Mediaboss Marketing

Hastings and Prince Edward Counties/Aug. 25, 2022

International Overdose Awareness Day takes place on August 31 each year with an aim to raise awareness of overdose, reduce stigma associated with drug-related deaths, and remember those who have died or suffered permanent injury due to drug overdose. This year, Hastings Prince Edward Public Health (HPEPH) is collaborating with community partners with support from United Way HPE to reduce stigma related to all types of drug use.

Several events are taking place across the region with this goal in mind.

August 26

Picton: 9 a.m. 12 p.m., 46 King St.The HOPE Centre and HPEPH in partnership with United Way HPE will be providing naloxone training and handing out naloxone kits. Naloxone is a medication that can temporarily stop an overdose caused by opioid drugs. Opioid drugs include heroin, morphine, fentanyl, hydromorphone, codeine and methadone.

August 31

Belleville: 2:30 4 p.m., Market Square, 169 Front St.A presentation to create awareness of the current drug crisis in the region and provide information about the harms that stigma creates for people experiencing substance use featuring speakers from HPEPH and community leaders will be taking place. Members of the community will also be sharing their inspirational stories and there will be a memorial ceremony and moment of silence to remember and honour loved ones lost. This event is being offered by Addictions and Mental Health Services-Hastings Prince Edward (AMHS-HPE) and HPEPH, in partnership with the Belleville Quinte West Community Health Centre (BQWCHC), and United Way HPE.

Bancroft: 2 4 p.m., 26 Station St. (beside the post office)North Hastings Community Trust and HPEPH, in partnership with United Way HPE, will be offering residents naloxone training and naloxone kits, as well as a live streaming of the Belleville event.

Tweed: 8:30 a.m. 8 p.m., Gateway Community Health Centre, 41 McClellan St.In collaboration with the United Way HPE, Gateway Community Health Centre is hosting naloxone training all day. Naloxone kits will be available at this event and going forward at the Gateway Community Health Centre in Tweed.

Trenton: 9 a.m.- 4 p.m., Mobile Community Resource Unit, 97 Front St.BQWCHC staff will provide naloxone training to the public and host a walk of silence at 4:30 p.m. from the Mobile Community Resource Unit and ending at the BQWCHC on Catherine Street to provide a safe place for individuals to grieve.AMHS-HPE will be offering a live streaming of the Belleville event at 2:30 p.m.

While everyone has been impacted by the pandemic, many individuals who use substances experienced an increased risk during the pandemic due to isolation and changes in services and support. In Hastings and Prince Edward Counties (HPEC), 2020 saw 29 deaths related to opioids, and based on preliminary data there were 30 deaths in 2021. In the province of Ontario more than 2,400 Ontarians died from opioid-related causes in 2020. Though preliminary, there were over 2,800 opioid-related deaths in 2021. Preliminary data also shows 20 suspected drug-related deaths from January to July 2022 for HPEC.

Drug poisoning can happen to anyone, including people who use street drugs, people who use prescription drugs incorrectly, or people who are experimenting for the first time. Substance use disorders can also affect anyone, as addiction and mental health disorders are complex and are impacted by a variety of factors outside of individual control. It is important that people with substance use disorders are treated with the same dignity and respect as those experiencing any other health issue.

The presence of contaminated drugs in the community has increased the risk of overdose in HPEC. Individuals who use drugs are encouraged to takesteps to use as safely as possible. Safer drug use supplies continue to be available at HPEPHs Belleville, Trenton, and Bancroft offices.

Consideradditional precautionsto use as safely as possible during the pandemic. If you must use alone, call the National Overdose Response Service overdose prevention hotline at1-888-688-6677. The hotline operates 24-hours-a-day and when you call this confidential and judgement free service, the operator will stay on the phone with you while you use drugs, and will call 911 and advise of possible overdose if they do not receive a response after drugs are administered.

