug is made.

HIV/Aids affects some of the poorest people in developing nations. Most make less than $1 a day. Antiretroviral drugs cost as much as $1,000 a month.South Africa eventually won the case. During the trial, the pharmaceutical company Merck reduced the price of one of its Aids drugs by 90 per cent, and another by 50 per cent. GlaxoSmithKline also slashed prices by 90 per cent, to encourage Africans to buy their drugs instead of generic ones produced elsewhere.“Unfortunately the debate around intellectual property rights thatdetermine what medicines a country can and can’t buy is still a verysignificant debate and for a long time to come,” Ford says.

“MSF and others will have to keep fighting pharmaceutical companies,the World Trade Organisation, and some powerful Western governments –particularly the US – to ensure that African governments canpurchase the most affordable medicines they need which right now.”

Developing countries can only afford to buy generic drugs. So,pharmaceutical companies use “voluntary licensing”, where they allowAfrican companies to make generic versions of antiretroviral drugs.This way the pharmaceutical companies get to keep their intellectual propertyrights.

GlaxoSmithKline disagrees with MSF that pharmaceuticalcompanies only act in their own interest when it comes to fightingAids. “We have a good record in this area,” says GlaxoSmithKline spokesman David Mawdsley.

“We’ve done four or five licensing agreements withgeneric companies. We give the voluntary license to generic producersin Sub-Saharan Africa which is the poorest region. We see this as apart of the solution.”

He says that GlaxoSmithKline always tries to keep their drug prices low.“We sell our key drugs for HIV at not-for-profit prices in the verypoorest areas of the world already” he says, adding that genericsaren’t always the cheapest way to go.

“Drug companies aren’t to blame. No one is to blame. What we’re trying to do is break down the stigma,” Buthelezi says. Ford says that while pharmaceutical companies may be allowing the production of generic drugs, they are not doing anything to produce the new drugs fast enough.

More than two million children live with Aids in Africa. Because of costs and doses for children, parents end up cutting an antiretroviral drug in half.

“You can’t break the pill in two and know that half of that pill is going to contain exactly half of theactive ingredient that you need,” Ford says. “It might contain muchmore of those elements that lead to severe side effects.”

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is concerned with preventing thetransmission of Aids from an infected pregnant mother to her child. They say 15 to 30per cent of pregnant women with HIV will pass on the disease to theirbabies. It is also estimated that another 10 to 20 per cent will pass it on through breast milk.

The WHO’s guidelines recommend using Boehringer Ingelheim’s drugViramune (nevirapine). It’s been used for this purpose since 1996. BIhas donated the drug to 57 developing countries.

An American NationalInstitute of Health study recently found that the drug can curb transmission of HIV from mother to child.So, while drug companies can be criticized for not providinggeneric drugs, thereis also the issue of stigma.

“Aids is not just a medical problem, it’s an economic problem, it’s asocial problem, and it’s a problem of stigmatisation,”Ford says. “And all of these issues need to be addressed.”

Buthelezi agrees. “We have to treat every individual like our own family members and tear down the walls of silence.”

Copyright 2005 City University London

Long-awaited snow fulfils many wishes

Calgary Herald

Early Edition, Page B1

After wishing for a white Christmas that never came, winter-loving Calgarians are treating last night’s snowfall as a belated present. While the winter-haters broke out their shovels and began clearing driveways and sidewalks, others slipped out of their houses to the parks, the shops and the ski hills. In the city’s southeast, on a snowy toboggan run by Midnapore Lake, Graham Brawner and his five-year old son, Zachary, rode a large red plastic sled. His three-year-old daughter, Megan, and wife, Laurelle, stood to the side watching as the boys hurtled down the hill, their laughter resonating through the area.

Laurelle Brawner said Saturday night’s snowfall was reason to cheer.

“We were watching it come down and the first thing that Zacky said is, ‘Yay! We can go sledding,’ ” she said. “That’s what winter in Calgary is all about: When we get snow, we go tobogganing.”

The Brawners weren’t alone.

