This opinion piece contains many questionable numbers. In the old days it would've been spiked.
"Who's really endangered?" My answer may surprise you: Newspaper copy editors.
A quick reading of the opinion piece written by Elizabeth Nickson left me asking, "Where is a copy editors when you need one?" Copy editors are an important and respected part of every newsroom — or, at least, were in the not-so-distant past. These talented, well educated, team players fixed grammar, corrected spelling and checked both usage and style for agreement with the newspaper's in-house style guide. (This post would look quite different if I had a copy editor.)
Copy editors acted as proofreaders, fact checkers and polishers of dull prose. Exceedingly knowledgeable, copy editors had solid backgrounds in journalism. Some of the best were first-rate reporters before moving to the desk.
Sadly, copy editors are a dying breed. Many have been given early retirement, their jobs declared redundant by the giant media conglomerate owners.
The opinion piece written by Elizabeth Nickson, a fellow at the right-wing Frontier Centre for Public Policy, often called a right-wing think tank, is a good example of writing in need of a skilled copy editor.
Nickson immediately stakes out the territory she is attempting to control: The sixth great extinction. "Unlike climate change, the notion of the sixth great extinction is not contested vigorously . . .," she claims, moving quickly to a full frontal attack on Paul Ehrlich, whom she derisively calls "the godfather of extinction science."
Unfortunately, it seems Nickson got her godfathers mixed and predictions as well. She tells us that Ehrlich predicted 27,000 extinction a day by 2000. He didn't. It was Edward Wilson, the father of sociobiology and a champion of biodiversity, who made that prediction, sort of. He predicted 27,000 extinction a year.
That's more than 70 a day, an amazingly high number until you understand the professor is talking about the destruction of the world's rainforests, the most biologically diverse places on Earth. He is not talking about black-tailed prairie dogs in the west or caribou in Canada's distant north. He does not restrict his prediction to large mammals and birds and this should come as no surprise; Wilson is the world’s leading authority on ants.
Ehrlich's and Wilson's ideas have attracted a lot of opposition over the years. It's a rich, complex world and, just as one would expect, not every biologist studying endangered species agrees with either man. Nickson would be in good company if her facts were correct but they aren't.
Nickson does no better reporting on the black-footed prairie dog situation in Colorado. Numbers are again the Frontier Centre writer's downfall. I won't go so far as to say Nickson is wrong but there is no doubt that her writing lacks clarity. People familiar with the situation in Colorado were puzzled by the Nickson numbers.
Nickson claims 12 million acres was demanded to protect to the black-tailed prairie dog. "In court, the state's scientific rigour won, hands down," she says.
Tina Jackson, Species Conservation Coordinator with the Colorado Department of Natural Resources , wrote me, "I am not sure where they got that information about black-tailed prairie dogs in Colorado." Neither Jackson nor James Baker, also with the DNR, was aware of this ever being taken to court.
Elizabeth Nickson was good enough to share some of her research links with me for this article. Reading through the links, and links to links, she sent me I found the following:
The earliest published estimate of prairie dog occupied acreage in the state (Colorado) is from C.P. Gillette in 1919 . . . (Gillette believed) prairie dogs inhabit about 12 million acres in the State . . . [Is this the source of the 12 million number?]
A good editor will tell a newspaper writer to deliver the goods before the turn. Break a newspaper story into two parts and a large number of readers won't make the turn. Editors keep stories short, interesting and accurate.
Today, a great number of people are failing to even pick up the paper, let alone make it past the turn. If newspapers want to bring back the readers, bring back the copy editors.
g
The CBC is making a big deal of its investigation into the need for seat belts in school buses. I can see the argument. I often accompany my oldest granddaughter on school outings. I sit in the school bus with the children and I feel weird not wearing a seat belt. It has never felt right and so I did some research.
Finding the definitive answer is not a quick search. It turns out this is a complex problem and a lot of folk have given it a lot of thought. Heck, even the researcher quoted this morning in the CBC report was once featured in a New York Times piece carrying the headline "Study Rejects Requiring School Bus Seat Belts."
Kathleen Weber, the researcher quoted by the CBC, told the Times that all the members
of the committee examining the question of seat belts use in school buses were in agreement: the benefits of requiring seat belts were sufficiently
small, and the problem itself sufficiently small, that the committee could not justify
the cost.
I don't like that answer. If seat belts work, put them in the school buses. Period. End of discussion. Surely, cost does not enter into the equation. We are talking seat belts. How much can seat belts cost? The present system of making school buses safe, compartmentalization, cannot be cheap.
No, the question is: do seal belts work? Or more accurately, do standard seat belts work with little children? Think carefully before answering. If you do, you'll realize little children do not ride in the backseat of the family car restrained only by the three-point seat belts provided. By law a booster seat is required. Why? For safety.
In Canada, over a two-year period, 28 children were reported to have sustained injuries consistent with seat belt syndrome; seven of these children remained paraplegic. Among the 16 injured children eight years of age and older, four were properly restrained with three-point seat belts.
Booster seats are an attempt at preventing maladjusted seat belts from causing serious injuries and even death to improperly restrained children. Ill-fitting seat belts are a big safety concern. Studies show children are especially vulnerable to suffering a seat belt caused injury. Transport Canada has some well founded concerns.
As I mentioned, I have grandchildren. I own two types of booster seats: one a booster cushion and the other a high-backed booster seat that installs using the Universal Anchorage System (UAS/Latch). Both are legal in Canada but not everyone in the world agrees. The use of booster cushions is restricted to older children in Great Britain and Europe. In those places, my grandchildren would be breaking the law by using booster cushions.
Whenever possible, I use the high-back booster seats which attach firmly to the car's UAS system. I leave the booster cushions at home in the garage. My gut feeling is that the high-backed, anchored boosters deliver improved protection. I think the Europeans are making the right decision. I'd like to see this style of booster seat, paired with properly designed seat belts, used in school buses.
The Fifth Estate did one thing right. They found IMMI in Indiana. This is a company developing innovative seat belts for school buses. One product features a five-point system that appears to deal with the biggest dangers posed by traditional three-point seat belts. Kudos to the Fifth Estate for finding the IMMI company and bringing it to our attention.
An independent study of the IMMI product or products may be necessary but surely it could be done quickly. Let's make school buses, already remarkably safe, safer still.
Lastly, one-sided attacks, like the one launched by the CBC, make for attention-holding television but such attacks don't encourage folk to come to the table for an adult discussion. I'm not surprised the minister refused to meet with the CBC Fifth Estate reporter. It appears on the face of it that the CBC folk had an agenda and it wasn't getting at the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It was attacking a government bureaucracy. It was in telling a good story.