Community members are encouraged to familiarize themselveswith the signs of an overdose and know how to respond to an overdose. If you experience a substance use disorder, you are not alone. For more information, visithttps://www.hpepublichealth.ca/safer-drug-use/.

-30-

Media Contact:

Maureen Hyland, Communications Specialistmhyland@hpeph.ca

About Hastings Prince Edward Public Health

Hastings Prince Edward Public Health (HPEPH) is a public health agency that serves the counties of Hastings and Prince Edward from four local offices. We monitor the health of our local population, deliver programs and services within our communities, and help develop healthy public policies. We provide information and support in many areas to help improve the health and well-being of our residents. Together with our communities, we help people become as healthy as they can be. For more information, please visithpePublicHealth.ca. You can also find us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

View original post here:
Media Release: This International Overdose Awareness Day, local partners are working to reduce stigma related to drug use - Hastings Prince Edward...

Dana Malcolm

Staff Writer

#USA, August 25, 2022 After 54 years in the US public service, Dr. Anthony Fauci says he will be retiring from leading the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) by the end of the year.

Fauci became the face of the COVID19 pandemic in the US in 2020, as Americans looked to the White House, the White House looked to Fauci. The 81-year-old has held the post of White House advisor for some time, giving his services to seven different presidents.

The celebrated doctor who has led the NIAID for 38 years came under fire for his advice throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and especially clashed with Republicans over restrictions he advised the White House to implement. Fauci had promised he would not retire until the US was rid of COVID19.

After announcing his imminent retirement, he told the New York Times, Im not happy about the fact that we still have 400 deaths per day, he said. We need to do much better than that. So, I dont think I can say that Im satisfied with where we are. But I hope that over the next couple of months, things will improve.

One of the most cited modern researchers ever, Fauci has been hailed as a hero for his HIV/AIDS response at a time when the disease was not yet understood and claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people. He received a Presidential Medal of Freedom for his contributions to the White House AIDS project, United States Presidents Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

Fauci says he is leaving his position to pursue the next chapter of his career

While I am moving on from my current positions, I am not retiringI plan to pursue the next phase of my career while I still have so much energy and passion for my field. I want to use what I have learned as NIAID Director to continue to advance science and public health and to inspire and mentor the next generation of scientific leaders as they help prepare the world to face future infectious disease threats.

Fauci will turn 82 on December 24th.

See the rest here:
CDC says it missed the Mark on Covid response - Magnetic Media

Respondents demographic characteristics

The cooperation rate was 30.4% (1216 responses from subjects in 4000 sampled households) in this study. Of those who cooperated, 98.2% provided an answer, including I dont know, to all questions, while the rest did not answer the question about the degree to which they believed cancer could be prevented by improving lifestyle Reasons for lack of responses were refusal to participate (n=1122), absence from home in the survey period (n=1071), change of address after sampling (n=143), lack of knowledge about the address (n=9), and other undetermined reasons (n=439). However, response rates could not be calculated according to the formula determined by the American Association for Public Opinion Research due to lack detailed data on reasons for non-responses in this study16. The response rate did not differ by geographical area or city-scale of the study areas (Supplementary Table S1). Mean age of the respondents was 54.8years, and 46.3% (n=563) of respondents were men (Table 1). The mean age was statistically significantly lower and the educational status was statistically significantly higher among men than women.

Although women generally indicated higher attributable fractions of cancer risk than men, the order of magnitude was similar in both sexes (Table 2). Tobacco smoking (55.7%, mean attributable fraction of cancer risk overall) and cancer-causing viral and bacterial infection (52.0%) were regarded highly as causes of cancer. In contrast, participants regarded the attributable fraction of cancer risk of other lifestyle factors to be much lower (obesity [36.6%], physical inactivity [31.9%], unbalanced diet [30.9%], and alcohol consumption [26.2%]) than that of other environmental factors (endocrine-disrupting chemicals [42.7%], air pollution [40.0%], occupational exposure [38.1%], and food additives and pesticides [33.9%]). While respondents thought the attributable fraction of cancer risk of genetic factors was high (51.7%), they thought a small fraction of cancers were preventable by improving lifestyle (34.6%). Missing data were found in calculation of the attributable fraction due to exclusion of responses of "I don't know" (4.4% to 13.6%) and no answer for the degree prevented by improving lifestyle (1.8%) (Table 2).