Dawn Young smiled as she watched her husband, Darren Grey, and five-year-old stepdaughter, Tierra Visser-Grey, slide down the hill on a new sled. Halfway down, Grey tumbled off and landed in the snow, laughing. His daughter laughed at him when the sled came to a halt.

“That was funny,” she said.

Her stepmother smiled.

“She loves winter. . . . She got a new (sled) for Christmas, so we’re trying it out,” Young said.

Away from the hill, Erica Ladouceur, her two daughters and a friend skated around the lake’s outdoor rink.

“It just a beautiful day and sunny. It’s just too nice to be sitting indoors,” Ladouceur said.

“It seemed like a lot of snow at first, but then when we went outside to shovel the sidewalk, it was so nice. I had them turn off the TV and everybody got dressed and here we are.”

But her daughter, Vanessa, wasn’t fully pleased.

“We think the skating rink could be a little more slippery, but it’s still good,” the 11-year-old said.

Skates and toboggans aside, the snow is also calling skiers to the Rocky Mountains.

Since the mountains have had snow for the past few days, many city folk were out skiing, said John Shea, general manager of Lake Louise. About 5,000 people were on the hill Saturday.

“We got the best Christmas gift ever. We got 30 centimetres of snowfall over the past three days,” said Shea. “There’s been some really good skiing. We have some good fresh powder.”

“Mother Nature has given us a good amount of snowfall here,” Shea said.

Now with the Calgary finally being blanketed, he said even more will be showing up at the ski resort.

“We have snow in the city, we have people going, ‘Ooo, we have snow,’ ” he said. “I think people are now keen to get out and enjoy the wonderful opportunities in the mountains and ski. It’s awesome.”

It was so much snow after a long winter drought that ski and snowboarding shops were overflowing with customers Sunday.

“The phone’s been absolutely ringing off the hook,” said Adam Woods, SportChek Avenida’s customer service manager. “We’ve had a whole bunch of customers as soon as we opened the doors — mostly for ski tune(-up)s. Our service shop is really busy this morning.”

Ski Cellar Snowboard on 17th Avenue S.W. was swarmed with customers after it opened at noon.

Weekends at the shop are normally busy, but Sunday saw more customers than usual.

“Snow definitely sparks more interest and just gets people thinking winter,” said manager Peter Lane. “Snow at the best of times or the worst of times always brings out people.”

More snow is expected to hit the Rockies on Tuesday. But in Calgary, snow stopped Sunday, with none predicted for the rest of the week. Today and the next four days will be sunny with a few clouds. The mercury will drop to -16 C and reach a high of -4 C.

Copyright 2002 CanWest Global

Portable ultrasound is stethoscope’s companion

Calgary Herald

Page C5

The first thing that pops into most people’s minds when they hear the word, “ultrasound,” is seeing their unborn child on a monochrome screen. But ultrasound is now much more.Thanks to companies like SonoSite Inc, General Electric, Philips and others, doctors can use a hand-held, portable, ultrasound device to take a quick look at a patient’s heart and other internal organs.

The devices, which weigh up to 4.5 kilograms, are gaining popularity around the world.

The main unit consists of a processor with a colour screen. Like conventional ultrasounds, each unit has a cord-like probe called a transducer. After applying a gel-like substance to a patient’s skin, the end of the transducer, which is like a ball, is rolled around the patient. The transducer sends signals to the unit, which then converts them into the image which appears on the screen. Most models have two modes: an image mode and colour doppler, a superimposition over organs that highlights the image so doctors can identify trouble spots.

“What we’re trying to do is give physicians a set of eyes to augment their ears,” said Patrick Martin, director of global cardiovascular medicine for SonoSite.

Foothills Hospital has one of SonoSite’s first models — called FAST — in its emergency room. It’s used on trauma patients to detect internal bleeding.

“We’re very early on in I think a major change in how we examine patients,” said Dr. Andy Kirkpatrick, who pioneered the usage of hand-held devices in trauma rooms while working at Vancouver General Hospital about two years ago.

He now works as a staff trauma surgeon at Foothills Hospital in Calgary’s northwest.

