"Racist" booklet generates more controversy for Italy"s fertility day

The controversy surrounding Italy’s first fertility day, a day designed to encourage Italians to have children, was reignited on Wednesday following accusations that the cover of a booklet published by the health ministry illustrating good and bad personal habits was racist.

The cover of the booklet showed two white couples, arms draped around one another, exhibiting behaviour that was good for fertility, while the image that represented poor habits showed a black person among a group doing drugs.

— Claire Fernandez (@CFerKic) September 21, 2016

Outrageously racist cover of Italian gvt fertility leaflet (which doesn’t even touch upon #infertility you can’t “prevent”) #fertilityday pic.twitter.com/QDcPjfkimE

The image, which appeared to show people smoking marijuana, looks like it was first used in an anti-drug campaign by the US state of Arizona, according to an image published by the Phoenix New Times.

An article in La Repubblica said the contrast between the “good” and “bad” images smacked of racism and the booklet was criticised on social media outlets as being racist.

The accusation was rejected by health minister Beatrice Lorenzin.

“The photos represent a homogeneity of people, as is the multi-ethnic society in which we live,” the health ministry said in a statement. “Racism is in the eye of the beholder.”

Italy’s first fertility day is being held on Thursday.

The controversy came just weeks after the original ad campaign to promote the national fertility day, an initiative meant to raise awareness about infertility and promote reproductive health and fertility treatments, was widely derided as offensive.

In one ad, a woman was shown holding an hourglass and the campaign included the catchphrase: “Beauty knows no age. Fertility does”.

The campaign was dropped and was meant to be replaced by one that was more scientific and focused on useful information. Lorenzin is a member of the New Centre Right, a conservative coalition partner in prime minister Matteo Renzi’s centrist government. She is known for her opposition to parental rights for same-sex parents and has been an outspoken critic of surrogacy, which is illegal in Italy.

"Racist" booklet generates more controversy for Italy"s fertility day

How A Misleading Headline On Mammography Generates Confusion

This week I’ve read some puzzling words about a digital mammography study published in the Journal of the NCI. The researchers looked at Medicare records – between women almost exclusively more than age 65.  They examined breast cancer screening strategies, detection and staging of new instances.

The investigators located no advantage of digital breast imaging, with or with no computer-assisted detection, among older females. No surprise. But like other ostensibly negative analyses of breast cancer screening, it is gaining traction on social media. This is occurring despite the paper’s lack of applicability to screening girls in their forties, fifties and early sixties.

Blue Sky Twitter (Photograph credit: mkhmarketing)

The study’s primary limits are two. First, that it is strictly about screening ladies more than the age of 65. In which digital mammography gives diagnostic value is in improving accuracy of screening younger ladies with dense breasts. Second, two many years of follow-up is not practically sufficient to inform anything at all about the benefits of screening.

Some examples of exactly where this study has gone wrong include Modern Healthcare, where a headline reads: “Digital mammography costlier, displays no detection-rate positive aspects.” Earlier this month, NPR’s ‘Shots’ hit closer to the reality: “Costlier Digital Mammograms May possibly Not Be Greater For Older Females.”

At the Incidental Economist weblog, Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician and wellness policy professional wrote: “We’re paying a lot more for screening mammograms. They are not producing a difference.” On social media, messages fly and get distorted. What prompted this brief post today was, this, on Twitter:

The consider-away message may lead a lot of girls, doctors and journalist to feel that digital mammograms are costly and not well worth it. But the examine @JNCI_Now says nothing at all of the sort.

How A Misleading Headline On Mammography Generates Confusion

Scientist generates deadly new flu strain for pandemic study

Professor Kawaoka has so far stored his research secret but admitted that the work is comprehensive and ready for submission to a scientific journal. The experiment was created to check the alterations to the 2009 H1N1 strain of virus that would enable it to escape immune safety in buy to increase the design and style of vaccines, he said.