A large proportion of respondents indicated they were interested in cancer prevention (n=980, 80.8%), with the rate being significantly higher in women (n=562, 86.3%) than in men (n=418, 74.5%) (Supplementary Table S2). Respondents who indicated they were interested in cancer prevention tended to be older and marginally highly educated. The presence of interest in cancer prevention did not differ by the city-scale of study areas.

The demographic characteristics (i.e. sex, age, educational status, and study area) of the respondents who indicated they engaged in any health behavior for cancer prevention were similar to those who indicated they were interested in cancer prevention (Supplementary Table S2). Among the individual health behaviors (Table 3), abstinence from smoking (38.4%) accounted for the highest proportion of health behaviors for cancer prevention in men, followed by improving diet (30.5%), whereas improving diet (44.6%) in women, followed by cancer screening/health check-up (40.0%). While the proportion who engaged in health behaviors tended to increase with age, the proportion who indicated they abstained from smoking and drinking tended to be high among both younger and older generations (Supplementary Table S3).

The majority of respondents indicated they obtained information on cancer prevention from any source (n=1158, 95.2%) (Table 4). The most common source was television (n=986, 81.2%), followed by print media (n=754, 62.3%; including newspapers, books, magazines, brochures provided by pharmacies/hospitals, and advertisements), interpersonal sources including health professionals (n=337, 27.7%; such as instructions from professionals and health classes) and family/friends (n=333, 27.3%), the internet (n=280, 23.1%; including websites of public institutions and other organizations, and social media), and radio (n=111, 9.2%). Among the types of print media, newspapers were used by 42.6% (n=515) of respondents, while books were used by 9.0% (n=109).

Older respondents were more likely to use radio (age [continuous], odds ratio [OR]=1.03, 99.9231% CI by Bonferroni correction: 1.011.05; multivariate-adjusted model), newspapers (OR=1.04, 99.9231% CI 1.021.05), while younger respondents were more likely to use social media (OR=0.96, 99.9231% CI 0.930.98) (Supplementary Tables S3, S4). Further, women were more likely to use interpersonal sources compared with men: health classes (women vs. men, OR=2.44, 99.9231% CI 1.195.00) and family/friends (OR=1.76, 99.9231% CI 1.142.70). Moreover, respondents with higher levels of education tended to be more likely to use sources of print media, except advertisements, and internet sources, except social media, but not statistically significant. Preference for information sources did not differ by city-scale of the study areas.

We investigated the association between information sources and health behaviors after adjusting for age, sex, educational status, city-scale of study area, and interest in cancer prevention (Table 5). Among print media, books were associated with improving diet (OR=2.52, 99.9231% CI 1.185.39) and exercise (OR=2.33, 99.9231% CI 1.124.85), and newspapers and magazines were associated with a broad range of health behaviors. Brochures provided by pharmacies/hospitals were associated with cancer screening/health check-up (OR=2.31, 99.9231% CI 1.293.38), and advertisements were associated with abstinence from smoking (OR=2.14, 99.9231% CI 1.193.83) and drinking (OR=2.28, 99.9231% CI 1.303.98). Among the online sources, websites of public institutions were associated with a broad range of health behaviors including improving diet (OR=2.11, 99.9231% CI 1.074.17), cancer screening/health check-up (OR=2.12, 99.9231% CI 1.114.04), and abstinence from smoking (OR=2.56, 99.9231% CI 1.225.37). Information obtained from health professionals including instructions and health classes was associated with a broad range of health behaviors including improving diet, exercise, cancer screening/health check-up, and abstinence from smoking/drinking (OR=1.92 to 3.11, P-value=0.0039 to<0.0001). Information obtainment from family/friends was associated with abstinence from smoking (OR=1.68, 99.9231% CI 1.032.73). In contrast, television and social media were not associated with an increase in any type of health behavior.