Kirkpatrick and Dr. John Kortbeek, director of trauma services for the Calgary Health Region, said the ultrasound is really handy for detecting internal bleeding in unstable patients because it’s less risky than the diagnostic peritoneal lavage (DPL). That test involves sticking a catheter — a needle, wire kit, and tube — into the abdomen. Fluid is pumped into it. If blood or other fluids and solids come out, doctors know if an organ or the bowel has been punctured.

Since internal bleeding appears 10 minutes after injury, sometimes doctors don’t get an accurate read from the test.

In contrast, the ultrasound is not invasive.

“We can repeat it if we’re not happy with the patient’s progress and it’s risk free,” said Kortbeek.

The device’s size is also a benefit. Since a trauma patient has as many as seven doctors and nurses around their bed, it’s too crowded to wheel in a regular-sized ultrasound machine.

“With this device, you can get in there at the same time and scan for internal bleeding,” said Kirkpatrick. “If somebody has large amounts of internal bleeding, you can detect it in seconds.”

Kirkpatrick emphasized that the best test for internal bleeding is a computed tomography imaging (CT/CAT scan). However, he said patients have to be wheeled down the hall to a different room and placed into the scanner. But patients who are bleeding internally suffer from shock and are difficult to move. It’s usually used for stable patients.

“If patients present shock because they’re bleeding to death, then we need to find out very quickly where they’re bleeding,” said Kortbeek.

He also said that it gives a better look at the heart in order to see if blood or fluid is collecting around it.

Dr. John Gorcsan at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Echocardiography Laboratories, once detected a similar problem with the SonoSite.

“A patient was not suspected to have fluid around a sack of the heart, and I did the ultrasound at the bedside and it was. . . crushing it in a life-threatening way,” the American expert in cardiac health and echocardiography said.

The patient was automatically wheeled to the operating room. He arrested in the elevator, but was resuscitated.

“To order an echocardiogram and send the patient to the lab, you were lucky if it would get done the same day, usually a few hours later,” Gorcsan explained. “(The patient) probably would have arrested on the floor if we had waited for the full tests.”

Gorcsan has been using the SonoSite machines in his rounds and clinics for two and a half years. He is currently doing a study on the effectiveness of the machines, and said so far he’s found the ultrasound changes his plans for the patient over 50 per cent of the time.

“I’d order a different test or I’d cancel a test,” said Gorcsan.

However, while Gorcsan said the device has a good imaging system, the colour doppler mode isn’t as good as the bigger machines.

“So, I think that there’s the ability to really miss some major problems with the doppler, so I don’t trust (the doppler) in other words,” he said.

Gorcsan also sends his patients for further testing if he finds any medical problems.

Kirkpatrick, who uses an older model than Gorcsan’s, is equally cautious.

“This machine doesn’t have good video capture, it doesn’t have strong batteries. It’s not a perfect machine, (but) it’s still incredibly useful.”

It’s so useful that it may become the stethoscope’s new friend.

Dr. Kwan Chan, director of the echocardiography lab at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, has tested a few devices. They are now trying out a Philips model.

“Although it’s more handy, it’s also quite heavy. . . . At the end of the day, your shoulder (hurts),” he said. “It’s portable, but it’s not as small as the stethoscope.”

He said the main advantage of the ultrasound is doctors can see the heart and other organs to identify problems instead of only hearing evidence of them through a stethoscope.

But Kirkpatrick said the two instruments work in tandem.

“It has the potential to augment in a tremendous way, the stethoscope,” Kirkpatrick said. “The ultrasound is just another means of extending the physical senses.”

But a place where both the stethoscope and ultrasound fail is in the obese. Fat acts as an insulator and would muffle sounds through a stethoscope and make a blurry picture on an ultrasound screen, Kirkpatrick said.

But General Electric spokesman, Jeff Peiffer, said the stethoscope could become a museum piece.

“I think ultrasound will ultimately replace the stethoscope,” he said, explaining GE is trying to shrink its LOGIQ Book so it’s more convenient for doctors to carry.