“Through assortment of immune escape viruses in the laboratory beneath appropriate containment problems, we had been in a position to identify the important regions [that] would allow 2009 H1N1 viruses to escape immunity,” Professor Kawaoka mentioned in an email.

“Viruses in clinical isolates have been recognized that have these identical modifications in the [viral protein]. This exhibits that escape viruses emerge in nature and laboratory scientific studies like ours have relevance to what occurs in nature,” he stated.

Prior to his statement to The Independent, Professor Kawaoka’s only known public mention of the examine was at a closed scientific meeting earlier this yr. He declined to release any printed details of his speak or his lecture slides.

The perform was carried out at Wisconsin University’s $ 12m (£7.5m) Institute for Influenza Virus Study in Madison which was built especially to residence Professor Kawaoka’s laboratory, which has a degree-three-agriculture group of biosafety: a single under the prime safety level for the most hazardous pathogens, this kind of as Ebola virus.

However, this review was accomplished at the reduced level-2 biosafety. The university has said repeatedly that there is minor or no threat of an accidental escape from the lab, even though a related US Government lab at the Centers for Condition Manage and Prevention in Atlanta with a increased degree-three biosafety rating was lately criticised more than the accidental publicity of at least 75 lab workers to feasible anthrax infection.

Professor Kawaoka’s perform had been cleared by Wisconsin’s Institutional Biosafety Committee, but some members of the committee were not informed about details of the antibody examine on pandemic H1N1, which started in 2009, and have voiced worries about the path, oversight and security of his total analysis on flu viruses.

Rebecca Moritz, who is responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s function on “select agents” such as influenza virus, mentioned that Professor Kawaoka’s perform on 2009 H1N1 is seeking at the adjustments to the virus that are required for present vaccines to become ineffective.

“With that becoming stated, this operate is not to generate a new strain of influenza with pandemic potential, but [to] model the immune-stress the virus is currently dealing with in our bodies to escape our defences,” Ms Moritz mentioned.

“The perform is designed to identify potential circulating strains to guide the approach of choosing strains employed for the subsequent vaccine…The committee identified the biosafety containment procedures to be proper for conducting this study. I have no worries about the biosafety of these experiments,” she said.

Professor Kawaoka explained that he has presented preliminary findings of his H1N1 examine to the WHO, which were “well received”.

“We are confident our examine will contribute to the field, specifically given the amount of mutant viruses we generated and the sophisticated evaluation utilized,” he said.

“There are dangers in all analysis. Even so, there are ways to mitigate the dangers. As for all the investigation on influenza viruses in my laboratory, this function is carried out by experienced researchers below proper containment and with full assessment and prior approval by the [biosafety committee],” he extra.

Scientist generates deadly new flu strain for pandemic study

No-makeup selfies campaign generates £2m windfall for cancer study

From left: singer Michelle Heaton, who has had a double mastectomy, Television presenter Holly Willoughby and Coronation Street actor Kym Marsh, in their ‘nomakeupselfies’ and (below) how they typically seem in public

It began with a row at the Oscars, featured the present obsession with “selfies” and swiftly clogged up legions of Facebook streams. Tens of thousands of women, egged on by their pals, shared images of themselves without having makeup to increase awareness of breast cancer.

By Friday the viral trend had transformed into a fundraising phenomenon, producing a £2m windfall for Cancer Research Uk.

The #nomakeupselfies campaign raised the funds in just 48 hours, the charity explained, with hundreds of 1000′s of donations from Facebook, Instagram and Twitter end users sharing photos of themselves without makeup and nominating a buddy to do the very same.

Cancer Investigation Uk explained it had not initiated this specific campaign, but was alerted to the #nomakeupselfies trend on Tuesday and started to inquire customers to add a donation request and text code to their posts. Because then, the cash has flooded into the United kingdom charity.

