Airworthiness Directive Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes PDF Copy (If Available):

Airworthiness Directive

Federal Register Information

Federal Register Information
[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 72 (Monday, April 15, 2013)]


[Pages 22182-22185]

Header Information

Header Information
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION


Federal Aviation Administration


14 CFR Part 39

[Docket No. FAA-2012-0933; Directorate Identifier 2012-NM-107-AD;
Amendment 39-17411; AD 2013-07-07]


RIN 2120-AA64

Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes
PDF Copy (If Available):
2013-07-07.pdf

 

 

SUMMARY:

We are adopting a new airworthiness directive (AD) for all The Boeing Company

Model 737-600, -700, -700C, -800, -900, and -900ER series airplanes. This AD was prompted by

reports of an incorrect procedure used to apply the wear and corrosion protective surface coating to

attach pins of the horizontal stabilizer rear spar. This AD requires inspecting to determine the part

number of the attach pins of the horizontal stabilizer rear spar, and replacing certain attach pins with

new, improved attach pins. We are issuing this AD to prevent premature failure of the attach pins,

which could cause reduced structural integrity of the horizontal stabilizer to fuselage attachment,

resulting in loss of control of the airplane.

 

R. v. Coffey, 2013 ONCJ 178 (CanLII)

R. v. Coffey, 2013 ONCJ 178 (CanLII)

Monday, 15 April 2013

Monday, 15 April 2013



April 15 — British Columbia — Conseil Scolaire Francophone de la 
Colombie-Britannique v. R.

Civil litigation: At the heart of this matter is a language dispute. Conseil Scolaire Francophone de la Colombie-Britannique and others brought an action against the Province of British Columbia and the minister of Education over linguistic rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in order to protect French-language education and culture in B.C., and sought a declaration to have the French-language exhibits it submitted be considered by the court without a certified translation.

Read the B.C. Court of Appeal’s decision. 

Other related news articles:
Documents en français acceptés devant un tribunal de C.-B.? Radio-Canada

April 16 — Quebec — Lévesque v. R. 

Criminal law: The appeal in this case relates to instructions to the jury. Pierre Lévesque and an accomplice had planned a theft involving weapons to be used only to secure the victims and conduct the theft. A jury found Lévesque guilty of first-degree murder after two victims were found murdered. In dispute is whether the Court of Appeal erred in minimizing the extent to which the jury’s deliberations and verdict were affected by the absence of additional instructions regarding the knowledge element of being an accessory to murder.

Read the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision.

Other related news articles:
La Cour suprême entendra Pierre Lévesque, Le journal de Québec

April 16 — Nova Scotia — Murphy v. R. 

Criminal law: Matthew James Murphy was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder. Several people in the Halifax drug trade had conspired to kill a rival and Murphy was in a car with one of the co-conspirators at the scene of the crime. Murphy testified at trial that he had no knowledge of the conspiracy. The majority of the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal except for one judge who would have acquitted him.

Read the N.S. Court of Appeal’s decision.

Other related news articles:
Man gets bail pending appeal of IWK shooting convictions, The Chronicle Herald

April 17 — Quebec — Régie des rentes du Québec v. Canada Bread Company Ltd.

Legislation: In April 2008, the Court of Appeal reversed a decision of the Régie des rentes du Québec and ruled that certain clauses of a private pension plan that allowed the employer to reduce pensions after shutting down were unlawful. The Régie sought leave to appeal. In June 2008, the Quebec legislature enacted a statute that imposed the Régie’s interpretation of the statute and the application for leave to appeal was dismissed. In August 2009, the Régie made its new decision and applied the statute. The employer challenged the decision, claiming the case was no longer pending when the statute came into force.

Read the Quebec Court of Appeal’s decision.

Other related news articles:
How Clear Must the Legislature Be to Set Aside a Final Judgment? Canadian Appeals Monitor

April 18 — Ontario — AIC Ltd. v. Fischer 

Civil procedure: A group of mutual fund managers were investigated by the Ontario Securities Commission for “market timing,” which caused long-term investors to lose money on their investments. The managers settled with the commission and were required to pay more than $200 million to investors. Some of those investors sought certification of a class action for the same conduct. The various courts did not agree on whether it should be certified. The main question is what are the temporal, procedural, and substantive elements that a court can consider in relation to the preferable procedure criterion? 

Read the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision.

Other related news articles:
Supreme Court Will Hear Appeals on Issues of Settlement Privilege, Test for Class Certification and Test for Summary Judgment, Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP
CI Mutual, AIC lose market timing scandal appeal, The Financial Post

April 19 — Ontario — Wood v. Schaeffer

Right to counsel: In June 2009, the Special Investigations Unit was asked to investigate the conduct of two police officers involved in two separate incidents where civilians had died at the hands of police. In both cases, the subject officer and the witness officers were told not to make notes until they had spoken to counsel and not until the end of their shift. In November 2009, the families of the civilians asked the court to interpret the regulatory regime of the rights and duties of police officers involved in SIU investigations, but their application was dismissed. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and made a declaration about the parameters of the regulatory regime.