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When writing a post for my blog, an immense amount of information must be found and read. I admit it may overwhelm me. A better system would be for journalists to work together and to work longer, ignoring self-imposed, artificial deadlines, to deliver accurate information. Below, is just a very small sample of the info found and examined.
Sixteen passengers died and 13 were injured in the Humboldt Broncos bus crash. The
charter bus company involved in the crash had already installed
seat belts without a federal rule, but none of the players were wearing
one.
Research link: http://www.who.int/roadsafety/projects/manuals/seatbelt/seat_belt_manual_module_1.pdf
The three-point lap and diagonal seat-belt used by adults is not designed for children’s varying sizes, weights, and the different relative proportions of children’s bodies. For example, a smaller portion of a child’s abdomen is covered by the pelvis and rib cage, while a child’s ribs are more likely than an adult’s to bend rather than break, resulting in energy from a collision being transferred to the heart and lungs.
Consequently three-point lap and diagonal seat-belts may lead to abdominal injuries among children, and will not be optimally effective at preventing ejection and injury among them. Appropriate child restraint systems are specifically designed to protect infants and young children from injury during a collision or a sudden stop by restraining their movement away from the vehicle structure and distributing the forces of a crash over the strongest parts of the body, with minimum damage to the soft tissues.
Child restraints are also effective in reducing injuries that can occur during non-crash events, such as a sudden stop, a swerving evasive manoeuvre or a door opening during vehicle movement.
Seatbelt Syndrome in Children: This is an interesting paper. Seat belts are good but, when it comes to their use with children, proper booster seats are an excellent addition to increase safety. It should be noted that there are a number of opinions on what exactly constitutes a proper booster seat. For instance, look up what is demanded in Great Britain.
http://www.roadsafetyobservatory.com/HowEffective/vehicles/seat-belts
http://www.roadsafetyobservatory.com/HowEffective/vehicles/child-restraints (The researchers found that abdominal injuries mainly occurred in
children using only a seat belt, emphasising the need for
belt-positioning boosters. (Jakobssen, 2005))
(The main system for safely restraining occupants in vehicles is, of
course, seat belts. However, seat belts do not fit children properly,
and do not fit babies at all. This means they are less effective in
protecting children, and in some circumstances, could even cause injury.
Children are not simply smaller adults; they are proportioned
differently, their bones are not fully formed and their skeletal
structure does not cover and protect their internal organs in the way it
does in adults. All of these things change as children grow older,
meaning that the type of restraint system they use also needs to change,
until they reach the point where the seat belts can provide the same
protection as for adults. (Burdi and Huelke, 1969, WHO, 2009))
Child Car Restraints Compared with Seatbelts
A USA study of 2 to 3 year old rear seat child passengers in crashes
that resulted in at least one vehicle being towed away between 1998 and
2004 concluded that the odds of injury were 81.8% lower for toddlers in
child seats than for toddlers wearing seat belts. (Zaloshnja, 2007)
Another American study comparing the use of child restraints with
seat belts by 2 to 6 year old children involved in vehicle crashes
between 1998 and 2003 found that compared with seat belts, child
restraints (when not seriously misused) were associated with a 28%
greater reduction in the risk for death in children of that age group.
When including cases of serious misuse, the effectiveness was slightly
lower, at 21%. (Elliot, 2006)
A study of crashes in 15 states in America between December 1998 and
May 2002 involving 1,207 children aged 12 and 47 months, seated in the
rear of vehicles, found that the risk of serious injury was 78% lower,
and the risk of hospitalisation was 79% lower, for children in forward
facing child restraints than for those in seat belts. (Arbogast, 2004)
A study of 17,980 children under 16 years old involved in crashes in
15 states between December 1998 and November 2002 found that the risk
for inappropriately restrained (defined as using a seat belt rather than
a child safety seat or booster seat) children was almost double that of
appropriately restrained children. (Durbin, 2005)
An analysis of fatal car accidents in the USA between 1982 and 1987
estimated that children in child safety seats were 50% less likely than
unrestrained children to be killed, but those using the car’s adult seat
belts were only 36% less likely to be killed. (NHTSA, 1998)
When these estimates were updated in 1996, the estimates for the
effectiveness of seat belts on their own had increased to 47% in cars
and 48% in light trucks or vans. The effectiveness of child restraints
had also increased from 69% to 71% for under one year olds and from 50%
to 54% for one to four year olds. (NHTSA, 1996)
I was directed to the Globe and Mail opinion piece by a tweet by a journalism professor. The piece? The Crisis of Living Too Long.
He was right. It was a good piece of writing but a bit too maudlin for my liking. The author tells us that she and her husband aim to "stockpile sleeping pills" as they get deeper into their senior years. I suppose today suicide is an option for those finding life too tough. But it wasn't always so.
When my dad died, suicide was not a good way to leave this world of blood, sweat, toil and tears. For one thing, killing oneself left one's life insurance in question. It left one's spouse and children possibly in a tougher-than-need-be financial crisis.
My dad had a poor heart but excellent doctors. He endured coronary after coronary and after a stay in the hospital he was back home, gulping nitroglycerin pills and waiting for the next major heart attack, the next trip to the hospital and the trip home.
After his last attack, life threw him a changup. He suffered a stroke instead of a heart attack. He lost the sight in one eye, all was a blur. He found himself forced to have one lens of his glasses completely frosted. If he wasn't wearing his glasses, he wore an eye patch. He took no pleasure in his new I'm-a-pirate look. I believe he felt humiliated.
He sold his car. His first new car in decades. It was a small, four-door, Vauxhall with leather seats. It broke his heart to part with that car. But the stroke that damaged his vision also left him slightly paralyzed on one side. The car had to go. In one sense, it was not a big loss as he no longer had a job. The car had become just an expense, a drain on the family finances.
One morning my dad appeared at the breakfast table in his best blue suit. He wore a bright, almost jaunty, tie held firmly in place by a fancy, gold clip. His white shirt was pressed with just the right amount of sleeve extending below the cuffs of his suit jacket. His patent leather Oxfords were perfectly polished. Not a scuff to be seen.
His bald head glistened from the Wildroot used to slick back the dozen or so long hairs he carefully tended. Those hairs were all that protected him from facing the fact he was bald. The world saw him as bald; he saw himself as thinning.