“That’s something we’ve all had a passion to achieve for the past few decades. It could be a wearable device every physician will carry around,” he said.

Chan thinks the portable devices would work well in rural areas, where access to ultrasound and echocardiograms is limited.

But Gorcsan thinks the devices will also find a home in urban centres.

“I think there’s a definite future. One of the reasons that it hasn’t gained widespread acceptance is because it clearly does not replace the big machine,” he said.

But Patrick Jarvis, spokesman for General Electric, said in the end it all boils down to what benefits patient care.

“The reality is technology, when it has very practical applications — that is it helps a physician do his or her job better — it improves patient outcome. If it does some of those things, then it becomes embraced,” Jarvis said. “People were saying this new-fangled CD would never happen. It took a number of years to happen.”

As for the stethoscope, Dr. Bob Burns, registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta said it’s up to fate.

“The stethoscope has stood the test of time. It’s been around for years,” said Burns. “Whether it’d be replaced by existing technology, who knows? I guess time will tell.”

Copyright 2002 CanWest Global

Companies aim to bring ‘dead’ cellphone to life

The Calgary Herald

Page B9

Riley Haugan hasn’t had much luck with cellphones. After his first one fell into a sink at a Calgary bar, the second plummeted to its demise in a toilet bowl. “They’re sitting in my room in my drawer,” the 19-year-old says with a smile. “They’re useless.”Haugan’s friend, Kent Finkbiner, 19, has gone through two cellphones: one fell off his motorbike; he ran over the other.

“I just keep buying new ones,” he says, adding he still has the broken phones. “I can’t throw it out, because it’s a phone.”

With the holidays around the corner, many new state-of-the-art phones will be sitting under the tree, itching to replace their old counterparts.

While phones that still work are given to friends or relatives, broken ones are shoved in drawers or thrown out.

It’s these “dead phones” that companies want to recycle.

Cellphones contain precious metals, such as gold connectors, that can be melted down. Even screens and other electronic components can be salvaged.

On Dec. 12, 10 major electronics companies signed the United Nations Environment Programme’s Initiative for a Sustainable Partnership on Environmentally Sound Management of End-of-life Mobile Phones.

Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, LG, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, NEC, Philips, Samsung and Siemens will now work on developing handset recycling programs.

“Modern society must face up to the problem that we produce too much waste,” said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of UNEP. “Companies are clearly an essential part of the solution.”

Frank Maw, president of Motorola Canada Ltd., said his company has always been committed to meeting environmental rules and regulations.

“This just takes that standard to a higher level and in more parts of the world,” Maw said.

Nokia spokeswoman Anita Csapo said Nokia designs its phones with the environment in mind.

“(Environmental initiatives) have always been a part of design,” she said. “Participating in this initiative is one way of showing that Nokia respects and is contributing to sustainable development.”

Sony Ericsson only commented that it has always been a strong supporter of environmental initiatives.

To get recycling programs off the ground, companies are talking to cellphone carriers or service providers.

Telus Mobility, Bell Canada and Fido have battery recycling programs. Unlike other carriers, Fido already recycles dead phones.

Bell Canada spokeswoman Gina Gottenberg said the company will launch a handset recycling program in the new year.

“We will be aggressively encouraging people to bring in their phones,” she said.

The company already has incentives for customers to pass on their handset to a relative. Working phones dropped off at any Bell World store are refurbished and donated to charities such as women’s shelters.

Telus Mobility is also looking into developing a handset program to be launched in 2003. It has been working on a recycling program since it heard Ontario and Manitoba were in the process of enacting mobile phone recycling laws.

“We’ve been proactively pursuing our own solution in anticipation of these resolutions,” said Telus Mobility spokeswoman Shawn Kelly.

Rogers AT&T Wireless asks customers to put their old and new phones on one phone plan. Old phones are lent out to clients who have lost or broken theirs.

Motorola said cellphone prices may increase. Nokia and Sony Ericsson representatives did not know if prices would jump. Other companies could not be reached for comment.