Read more from the original source:
A cross-sectional survey on awareness of cancer risk factors, information sources and health behaviors for cancer prevention in Japan | Scientific...

Prosecutors also added in another court filing unsealed Friday that the ongoing criminal probe into government records stashed at Trumps Florida home has involved a significant number of civilian witnesses whose safety could be jeopardized if their identities were revealed.

The partial release of the heavily-redacted affidavit and related court documents is the latest development in a fast-moving legal saga that poses an acute threat to the former president. Experts say it is unprecedented in nature. One classified information expert who oversaw such issues across the government said Friday that the scenario laid out was extraordinary and suggested that significant national secrets are at stake.

To my knowledge, this has never become an issue. Most former presidents have played this pretty straight and narrow, said William Leonard, who headed up the National Archives Information Security and Oversight Office. If it was just the infamous personal note from the North Korean leader to Trump and he refused to part with that, thats something that obviously could be handled administratively But I have to think in this instance the information was so sensitive and the potential damage to national security could be so significant that the government felt they had no other choice other than to proceed down this route.

The court filings unsealed Friday revealed that the magistrate judge who issued the warrant for the search of Trumps residence received legal arguments from Trumps attorneys before doing so.

Those arguments came in the form of a three-page, May 25 letter from Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran. In the letter, Corcoran sought to discourage the Justice Department from proceeding with a criminal investigation or potential criminal charges over the presence of classified records at Mar-a-Lago.

Public trust in the government is low. At such times, adherence to the rules and long-standing policies is essential, Corcoran wrote. President Donald J. Trump is a leader of the Republican Party. The Department of Justice (DOJ), as part of the Executive Branch, is under the control of a President from the opposite party. It is critical, given that dynamic, that every effort is made to ensure that actions by DOJ that may touch upon the former President, or his close associates, do not involve Politics.

Notably, the letter came before a June 3 meeting between Trump, his attorneys and DOJ officials at Mar-a-Lago, where the departments counterintelligence chief Jay Bratt and FBI agents viewed parts of the premises. Trump has repeatedly described his interactions with DOJ as cordial, with aides noting that he shook hands with Bratt during the meeting. But those accounts didnt mention the heightened tensions reflected in Corcorans letter.

Similarly, Trump has described that DOJ asked him to install a lock on his storage facility after the June 3 meeting. But DOJ revealed in the affidavit that this request was delivered with far more alarm than Trump conveyed.

As I previously indicated to you, Mar-a-Lago does not include a secure location authorized for the storage of classified information, DOJ wrote in a letter to Corcoran at the time. As such, it appears that since the time classified documents [redacted] were removed from the secure facilities at the White House and moved to Mar-a-Lago on or around January 20, 2021, they have not been handled in an appropriate manner or stored in an appropriate location.

Corcoran, in his May 25 letter, also argued that presidents have absolute authority to declassify documents, although he did not explicitly say that Trump had done so.

Some Trump allies have asserted that he explicitly or implicitly declassified materials by taking them from the Oval Office to the White House residence or other locations, though no evidence has emerged of a formal declassification order.

Indeed, the affidavit unsealed Friday contains a reference to former Trump adviser Kash Patel one of Trumps authorized representatives to the National Archives claiming in a Breitbart News article that Trump had declassified many of the records at issue.

In a post on his social media site, Trump lashed out shortly after the affidavit was unsealed, complaining of heavy redactions and noting that the word nuclear wasnt mentioned despite reports that documents related to Americas nuclear secrets were among the cache held at Mar-a-Lago. Trump, notably, didnt say whether or not such documents were in fact among them, only that there was no reference to them.