Dad had his usual bacon and eggs breakfast with two pieces of well-buttered toast. He mopped up the dark orange-yellow yolk with a scrap of toast, downed the last dregs of his peculator-brewed coffee, kissed both me and my mother good-bye and walked out of our home and out of our lives.
My dad died in the Prince Edward Hotel.
That was the last either of us saw my dad. Apparently, he took the bus downtown, checked into the Prince Edward Hotel and died. His heart pills, mostly nitroglycerin, were found sitting on the dresser on the other side of the room from the bed in which he was found.
It appeared my dad had died shortly after leaving home but we'll never know for sure. His body was found by the hotel cleaning staff. The hotel called the police, the police, using the information on his pill bottles, called his heart doctor and he, in turn, called us. His doctor identified the body, filled out all necessary forms, and contacted the funeral home.
My dad had a closed coffin, as he wished. Neither my mom nor I ever saw my dad's dead body. His death was from natural causes, a major coronary event unmitigated by medication. His doctor claimed that his death had come so suddenly, so quickly, with such power he had been unable to reach his pills left on the side of the room from where he had stretched himself out seeking relief from the pain.
My dad's death is a story that could be told as I've told it and then left, but to do so would be to tell an incomplete story. My dad died the way he had lived. He was born ill. His mother blamed a sick cow used to provide all the milk given the newborn. In his twenties he had three fourths of his stomach removed: ulcers. In his thirties had had hernias: numerous hernias. He had gall bladder, appendix, bowel operations and more. His health issues in old age, if dying in one's early 60s is old age, were a continuation of health problems that plagued him his whole life.
I'm ending this with a wonderful bit of advice from Monty Python's Life of Brian. And yes, I have considered the jarring note added by this song written by Eric Idle. But, please trust me, as a fellow alive only thanks to my second pacemaker I take great pains to smile. I see no hotel room in my future.
As children stopped taking Aspirin, Reye's syndrome almost disappeared.
Reye's syndrome posed a danger to children when I was young. It was rare but lethal. Today? We rarely hear of Reye's. Why? The relationship between Aspirin (ASA), its use in children and Reye's syndrome was recognized.
The orange-flavoured chewable labeled Baby Aspirin disappeared from drugstore shelves. The powerful drug is now known as low-dose Aspirin.
And yet, today, we still encounter folk using the former name. Even doctors are known to fall into the trap, referring to low-dose Aspirin by it now out-dated-for-a-reason moniker. What puzzles and appalls me is that journalists, those purveyors of truth and accuracy constantly get the name wrong. Where are the editors? In forced retirement, I'd guess.
Aspirin is a drug, a powerful drug and, as with all powerful drugs, taking it comes with risks as well as rewards. If one is healthy, taking even a low-dose Aspirin once a day has always been a questionable practice. As they say: "If it isn't broken, don't fix it."
That said, if you get your medical knowledge from the main-stream media, you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise. The media has a history of presently the taking of low-dose Aspirin as relatively innocuous, almost risk free. To underscore this point, the media often refer to low-dose Aspirin as Baby Aspirin. What could be safer?
This is NOT news. The recent report simply confirms common concerns.
The media should not link babies and Aspirin for the same reason that Bayer changed the name: it was found that parents, especially new parents, thought the low-dose product was made for use by children and infants. It's not. Not today.
If taking Aspirin was risk free,
it might make sense for everyone worried
about heart disease to take it. But Aspirin does have risks.
It can potentially lead to hemorrhagic stroke (bleeding inside the
brain). In the stomach, Aspirin can aggravate bleeding ulcers. Severe gastrointestinal bleeding can
be lethal.
Aspirin is NOT for babies nor children no matter how low the dose. Nor is taking Aspirin completely risk free even for healthy, adult folk. It's a powerful drug and deserves to be treated as one.
I knew that. How? Because my doctors made the risks associated with taking a daily low-dose Aspirin very clear to me. Why doesn't my daily newspaper, and the rest of the MSM, get the story right? It's not difficult and it would lessen the danger of children mistakenly being given low-dose Aspirin.
A young Londoner came down with a illness that left his doctors stumped. And according to The London Free Press, this "experience is all too typical in a country in which Lyme
disease has grown to epic proportions, a crisis that neither doctors nor
public health officials have adequately addressed..."
One problem: The young boy did not have Lyme disease. A Maryland specialist discovered the boy had Bartonella, commonly called Cat Scratch Disease. According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the States) people get CSD from the scratches of domestic cats,
particularly kittens. The disease occurring most frequently in children
under 15. The boy in the story was 12 when he came down with his illness.
Which bring us to my second problem: The CDC and many other official sources claim ticks may carry some species of Bartonella bacteria, but "there is currently no convincing evidence that ticks can transmit Bartonella infection to humans."
The young man had an illness that went undiagnosed. Why? The story does not give us enough information to understand why this terrible thing happened.
I sense a bias against the Canadian healthcare system in this story. If it was simply the shoddy Canadian system at fault, why did the boy have to travel to Maryland, a nine hundred kilometre trip. If the American system is so great, why didn't the boy simply cross the border and immediately get help? There are a lot of American doctors closer to London, Ontario, than the specialist in Maryland.
I can feel for this young man. I had a somewhat similar experience. I had a V-tach event while vacationing in California. After running up a bill approaching $30,000, the American heart specialists found nothing to explain what had happened. I was released from the hospital to drive to Vancouver and on home to London, Ontario.
Although one should wait six months before getting behind the wheel after such a cardiac event, I drove some fifty six hundred kilometres immediately after having my heart reset by two paddles pressed tightly to my chest to deliver a jolt of 200 joules. Unlike my Canadian doctors, the American ones failed to discuss driving after being released from the hospital.
When it came to finding a cause for my V-tack event, my London doctors didn't fare much better than their American counterparts but the Canadians persevered, discovered I had a relatively rare form of heart disease and installed a pacemaker/ICD in my chest. I'm now on my second pacemaker/ICD. Thanks to the Canadian system, I have a life. (And thanks to my granddaughters, I have a good life.)
Should the American doctors with all their sophisticated testing equipment have been so easily stumped by my heart disease. I don't know. But what I do know is that I owe my life to my Canadian doctors.
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To keep the above post short I did not examine the newspaper's criticism of the Canada's supposedly out-of-date approach to testing for Lyme disease, but, if interested, read the following.
The story informs readers that in Ontario "doctors won't use a test well-established in the United States and Europe, a Western Blot test, unless patients first test positive using a method known to miss many cases, an Elisa (sic) test."