Copyright 2002 CanWest Global

Crohn’s disease sufferer a picture of perseverance: Poster child keeps chin up despite illness

Calgary Herald

Page B3

It only takes 30 seconds for 11-year-old Danielle Taylor to shove a feeding tube up her nose, down her throat and into her stomach before crawling into bed at night. That tube will pump food into her body for 10 hours.

“The feeding tube isn’t a regular regimen I have to do every single night,” she said, adding she takes weekends off to go to sleepovers and try to live a normal life.

Danielle, the new poster child for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada, has Crohn’s disease, which causes inflammation in the digestive tract, most commonly in the small intestine.

The inflammation causes pain, cramps and diarrhea. It can also lead to bleeding, weight loss and fever.

It’s a disease that is quite common in adults, but not many people know it also affects children. Since the disease causes bleeding and weight loss and doesn’t allow for the proper absorption of vitamins and minerals, growth can sometimes be stunted and development delayed.

That’s why doctors are recommending Danielle stay on the feeding tube for two years until she gains enough weight for her to safely enter puberty.

She is three or four pounds shy of what she should weigh at her age. The problem is keeping the weight on.

“If she goes off the tube, sometimes her weight goes back down again,” said her mother, Lori Taylor.

Danielle’s symptoms started two years ago.

“After dinner, I’d get cramps. They were really bad,” she said.

Doctors suspected it was a food allergy, and her parents cut out various food groups before they found out dairy products were the trigger.

After a battery of tests at the Alberta Children’s Hospital, doctors determined Danielle had Crohn’s disease, and put her on corticosteroids to control the swelling. She is now in remission.

Danielle accepts the disease, but she misses her formerly carefree childhood.

“When I’m at a friend’s house and they have a cookie, I’ll have a banana. I kind of wish I could have the cookie, but I know I can’t,” she said.

Her mother is often frustrated that she can’t help her daughter get better.

“I find it hard when she’s suffering because there’s nothing we can do to comfort her,” she said. “When she’s having cramps she doesn’t want to be touched, so I can’t go and hug her or anything.”

But Danielle doesn’t let the disease bring her down.

She keeps drawing and takes jazz, hip-hop and funk dancing lessons. She even wants to model and was in a Storybook Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors.

Her favourite subject is science, and she can’t wait to start junior high next year. She aspires to be a psychologist.

“I love helping people and figuring out why people do things,” she said.

Her mother is optimistic.

“We pray for a cure every time we break a wishbone,” she said.

To donate, call 266-2342.

Copyright 2002 CanWest Global

Painting to cope with 9/11 emotions

Calgary Herald

Saturday, August 10, 2002 Page B4

When two planes destroyed the World Trade Center Sept. 11, artist Andie Wicherts coped with her emotions by going into her studio and picking up her paintbrush. But her mind was not concentrated only on thoughts of terror and violent death. She pondered where all those lost souls would go.

“I was moved, of course, like anybody else by the events of Sept. 11,” said Wicherts. “I was wondering what would happen with all these people that died.”

She transferred her thoughts into two watercolour paintings.

“People that are old or sick know they’re dying. But this came so suddenly — and suddenly they are faced with an end to this earthly life,” she said.

Wicherts, 72, believes the dead travel into a different dimension, which is expressed in the painting she titled The Light Shall Set You Free, which will hang in the City Hall atrium from Sept. 4 to 18 as part of a Sept. 11 display by the Alberta Society of Artists.

The painting is an explosion of colour, with a collage of candles representing people from around the world who carry their own flame. The collage is contained in a square, representing life on Earth. In the centre is a circle with 911 written inside. The 911 represents an emergency — in this case, Sept. 11 — that abruptly ends life.

“The circle is a different dimension from where they were before, and through the circle any emergency of 911, and through death, people are changed,” Wicherts said.

Once a person enters the circle, he or she can never return.

“You have to go on this journey, wherever it will lead you, and you have to go through the light,” she said.

The other painting, called Through an Emergency Liberation, will hang in the Kensington Fine Art Gallery at 817 17th Ave. S.W.

The show at City Hall next month will feature 20 works from 14 Alberta artists.