Cancer Investigation UK’s head of social media, Aaron Eccles, explained: “We’re in excess of the moon. When we do a social media campaign we want to engage as numerous people as attainable, and this has taken off like crazy.”

The notion itself appears to have begun final week when American crime author Laura Lippman tweeted a image of herself with no makeup in assistance of Kim Novak, the 81-yr-old actor whose seems had been criticised at the Oscars. The theme was picked up by celebrities and supporters of Lippman before spreading more widely.

But for all the sudden financial success, some commentators question whether it is proper or appropriate to website link the “bravery” of appearing without having makeup to the extremely diverse challenge of fighting cancer, triggering fierce debates on the internet.

Blogger Yomi Adegoke explained: “Thinly veiling vanity as philanthropy a lot more than irks … the pretence these photos are for something other than an onslaught of ‘natural beauty’ acclamations, coupled with pats on the back for ‘fighting the cause’ tends to make the no makeup selfie mania even tougher to stomach.”

At some point, all the criticism prompted people to remember and then resurrect a prior failed social media campaign – where Cancer Research United kingdom had attempted unsuccessfully to use selfies to increase awareness of breast cancer.

Twitter explained the hashtag started to gather steam on Tuesday and peaked on Thursday, with 83,000 mentions given that Wednesday alone. Instagram noticed 59,000 posts in 24 hrs from Thursday to Friday, and estimated those users would have donated £180,000.

Eccles mentioned the charity had tried to push fundraising making use of selfies just before but that nothing had taken off like this campaign, which has prompted donations from all around the globe.

“I am shocked it truly is nonetheless going but it demonstrates the strength of feeling behind it but it is spreading so far it’s not finished nevertheless – it will be going for a while longer,” he said.

The unprompted surge in donations mirrors the phenomenon witnessed following the unexpected death of thirty-12 months-previous Claire Squires during the London Marathon in 2012. Much more than £1m was donated by way of the fundraising page she had utilized on JustGiving to raise income for the Samaritans prior to her run.

Eccles cautioned that scammers may possibly consider to hijack the meme, and that Cancer Analysis Uk had been contacted by concerned supporters. “As long as they are texting donations to the number 70099, their donation is going to us.

“We’ve spent a lot of hours reassuring them and we value their help. In the long run this is going to be a great case research for us and other brands to look at.”

Breast Cancer Campaign has also been fundraising from the hashtag, with people texting donations to 70660.

Eccles admitted that the website link in between selfies and cancer appeared tenuous. “It is tough to attempt to find that link but it has done that occupation simply because they are contemplating about fundraising.”

Nevertheless, the potency of the campaign appears to lie in the blend of the limitless vanity of the selfie, the social obligation of becoming nominated or encouraged by a good friend – and the emotional pressure to fundraise to help avoid the disease.

Inevitably by Friday the meme had moved on, with the variously ingenious and disturbing #sockselfie, #sellotapeselfie and #manandmakeup emerging, populated largely by males, some of whom have encouraged donations for men’s cancer charities.

No-makeup selfies campaign generates £2m windfall for cancer study

Surgeon generates pelvis using 3D printer

Craig Gerrand, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon at Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Believe in, used the procedure on a patient in his 60s who had to have half his pelvis eliminated to end the spread of bone cancer.

Scans permitted his group to measure specifically how significantly bone would be removed. A bespoke replacement to fill the gap was then created on a 3D printer by laying down successive layers of titanium powder fused together with laser. The titanium pelvis was coated with a mineral into which the remaining bone could expand and a normal hip substitute was fitted into the new socket.

The patient suffered from a rare bone cancer referred to as chondrosarcoma.

“Considering that this cancer does not reply to medicines or radiotherapy, the only selection was to get rid of half of the pelvis,” stated Mr Gerrand.

Standard implants do not constantly match properly – and in this situation so a lot bone essential getting rid of that practically nothing would have been left to which an implant could have been connected, the surgeon explained.

Surgeon generates pelvis using 3D printer