This would be very damning if it were true. But, it isn't. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in the States recommends performing an ELISA, or similar EIA test, first and a Western Blot test second. If the first test is negative, no further testing of the specimen is recommended. The American CDC approach and the Canadian one are in agreement. (The respected Mayo Clinic also agrees with the Canadians and the CDC.)
Furthermore, the two steps should be done as designed. The CDC does not recommend skipping the first test and just doing the Western blot. The CDC warns, "Doing so will increase the frequency of false positive results and may lead to misdiagnosis and improper treatment."
Since writing this, I've encountered some criticism. I've decided to post some info from the Mayo Clinic in the States.
Lab tests to identify antibodies to the bacteria can help confirm the diagnosis. These tests are most reliable a few weeks after an infection, after your body has had time to develop antibodies. They include:
Enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. The test used most often to detect Lyme disease, ELISA detects antibodies to B. burgdorferi. But because it can sometimes provide false-positive results, it's not used as the sole basis for diagnosis. This test might not be positive during the early stage of Lyme disease, but the rash is distinctive enough to make the diagnosis without further testing in people who live in areas infested with ticks that transmit Lyme disease.
Western blot test. If the ELISA test is positive, this test is usually done to confirm the diagnosis. In this two-step approach, the Western blot detects antibodies to several proteins of B. burgdorferi.
The above has a reference date of May 16, 2018. The above is not stale-dated information.
Even without considering the scientific evidence related to this
essential question, one would have to believe it remarkable that the
human species would exist if thirst were inadequate to guide drinking
during exercise. Martin D. Hoffman M.D., et al.
It may seem like a small matter: who cares if one drinks too much water to avoid dehydration? No one ever died from too much water, right? Wrong. But there's more going on here: if drinking a lot of water during hot weather is not a good idea, if it can, in some cases be dangerous, why are so many reporters getting the story wrong?
I read newspapers and watch television news to learn. And I expect the stuff that I learn to be right, to be checked for accuracy by professional reporters, professional fact-gatherer. When I discover a reporter did little more than unquestioningly repeat what he or she had been told, possibly because it was a good story, I feel cheated. Information in newspapers should be vetted; it should be accurate; it should be right.
There are lots of myths out there. There's even a successful television program based on questioning these stories. It's amazing how many stories are revealed by MythBusters to be just that: stories.
Which bring us to the question of how much and of what should we be drinking during hot spells. Do you believe the news stories? Do you drink a lot of water without waiting until you feel thirsty. Do you try to belt back eight glasses of water a day?
If you question the accepted story, a reporter might respond by sending you a link to Oregon Occupational Safety and Health. The OOSH claims in a hot environment one should drink water frequently, even when not thirsty.
In recent years, at least 14 deaths of marathon runners, football players and other athletes have been attributed to exercise-associated hyponatremia, a condition that results from drinking too much water or sports drinks. But there’s an easy way to prevent hyponatremia, according to Loyola University Medical Center sports medicine physician James Winger, MD. Drink only when you’re thirsty.
Whom do you believe? And why should you even have to ask? Some years ago, I got very ill during a trip to the Sahara desert in southern Tunisia. I followed all the hydration advice. I made sure I drank even when not thirsty. And I got damn sick. When I got home my doctors told me I may well have had hyponatremia or water intoxication.
Since then, the doctors I have talked to have told me much of the advice surrounding the drinking of fluids during heatwaves is wrong. The media reports are often urban myths, I'm told. My doctors have warned me, excessive water intake can be dangerous for folk like, folk with a heart condition.
They remind me that I get water from many sources. Vegetables are often mostly water. For instance, cauliflower is about 92% water. If you drink coffee, I like a brew made from a mix of caffeinated and
decaffeinated, then each cup of coffee is equal to a eight ounces of water. And yes, the warning about not drinking coffee during hot weather is another myth but I'll leave that for another post.
Drinking to quell thirst is the correct way to go in almost all situations. A conference in California found there was an overemphasis on high fluid consumption. Athletes should be advised of the risks associated with over drinking. Decreasing the number of fluid stations at long distance running events might be counter intuitive but it might be necessary to reduce the number of incidences of exercise associated hyponatremia (EAH).
And here is where it gets interesting: dissemination of appropriate drinking advice alone has been shown to reduce the incidence of EAH. It's time journalists spent some time getting this story right. It should not be that hard for a professional fact-gatherer, professional story detective, a finder, a discerner and teller of truths.
And then these journalists can employ these investigative methods, honed tracking down the truth when it comes to water consumption during heatwaves, to uncovering the truths going unrevealed in other, more important, stories. Look out Donald Trump question-asking journalists could soon be on your trail.
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Would you like to read more? Try this article: Is Drinking to Thirst Adequate to Appropriately Maintain Hydration Status During Prolonged Endurance Exercise? Yes.
Recently, I read a tweet from a former newspaper editor who now expounds on journalism to students taking his class at a
nearby college. He tweeted that he was training young people to be
storytellers. I replied: Journalists are not storytellers
but reporters.
He disagreed. A story lies at the heart of what a reporter tries to convey, he tweeted. Who's right?
According to Lee Wilkins, professor and communications department chair at Wayne State
University in Detroit, faculty emeritus and curator’s teaching
professor at the University of Missouri:
Journalists are not storytellers but reporters.
According to Wilkins, a
local government reporter before she began teaching: "When we started thinking of ourselves as
storytellers was when we ran into a problem." The problem? Journalism changed from an "objective process" to one focused on
"storytelling." Wilkins believes this emphasis on story over
reporting entered American newsrooms in the 1980s. And I concur.
Sadly, when a journalist puts the story first, all too often it means facts become subservient to the story. I can give a solid example of this but, if I do, I risk losing you. You will immediately know I am wrong because you have seen and heard the story on television, maybe on 60 Minutes, or CBC Marketplace. You have read it in your local paper and in magazines. You know the truth. You know the story. And I will have a damn near impossible time changing your mind.
The story? The threat posed by the urea formaldehyde foam insulation or UFFI was created by the media. Before you quit reading, think about this:
Source: The London Free Press, Saturday Homes Section
When homes with UFFI were tested, the tested homes were found, on average, to have formaldehyde levels only slightly less than that of homes of similar age without UFFI. Also, there was no UFFI caused damage to house framing nor were other UFFI-caused defects found.