Read the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision.

An update about my concerns regarding Canadian blood safety

Good news on the plasma for pay front.  I heard back from my federal MP again on March 14/13 and he has forwarded my concerns to the federal Health Minister.  The Ontario Health Minister is already aware of my concerns as I previously posted on this issue.  Now I am just waiting to hear back from either level of government.  Before posting this update today, I check Health Canada's website and coincidentally, there is a Q & A document related to new blood and plasma collection procedures.  The document was designed to address some of the issues that I pointed out in my original post on this issue.  The link to the document is here

In summary, Health Canada is confident in the technical and regulatory procedures that it has in place.  Then again, everyone was confident of it's regulatory procedures before the diluted chemotherapy drug scandal showed up in Ontario and Nova Scotia recently.  The Red Cross was also satisfied with it's procedures for testing blood and plasma before the tainted blood scandal occurred.  As we all found out later, they were very very wrong.  Canadian Blood Services as well as Health Canada are convinced that they have learned from previous mistakes.  I guess we will have to wait and let history be the judge of that.

Researchers show that altering gut microbes protects against disease, supporting the ‘hygiene hypothesis’

Researchers show that altering gut microbes protects against disease, supporting the ‘hygiene hypothesis’

Early life exposure to normal bacteria of the GI tract (gut microbes) protects against autoimmune disease in mice, according to research published on-line in the January 17 edition of Science. The study may also have uncovered reasons why females are at greater risk of autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus compared to males.

Researchers from The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) found that when female mice at high risk of autoimmune (type 1) diabetes were exposed to normal gut bacteria from adult male mice, they were strongly protected against the disease. In this type of mouse strain, more than 85% of females develop autoimmune diabetes due to strong genetic risk factors. In contrast, only 25% of the females developed the disease after they were given normal male gut microbes early in life.

“Our findings suggest potential strategies for using normal gut bacteria to block progression of insulin-dependent diabetes in kids who have high genetic risk,” says principal investigator Dr. Jayne Danska. She is Senior Scientist in Genetics & Genome Biology at SickKids and Professor in the Departments of Immunology and Medical Biophysics at the University of Toronto.

A second unexpected finding was the effects of the gut microbe treatments on sex hormones. “We were surprised to see that when young female mice received normal gut microbes from adult males, their testosterone levels rose. We then showed that this hormone was essential for the gut microbe treatment to protect against the disease. It was completely unexpected to find that the sex of an animal determines aspects of their gut microbe composition, that these microbes affect sex hormone levels, and that the hormones in turn regulate an immune-mediated disease,” says Dr. Danska.

She adds, “We don’t know yet how transfer of male gut microbes into females increases their testosterone, or how this process protects against autoimmunity. This study opens up a new research arena to explore the clinical potential of altering the gut microbe community to prevent or treat immune-mediated diseases.”

The hygiene hypothesis

The findings support the ‘hygiene hypothesis,’ which suggests that the dramatic increase in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases over the past 50 years results from changes in our exposure to microbes. Gut microbes are essential for normal development and training of the immune system, for extracting nutrients from our food, and for protecting us from some infectious diseases. “Our gut microbial community is an essential part of ourselves – bacterial cells outnumber human cells in our bodies by more than ten to one – and we live with them as partners,” explains Dr. Danska.

Previous research has shown that children living on farms, exposed to a denser and more complex microbial environment, have fewer immune-mediated diseases compared to their village or urban-dwelling peers.

Today’s publication is the first to identify a difference between normal gut microbes in males and females reared in identical conditions, and to show that transfer of male-sourced gut bacteria protects against autoimmune disease in females with high genetic risk.

“Our findings point to a direct relationship between normal gut microbe composition and prevention of autoimmune disease. From these discoveries we can move on to characterize the relationships between gut microbes, sex hormones, and ways to control unwanted immune responses,” says Dr. Danska.

Implications for diabetes and other autoimmune diseases
The researchers’ success in preventing type 1 diabetes from developing in high-risk mice suggests that similar approaches may be applicable in preventing and treating other immune diseases, particularly those showing a female sex bias, Dr. Danska says. .

The paper is titled “Sex-specific differences in the gut microbiome drive testosterone-dependent protection from autoimmunity.”

The paper’s co-authors are from the University of Colorado Denver, the Helmholtz Centre in Leipzig, Germany, and the University of Bern in Switzerland. The study was funded by JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation), Canadian Institutes of Health Research, National institutes of Health (US), Genome Canada-Ontario Genomics Institute, and SickKids Foundation.

About The Hospital for Sick ChildrenThe Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) is recognized as one of the world’s foremost paediatric health-care institutions and is Canada’s leading centre dedicated to advancing children’s health through the integration of patient care, research and education. Founded in 1875 and affiliated with the University of Toronto, SickKids is one of Canada’s most research-intensive hospitals and has generated discoveries that have helped children globally.  Its mission is to provide the best in complex and specialized family-centred care; pioneer scientific and clinical advancements; share expertise; foster an academic environment that nurtures health-care professionals; and champion an accessible, comprehensive and sustainable child health system.  SickKids is proud of its vision of Healthier Children. A Better World.™ For more information, please visit www.sickkids.ca. 