“There’s paintings, there’s some sculpture. There’s some wall hangings,” said show co-ordinator and organizer Karin Richter.

Several paintings depict the World Trade Center’s twin towers standing over rubble. Another has firemen with their gear hanging around the fire hall.

The show starts on Sept. 4, but the official opening will take place on Sept. 11, from 5 to 8 p.m. It will share space with a related display by the local U.S. Consulate.

Copyright 2002 CanWest Global

African famine near crisis: aid worker

Calgary Herald

A major food shortage in southern Africa will hit a crisis point within several months and is already putting 13 million people in five countries at risk of starvation, warns the Red Cross. “It became quite clear that things have deteriorated dramatically since around April (or) May,” said Iain Logan, International Red Cross operations manager, while visiting Calgary this week.

Lesotho, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Swaziland already have immense food shortages. Logan said it could spread to Namibia, Mozambique and Angola.

This is the first time the world has seen a famine with so many contributing factors, Logan said. Crops are failing due to drought. Political unrest in Zimbabwe and Malawi is decreasing food production. And there are fewer people to work the farms due to the AIDS epidemic that has infected almost a third of the population.

“There is nobody to work the land. There is nobody to produce the crops. The healthy population is so absorbed in looking after the sick population that the whole productivity in many of the countries has taken a severe consequence,” Logan said.

The Red Cross made an appeal for $95.2 million in May for a food aid project to begin Aug. 23. That money will pay for emergency food, seeds, farm tools, training programs, blankets, medicine, transportation and other overhead costs. The program will last through the planting and harvest seasons in early 2003.

The Red Cross targets those most in need. They will help about 1.3 million people who live in remote areas and children whose families are suffering from AIDS.

“I’ve seen families that consist of maybe as many as 15 or 20 adults, all sick. And the house is being run by a seven-year-old child,” Logan said.

Calgarian Miriam Wiebe, who has worked for World Vision in Malawi for 31/2 years, said villages there used to be an energetic hub of activity. Children played, women husked maize, animals were healthy and the granaries were full. The women and children are now too weak to move, and the men have left in search of food.

“It’s almost like a ghost town,” Wiebe said. “They’re putting several bodies into one grave because no one has enough energy to dig another.”

World Vision is also trying to raise $2 million for its efforts in the region. To donate, call 1-800-268-5528. The Canadian Red Cross is aiming to raise $1 million toward its program. Call 1-800-418-1111 or visit www.redcross.ca to donate.

Copyright 2002 CanWest Global

Blue light helps babies heal: Donation buys therapy cribs, pumps, scales

Calgary Herald

Page B8

Zachary Lott rests comfortably in his father’s arms as his first pair of sunglasses cover his tiny eyes. Granted, his “glasses” are only a drawing on top of a piece of white felt, but that eye mask protects the six-day-old infant’s eyes from the three blue lights over his hospital crib.

These special cribs, called phototherapy beds, are used to quickly lower the amount of bilirubin — the chemical that causes jaundice — in a baby’s body and shorten his or her hospital stay.

It was one piece of equipment bought with the help of a $17,000 cheque Sunridge Mall presented to the Peter Lougheed Centre on Thursday. The hospital will also use the money to buy more breast pumps and digital scales.

“We’ve had this on our wish list for equipment. We would have got it at some point in the future, but (through) getting help from our community friends such as Sunridge Mall, we’re able to purchase them sooner rather than later,” said Dr. Thiru Govender, head of pediatrics at the hospital.

The Calgary Health Trust, which looks after fundraising for the Calgary Health Region, said the donation goes a long way toward buying costly medical equipment.

“It’s a tremendous benefit. This is an example of how the community can play a part in enhancing health care,” said Brian Bowman, the trust’s development officer.

The money was raised through Sunridge Mall’s Lucky Duck Prize Pools and Christmas gift wrap service.

“It’s more a sense of obligation and commitment to the community that we’re doing this,” said mall general manager Michael Mielnichuk. “If we can help out the community in any way, then we’d like to do that.”

About $88,000 has been raised in the past four years of the partnership.

Copyright 2002 CanWest Global