Why was the true story not told until years after the damage had been done? Because stories, good stories have legs and when told by good storytellers, by journalists, such stories are hard to resist. I believe it was 60 Minutes in the States that originally broke the erroneous scare story. Then CBC's Marketplace, not to be outdone, did their take on the same story. And the UFFI wildfire was lit and fanned. Newspapers across North American felt forced to run UFFI stories as well.
I covered a lot of UFFI stories and I am ashamed of the part I played in promoting that story. I met a lot of people, many seniors, who had massive amounts of their life savings tied up in their homes and the media-spread myth destroyed much of the equity that had accumulated in the family home. All too sad. Now, there is a story. Will it displace the mythical stories? I doubt it. Marketplace is still bragging about their major contribution to the original UFFI coverage.
Marketplace is proud of the part it played in the banning of urea formaldehyde foam insulation.
As I edited this, I wondered if scare stories involving UFFI were still being printed. It took but a moment to turn up this story from the Cornwall-Standard Freeholder on "toxic spray foam insulation."
I shake my head and a feeling of shame washes over me. I had a hand in pushing this story and the story is still influencing decision making. This is despite the fact that, and this is from the Freeholder story, "Canada is one of the only countries in the world that bans the use of
UFFI . . . it (is) being used widely in many other countries including the
United States."
If the reporter every decides to focus on that last sentence and explain why a "toxic" foam is only toxic in Canada, the reporter might have an award winning story and an easy one to tell.
According to CMHC, "UFFI is not a source of over-exposure to formaldehyde . . . Houses with UFFI show no higher formaldehyde levels than those without it."
So, are high levels of formaldehyde ever found in homes in Canada today? Not often but, again according to CMHC, "in new or other well-sealed houses, significant indoor formaldehyde levels may still occur (thanks to) new carpets." If the folk in the justice building are worried, maybe they should concentrate on new carpeting and not decades-old insulation.
Weight Watchers promotes healthy eating. The accent is not on weight loss.
The Current on CBC radio, featuring host Anna Maria Tremonti, recently claimed to be examining the offer of six weeks of free Weight Watchers memberships to teens between the ages of 13 and 17 this summer..
It was not much of an examination. To learn more, I googled the offer, but I failed to find the original announcement. It would have been nice if CBC had thought to post a link.
Weight Watchers apparently stated right up front that this offer was not about dieting and not about weight loss. No, Weight Watchers was offering to help teens develop the healthy eating habits so necessary at there time of life. And let's make one thing clear: today, this is very important. There is a serious problem with how our kids are learning to eat.
For the most part, the CBC and Anna Maria Tremonti ignored this very important and very believable claim by WW. I can understand why; there was a time that I, too, believed Weight Watchers was just a dieting program, a weight loss program.
Then, in 2010 I had a heart event that changed my life forever. I suffered a V-tach event, my heart went into overdrive hitting 300 beats per minute and I was rushed to the hospital. There, doctors placed defibrillator paddles on my chest and jolted my heart back into sinus rhythm. I now have an ICD/pacemaker in my chest. ICD stands for implantable cardioverter defibrillator. If my heart rate heads for the stratosphere again, and it has, my ICD shocks it back into its proper rhythm.
I take oodles of meds and watch my diet carefully. At one point, I weighed almost 220 pounds. Not good. My doctors told me to get my weight down. Something under 170 pounds would be a fine goal.
My stroke doctor gave me a package of recipes and told me not to think of this not as a diet but as a whole new way of eating and quite possibly a better, more enjoyable, way of eating.
Coincidentally my wife was starting Weight Watchers at the same time. It was immediately clear that her diet and mine were quite similar. We embarked on the Weight Watchers approach to dining well together.
We counted points, don't ask, and slowly we lost weight. It took a lot of months, more than a year, but I got down to 165 pounds and I've stayed close to this weight ever since. And this success is, in no small measure, thanks to the Weight Watchers program. We didn't feel we had to cutback on our food but instead we expanded our food choices. We learned to eat wisely and well.
Following my doctors' and Weight Watchers instructions, we have discovered a whole new way of eating, just as promised. I wish I'd been offered this program when I was a teen. I've always loved food and I find our new approach to dining is for food lovers.
So, how did CBC handle this story. Well, the broadcaster almost immediately cut to an interview with a holistic health coach, trained at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. And what exactly is the IIN? I googled it and learned many call the online school a diploma mill.
The accusations must be awfully common as the IIN defends itself by stating clearly online that they are not a scam. They point out that much of the criticism of the school is of the strawman variety. Their health coach graduates are not registered dietitians and do not claim to be. A search of the U.S. Dep't of Education database confirms the IIN is telling the truth: its graduates are not registered dietitians.
There is a story here. The Weight Watchers offer deserves examination. That said, I don't find the debate, if not manufactured by the CBC, certainly promoted by it, to be the correct angle. Journalists can do better. I know. I worked for almost four decades in the media.
This is an important matter and our public broadcaster let us down. Just today I saw an article in The Harvard Gazette: a "comprehensive national strategy (is needed) across all relevant segments of society to prevent a looming public health disaster." This was written for Americans but the problem is also prevalent in Canada. In my lifetime, obesity among the young has increased two, possibly even three fold in Canada.
The CBC should have sent reporters to numerous Weight Watcher centres across the country. They could have learned whether or not a consistent approach is going to be taken by all WW leaders. As the Harvard article points out:
We have deep knowledge of the biological drivers of obesity, which include:
poor diet quality
excessive sedentary time
inadequate physical activity
stress
leep deprivation
perinatal factors
and probably environmental endocrine-disrupting chemicals
What is lacking is an effective strategy to address these drivers with sufficient intensity, consistency, and persistence, according to David Ludwig, professor in Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and founding director of the Optimal Weight for Life program at Boston Children’s Hospital.
CBC had a chance to be part of the solution; they chose to be part of the problem.
Donald Trump likes to call the mainstream media "fake news." He's wrong but that doesn't mean the MSM can ignore his charge. Those in the media must take those words to heart and attempt to never lend any credence to Trump's accusation.
Sadly, almost all of us have had a contact with the media that went poorly. I have often met folk who have told me that a story with which they were closely associated was reported incorrectly. They may have even talked directly to the reporter behind the story. By the time the reporter condensed the story to a sound bite for television or radio, or boiled the information down to an eight-inch story in the daily paper, the story was corrupted, changed, shaded with error.
Check out this tweet from CBC Ontario Morning:
It makes the claim that giving a child "a taste" or "even a sip" of alcohol is "not a good idea." It is important to note the shortness of this tweet. No attempt has been made to convey the complexities of the story.