About SickKids Centre for Research and Learning 

The SickKids Centre for Research and Learning will bring together researchers from different scientific disciplines and a variety of clinical perspectives, to accelerate discoveries, new knowledge and their application to child health — a different concept from traditional research building designs. The facility will physically connect SickKids science, discovery and learning activities to its clinical operations.  Designed by award-winning architects Diamond + Schmitt Inc. and HDR Inc. with a goal to achieve LEED® Gold Certification for sustainable design, the Centre will create an architectural landmark as the eastern gateway to Toronto’s Discovery District. The SickKids Centre for Research and Learning is funded by a grant from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the Government of Ontario, philanthropist Peter Gilgan and community support for the ongoing fundraising campaign. For more information, please visit www.sickkidsfoundation.com/bepartofit.

$150M funding announcement in personalized medicine

SickKids co-hosts $150M funding announcement in personalized medicine

Their project is among 17 successful applicants from across Canada for the federal 2012 Large-Scale Applied Research Project.  Called “Autism Spectrum Disorders: Genome to Outcomes,” the SickKids application was awarded $10 million. Dr. Scherer is Director of The Centre for Applied Genomics (TCAG) at SickKids and Director of the McLaughlin Centre at University of Toronto. Dr. Szatmari is Chief, Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative (at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and SickKids) as well as Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at University of Toronto.A $150-million federal investment in personalized medicine based on advances in gene science brought Dr. Stephen Scherer and Dr. Peter Szatmari to the podium for the announcement on March 26, 2013.

The competition focuses on projects that leverage scientific advances to achieve positive economic impact through cost-effective health care delivery. With their project Dr. Scherer and Dr. Szatmari aim to use whole genome sequencing to complete a gene-based diagnostic profile of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). “From the massive genomic datasets we generate, we will develop clinical guidelines and recommendations to assist hospitals, health ministries, and other research networks in how best to apply this information to help families,” Dr. Scherer explained.

“Success in the project as a whole will further facilitate earlier diagnosis of autism in families, something most critical to improved outcomes. It will also assist the development of new medicines, and personalized approaches in the treatment of autism,” he said.

The project will also contribute to an ambitious international consortium that is sequencing and analyzing the genomes of 10,000 individuals with ASD, and create a database of evidence that will inform decision-makers in Canada and internationally.

Like the other successful projects across Canada, a key component of the SickKids project is the involvement of other co-funders and partners, including McMaster University and Holland Bloorview Hospital. 

The Honorable Gary Goodyear, federal Minister of State for Science and Technology, made the announcement. Others present included Mary Jo Haddad, President and CEO, SickKids; MP Mike Lake; Dr. Pierre Meulien, President and CEO of Genome Canada; Alison Symington, Vice-President, Corporate Development and Communications; Ontario Genomics Institute; and Dr. Robert Thirsk, Vice-President, Public, Government and Institute Affairs, Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

In his remarks Dr. Meulien cited the vital importance of making whole genome sequencing technology available to research projects and cohorts across Canada. He also highlighted the significance of Genome Canada and CIHR joining forces to support partnerships and networks “to promote rational economic sustainability in a stressed health care system.”

The announcement was followed by the dignitaries’ tour of the The Centre for Applied Genomics/Scherer lab.

Alysena 28 Recalled Product!

Alysena 28

 

Starting date:

April 3, 2013

Posting date:

April 8, 2013

Type of communication:

Drug Recall

Subcategory:

Drugs

Hazard classification:

Type I and II

Source of recall:

Health Canada

Issue:

Product Safety

Audience:

General Public, Healthcare Professionals, Hospitals

Identification number:

RA-26663

• Reason
• Depth of distribution
• Affected products

Recalled Product

1. Alysena 28

Reason

Packaged product may contain two rows of placebo tablets (14 tablets) and two rows of active contraceptive tablets (14 tablets) in the blister pack. Correct packaging is one row of placebo tablets (7 tablets) and three rows of active contraceptive tablets (21 tablets) in the blister pack.
As per the product monograph, in the case of a missed dose, use a non-hormonal method of contraception as an interim measure until you speak with your physician and obtain medical advice.

Depth of distribution

Wholesalers/distributors and retailers in BC, NB, NF, NS, ON, PE, QC

Affected products

A. Alysena 28

DIN, NPN, DIN-HIM

DIN 02387883

Dosage form

• Tablets

Strength

• 100 mcg levonorgestrel and 20 mcg ethinyl estradiol

Lot or serial number

• LF01899A

Companies

Recalling Firm

Apotex Inc.
150 Signet Drive
Toronto
M9L 1T9
Ontario
CANADA

Marketing Authorization Holder

Laboratorios Leon Farma S.A.
C/La Vallina s/n Poligono Industrial Navatejera
24008 Villaquilambre, Leon
SPAIN