This is a story that has been reported in the past and sometimes it has been reported very poorly. That said, let's cut right to the chase. New Orleans magazine reported on this story. Allow me to quote a paragraph from that article.
“First sipping isn’t an early indicator of issues that would be of
concern to parents,” wrote one of the psychologists in an August 2014
press release about an updated look at the same group of children. They
showed that taking the first sip before age 12 correlated with a
family’s permissiveness towards alcohol rather than predicting that a
child was slated for abuse problems in young adulthood. There is no
evidence that earlier sippers have more alcohol dependence, delinquent
behavior, marijuana smoking, misuse of other illicit drugs, risky sexual
behavior, car crashes or interruption of planned schooling than the
late sippers."
If you want to stop reading now, you can. But, for those who want to read more, please, read on as I take a look at what some of the studies actually say:
For instance: adolescents who have consumed at least a full glass of alcohol or more are significantly different from adolescents who have simply had a sip of alcohol. And one might ask what the researchers define as a sip. But the important point is that adolescents benefiting from greater parental discipline, living with better rule enforcement and more comprehensive monitoring and enjoying positive family relations are less likely to have consumed a full glass of alcohol.
And just how extensive is the problem of children consuming full glasses of wine, similar what is shown in the picture accompanying the tweet? According to the studies I found, it is not as extensive as we might expect. Many children consume no alcohol at all: almost 40% at 11 years of age have never tried alcohol and almost 60% have had only a sip or less. The little girl shown represents a little more than 2% of 11 year olds. If she is less than 11, she represents an even smaller proportion of children from her age group. Perhaps we should pity the little girl pictured. She appears to need improved parental monitoring. Going by the studies that I have found, there is a good chance her parents are not even aware she is engaging in a toast.
Screen grab: story discusses taking an early sip of alcohol.
So, if sipping, and only sipping, has not been implicated in future dangerous behaviour, why are we even discussing sipping. The answer is simple: the children who have had only a sip of alcohol and those who have had a full glass or more, have been combined in some reports into a single category. The whole issue has been muddied.
A young child’s sipping/tasting of alcohol . . . appears NOT to be an early indicator of the likelihood of future problem behavior.
It actually appears that parents are doing a fine job of keep alcohol away from their kids. There may well be no problem here. Most children only get to sip alcohol but once or twice,
implying that this was opportunistic behavior rather than an attempt by parents to introduce their children’s to alcohol use. It may not be the sip that is the problem but the parental attitude.
Bolstering this interpretation is this fact: fully a third of the mothers and over half of the fathers did not even
know that their child had ever had a sip or a taste of alcohol. Most sippers either sneaked their solitary sip when their parents were not watching or were given the single sip on the
sly by someone such as an older brother or sister.
The public deserves better than this tweet. Our media must take advantage of every one of the 280 characters Twitter tweets offer. Teenage abuse of alcohol is a problem. The link between a young child having had a taste or a sip and having problems as a teen with alcohol is a link that researchers are still disputing.
The Lancet article has a lot of negative things to say about parents supplying drinks to their children and this should come as no surprise. What is interesting is that the article reports under "Findings":
"Parental supply of alcohol was not significantly associated with the odds of reporting symptoms of either alcohol abuse or dependence, compared with no supply from any source."
I have to admit, I found the above statement out of place in the context of the Lancet article considered in its entirety. Putting all the info together is the job of the media, the job of the journalist. Sadly, all too often, the media handles complexity very poorly. (I would guess that Ontario Morning did not spend a number of days, possibly weeks, putting together their take on the research into underage drinking. It's an interesting story and I bet that it was sent to air as quickly as possible.)
Maybe in a future broadcast, Ontario Morning can investigate the role of the media in underage drinking. Yes, in researching this post I came across research claiming the depiction of alcohol in movies, on television and in social media can be linked to early alcohol abuse. This sounds like a great scare story.
I can see the tweet now: "Let your child watch CBC dramas? We reveal why this is not a good idea, not even a glimpse. Research shows it could lead to alcohol abuse."
The above is a screen grab from the Huffington Post, Australian Edition.
Despite Medicare coverage, older adults in the United States are sicker
than those in other countries and face more financial barriers to health
care. Note: When it comes to the problem of high cost preventing access to treatment, Canada rates 6th out of 11 countries surveyed. The U.S. is last by a good margin.
Important Numbers: 2017 VW Jetta TSI Wolfsburg Edition as of Sept. 25, 2022
Fuel cost per km: .09 cents (Canada, southwestern Ontario)
Total cost to run car per km: $0.42*
Fuel consumption: 7.86 litres/100 kms (This may climb as I do more in-city driving in the winter.)
Present distance traveled: 54,553 kms
Fuel used: 4,552.02 litres
Fuel cost: $2,288.82
Total out-of-pocket expenses: $22,713.71*
(* The above includes car payments, auto insurance charges, fuel costs, all maintenance charges, car washes, parking, etc.)
* Will change over time as distance traveled increases.
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Now, to my original post...
It's gone. VW has repurchased my 2011 VW Jetta TDI. Plus, the German automobile maker paid me a cash penalty to make amends for their TDI sins. All in all, I got $16,700. I put it all into the purchase of a 2017 VW Jetta Wolfsburg Edition TSI.
Fuel economy: 8.22 litres/100 kms at 17,561 kms.
My new car comes complete with Wolfsburg Edition badges on the sides, a TSI badge on the rear of the trunk lid and a TSI four-cylinder engine under the hood. TSI stands for turbocharged stratified injection. This is a technically sophisticated 1.4 litre turbocharged direct injection engine. VW claims it is state-of-the-art engineering. Hmmm. I recall similar claims when I bought my TDI clean diesel.
So, let's cut to the chase. What was the total out-of-pocket cost to put a Wolfsburg VW in my garage and send the oil-burner packing? The short answer: $2500. That's it. And what will it cost to keep it there? That's a good question. For a start, as a gasoline tends to cost more than diesel in London, I expect my fuel bill to grow. As well, I now have a monthly $139.44 car payment for the next 84 months. This payment also includes an extended warranty option. No unforeseen charges for the life of the car.
Originally, I had agreed to an interest rate of .99% with a shorter payback period. But, when the deal was finalized the interest rate rate had fallen to zero. I decided to keep my money in the bank where it can earn some interest in a ScotiaBank Momentum account. I can see no advantage in tying up cash to purchase this car.
What are my first impressions of my new Jetta? Good but then I liked my old Jetta. The two cars are very similar. Where there is a difference, often I see little advantage in the new vs. the old. For instance, I can see no great advantage to the keyless door lock system. And there are some dangers. See: Deadly Convenience: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll. My new radio seems to have possible safety issues as well. It encourages a driver to play with the touch-control screen rather than paying complete attention to the road. To change the sound system volume, a set of controls can be found on the steering wheel. This encourages more gadget fiddling. If the government thinks cell phones are bad, they should take a look at radios like this one in my new Jetta.
Professor David Strayer, at the University of Utah, found in-vehicle information systems —
including SatNav, MP3 players, radios, cellphones and messaging devices —
take drivers’ attention off the road for too long to be safe, much like
texting.
In the following weeks and months, I'll keep my readers posted as to the total cost to keep my VW Jetta on the road. (If you notice anything amiss, feel free to question my figures. I can make errors. I'm not perfect.)
Paint and Clear Coat Warning
If you own, or are buying a VW, pay careful attention to the paint. Mine is terrible. I knew I had a problem right from the moment my wife and I picked up the car. It was almost a day late in being delivered as it took a lot of effort by the dealer to get my new car into ready-for-delivery condition.
Swirls, holograms and oxidation mar surface of my new VW.
The paint has swirls in the finish, left, I assume, by the power buffer used to quickly detail the car before delivery. I thought I could polish these out in the spring. It is now spring and I'm finding removing these difficult. But there's more. The top of the rear bumper has faulty paint. It looks like there are dried water marks etched into the surface. It won't wash off. I'm worried it may be oxidization.
And it gets worse. There are small, pinhead sized spots that I thought were rust appearing on the lower, passenger-side door. I took the car to a local paint shop for an evaluation. The owner said it was the worst detailing of a new car that he had ever seen. He noted swirls in the paint from the front bumper to the back, plus hundreds of ugly, dull spots in the surface of the paint. On the bright side he said the rust was not rust but large, flecks of dirt deeply embedded into the paint finish. I told him that VW had sent me a block of clay for detailing the car. He said he had never heard of a car manufacturer doing this. Very odd.
Insurance
When I got the auto insurance bill for my new car, I was in for a pleasant surprise. My annual insurance bill went down $86.00. This left a December insurance installment of $272.50. _____________________________________________________________________________
I have opened a spread sheet for tracking and calculating all costs. This is far easier and more accurate than trying to do it with pencil and paper as I was doing. The latest numbers are at the top of the post.
Superfood: a term too good to be true? I thought so. I never bought into the hype. But I guess some folks do and CBC Marketplace set out to burst their bubble: Busting Superfoods.
For the most part, it seemed to be a good show but there were statements that I questioned and not because I am a believer in superfoods. For instance, the program presented a Canadian alternative to some superfood. And what was the alternative: the potato.
I was once a big booster of the potato. Hey, the Irish apparently got by quite nicely on potatoes until the potato famine struck. The lesson seemed to be: oodles of potatoes good, no potatoes, or anything else for that matter, bad.
Well, I was wrong. Oodles of potatoes are not good. One should have a balanced diet. No surprise here. But, and here comes the surprise, potatoes do not necessarily make up a large portion of a correctly balanced diet.
The article, to which I linked, warns "a cup of potatoes has a similar effect on blood sugar as a can of cola or a handful of jelly beans." This is something that I've been told during my visits to various doctors related to my fight against heart disease. Go easy on the potatoes, I'm told.
I'm 70. My body does not need more stress and potatoes, especially a good helping of potatoes without the skins, could put my body under stress as it struggles to cope with the resulting surge in blood sugar level.
So, do I avoid potatoes? No. Potatoes, especially with the skins, are a good source of potassium, vitamin C, fibre and magnesium, plus potatoes are low in fat and inexpensive. Just go lightly on the full fat sour cream and pats of butter. Berkeley Wellness, University of California, has a good article looking at the positive side of the potato debate: Don't Drop the Potato.
CBC Marketplace, like potatoes, not bad, but not super either.
Remember, I am just a heart patient sharing his story, plus some info gathered during my recent medical treatment. I am NOT providing medical advice. Talk with your doctor if you find anything here of interest. Cheers!
When I first posted this, I was slated to have a Watchman left atrial appendage (LAA) closure device implanted. To prepare for this heart procedure, I had a transesophageal echocardiogram (TEE) performed last Friday. The doctors discovered my LAA had already been modified. It was surgically "obliterated." Clearly, I am no longer a candidate for a Watchman. It is impossible to insert the device into my surgically modified LAA.
I was the first person in Canada to have a leaking mitral valve repaired with the aid of a DaVinci robot. I now know my surgeon not only repaired my valve but, at the same time, he "obliterated" my LAA as well. This was done in the belief that modifying the LAA would lesson my chances of having a stroke caused by a blood clot originating in the left atrial appendage. Up to 90% of blood clots originating from the heart form in the LAA.
I was facing LAA closure to lessen my chance of suffering more transient ischemic attacks (TIAs). Over the last few years, I have suffered a lot of TIAs, also known as mini-strokes. I take Pradaxa, an anticoagulant, plus Aspirin, an anti-platelet drug. This dual drug approach has worked wonderfully at preventing serious blood clot related problems. I must compliment my doctor at the Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Centre (SPARC) in London, Ontario, Canada. So, if my drug therapy is working so well, why implant a Watchman, a foreign object, in my heart? Because I also suffer from cerebral micro-bleeds (MBs). These are small, bleeding areas in the brain that raise the risk of hemorrhagic stroke. A hemorrhagic brain event in the presence of an anticoagulant is fatal in many cases. For this reason, all my doctors agree: stopping my anticoagulant therapy is a reasonable goal.
Discovering that my appendage has been "obliterated" raises a big question: Why am I having so many TIAs if the surgical alteration of my LAA lowered my risk? One answer: my surgical closure may not have been 100% successful. Many now believe that incomplete LAA closure can actually increase the risk of clots forming in the heart; the clots form in what remains of the LAA. And how often do surgical closures fail? Answer: In some studies the failure rate has hit 80%. The LAA has proven to be a tough beast to tame. Read:Incomplete surgical ligation of the left atrial appendage—time for a new look at an old problem.
Am I worried? Surprisingly, no. I have gone years suffering numerous TIAs and have not had a full-blown stroke. Perhaps the attempted "obliteration" of my LAA, teamed with my anticoagulant therapy, is having some beneficial affects. It is impossible to say anything for certain. It's Christmas and I'm going to go with an upbeat view.
“Problems are the price you pay for progress.”—Wesley Branch Rickey
The following is my original post, written before I learned I would have a Watchman implanted and then learned I wouldn't, and couldn't, have one implanted.
I have TIAs. TIA stands for Transient Ischemic Attack. And what, you may ask, is that? Let's just call a TIA a mini-stroke and leave it at that. My attacks usually last less than five minutes and do not amount to much, at least not individually. But, if one has enough TIAs, the damage can be additive. I have suffered minor memory loss as a result of my numerous mini-strokes.
Having a TIA can be frightening, and rightly so. One particular attack, called an amaurosis fugax, leaves one or both eyes blind or partially blind for a number of minutes. Although there is usually no permanent brain damage, the blindness is temporary, such an event can be a precursor to a full-blown, life-altering, stroke. I've had close to a dozen of these dramatic, visual events.
TIAs and strokes are often caused by small blood clots, formed in the heart, traveling to the brain and lodging there. These small clots can block the blood flow to the brain. With TIAs the clot is unstable and quickly disintegrates. Blood flow is soon restored. With a brain-damaging stroke, the clot does not break-up and medical attention is needed immediately to prevent permanent brain damage.
Attempting to prevent the formation of these small blood clots is the usual response to frequent TIAs. This can mean taking an anti-coagulant for life. This, of course, comes with its own host of associated risks.
And ironically, one of the increased risks from taking anti-coagulants can be a type of stroke - a hemorrhagic stroke. A stroke resulting from bleeding in the brain: a hemorrhage.
I take Pradaxa, one of the newer anti-coagulants. Many people rely on warfarin. That's right, the chemical used in rat poison.
I am not an ideal candidate for Pradaxa, or any anticoagulant, as I have micro-bleeding in the brain. I live with threats from both types of strokes mentioned previously.
Now, there is a new approach to fighting the blood clots that have traveled from my heart to my brain and caused my TIAs. It's a surgical solution but minimally invasive. I learned about this new method of combating TIAs, in cases such as mine, from one of my doctors at the London Health Sciences Centre.
Because I have micro-bleeding in the brain, I am not a great candidate for anti-coagulants. That's why I don't take warfarin, also known as Coumadin. Pradaxa is not as prone to causing a hemorrhagic stroke as warfarin but, that said, there is still an increased risk of bleeding. Not good. And, of the two types of stroke, hemorrhagic strokes are more often fatal and, if one survives, the lasting damage more severe. Why do some hearts generate clots and not others? Often the answer is atrial fibrillation or AFib. Some hearts, the ones producing clots, often have a quivering, irregular heartbeat. The blood tends to pool and swirl inside the heart before being pumped out to the body. This pooling and swirling in the heart encourages the formation of blood clots.
It is now believe the clots coming from the heart are originating, for the most part, in a small sack on the left side of the heart known as the left atrial appendage (LAA). Blood gets into the small sack and remains trapped there long enough for small but dangerous clots to form. These clots eventually leave the LAA to be pumped out of the heart and to the brain where they may cause a TIA or stroke.
If this theory is right, and there appears to be good reason to believe it is, then preventing blood from collecting in the LAA appears to be a partial answer.
Some cardiac surgeons are now plugging the LAA with a small closure device. There are a number of competing implants, among them is the Watchman from Boston Scientific Corporation.
This is what the FDA, U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has to say:
The Watchman LAA Closure Device is permanently
implanted in the left atrial appendage (LAA) of the heart to prevent LAA blood clots from
entering the bloodstream and potentially causing a stroke. The cardiac-surgeon inserts the delivery
catheter into the body through a vein in the leg. The catheter is threaded through the body until it reaches the right atrium of the heart. The physician makes a small hole
through the wall between the two upper chambers of the heart (atrial
septum) so the catheter can reach the LAA. The physician then pushes
the device through the delivery catheter into the LAA where it opens
up like an umbrella and is permanently implanted. Once in place, a thin layer of tissue grows over it in about 45 days. The FDA notes that the device is used in patients
who have atrial fibrillation, AFib, that is not related to heart valve disease.
Some time after the insertion of the device, a patient may be taken off the riskiest anti-coagulants. This action should cut the patient's risk of having a hemorrhagic stroke. I believe this is the big benefit from having an LAA closure device implanted.
I understand that even with the Watchman implanted, taking low-dose Aspirin, also known by the generic name of ASA in Canada, may be necessary for the rest of the patient's life. ASA is a far less risky drug than warfarin, Pradaxa, Xarelto and the other common anti-coagulants. And it is far less costly. My Pradaxa therapy is not cheap. Taking sophisticated drugs for life can be awfully expensive.
Will I have a Watchman or similar device inserted in my LAA? I don't know. The idea has been raised and my doctors are in consultation. I would not be surprised to have this new solution to AFib caused TIAs and strokes applied in my case. The Watchman is not a perfect solution. One can still suffer a stroke from a clot originating in another part of the heart. The Watchman only stops the clots coming from the LAA.
As I have made clear, the use of anticoagulants is contraindicated in folk like me. For that reason, the Watchman looks good despite its shortcomings.
I was the first person in Canada to have a failed mitral valve repaired robotically using the da Vinci system, and I was one of the first patients to benefit from the use of the experimental T7 MRI unit at LHSC. I've had good luck with new procedures in the past.
As I learn more, I'll repost or add to this post. Cheers!
Let me end with this final video. If you have AFib but are not an ideal candidate for anticoagulants, for whatever reason, you might find the following video interesting. Talk with you cardiologist.
Remember, I am just a heart patient sharing his story. This is NOT medical advice. Cheers!
This is an add-on. I heard from Bowring and so far my wife and I are the only folk to have encountered problems with these glasses. The local store may have been sent a bad batch. At least, that is the working premise at the moment.
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Recently, my wife and I bought some glass goblets from the Bowring store in Northwest London, Ontario. Before we had even paid for the ones we had removed from the shelves and carried to the checkout, we discovered three of the glasses had serious and potentially dangerous flaws. The rims were unfinished, jagged, rough and slightly sharp.
Tonight one of the glasses we did buy broke while my wife was drinking from it. She noticed a line near the top of the bowl. When she inspected it, the top lifted free. The wine glass had broken. The break was so sharp, one might have thought it had been done with a glass cutter.
I've written Bowring warning them that one of the wine glass lines they are carrying may be seriously flawed. If I hear back from the Bowring customer service, I will add their response to this post.
Note the shape of the glass, it is made in China and sold at Bowring. Don't buy any. You have been warned.