Trump also repeatedly slammed Reinhart for authorizing the search saying he should have recused himself from the matter. But Trump as both Reinhart and the Justice Department have noted in court filings never attempted to intervene in the matter to either help shape the redaction process, provide more insight on the documents he had at his estate or to formally seek the magistrates recusal.

In his own letter, Corcoran contended that a technical reading of one federal statute covering mishandling of classified information indicates it does not apply to the president. But he did not address whether or how a former president would also be immune from prosecution or retain some declassification power.

When prosecutors sought the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, they included Corcorans letter in their submission to Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart. However, they did not cite the criminal statute Corcoran referenced as a basis for the search. Instead, prosecutors pointed to possible violations of the broader-ranging and more severe Espionage Act, as well as criminal statutes covering theft of government records and obstruction of justice.

The Justice Department had grown alarmed this spring after learning from the National Archives that Trump possessed highly classified materials in a Mar-a-Lago storage room, some of which had been returned to the archives earlier in the year. But DOJ came to believe not all of it had been sent back. Trumps attorneys, meanwhile, delayed the FBIs access to the retrieved documents earlier this year, according to correspondence released by the Archives. Ultimately the department resorted to getting a search warrant in order to try and obtain the materials it believed remained at Mar-a-Lago.

The much-anticipated release of the affidavit behind that warrant came in response to an order from Reinhart, who partially granted a request from media organizations and a conservative group that the document be unsealed.

The Justice Department argued against making even a redacted version of the affidavit public, warning that redactions needed to protect the integrity of the investigation and to prevent harm to individuals would be so extensive as to render the document meaningless. However, the department elected not to appeal Reinharts decision to release a censored version of the affidavit to a district court judge or to a federal appeals court.

Prosecutors submitted proposed redactions to the court on Thursday morning and Reinhart concurred with all of them. In an order issued a short time later, the judge said that prosecutors had shown good cause to redact elements of the affidavit that would reveal the identities of witnesses, law enforcement agents, and uncharged parties, as well as the investigations strategy, direction, scope, sources, and methods and grand jury information.

Some of the deletions are intended to shield investigators sources and methods for collecting evidence as part of their criminal probe into what Reinhart called the highly classified documents the FBI discovered at Mar-a-Lago. Both Reinhart and the Justice Department have noted an uptick in violent threats against those connected to the Trump probe as they laid out their rationale for redactions.

While the precise reasons for most of the specific redactions were not revealed Friday, at least some like withholding the name of the FBI agent who swore out the affidavit were withheld on grounds of agent safety.

Read the original post:
Trump Mara-Lago affidavit reveals 'handwritten notes,' highly classified material led to warrant request - POLITICO

President Joe Biden has mocked former President Donald Trump for claiming that he secretly declassified all of the classified documents that were recovered by the FBI during the Mar-a-Lago raid.

Biden cracked a smile and appeared to be close to laughing outside the White House on Friday after a reporter pointed out that Trump "said that he declassified all those documents" that are currently the subject of a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation.

The president dismissed a question on whether Trump had the power to "just declassify them all" by mockingly stating that he had just "declassified everything in the world," while also insisting that he was "not going to comment" on the matter.

"Well, I just want [you] to know I've declassified everything in the world!" Biden said after grinning. "I'm the president, I can do it all! C'mon! Declassified everything... I'm not going to comment, because I don't know the detail. I don't even want to know, I'll let the Justice Department take care."

When asked if it was "ever appropriate" for a president to take home "classified and top secret documents," Biden said that it depends on "the circumstances." He was not asked whether it was appropriate for a president to keep classified documents at home after leaving office.

Biden said that he was taking home his own daily intelligence briefing on Friday but stipulated that he had a "completely secure" area that he would be reading it in while accompanied by a member of the military and would be returning the document to military personnel just after reading it.

Multiple boxes of classified documents, including some marked "top secret" and some that reportedly may have included nuclear secrets, were recovered during the August 8 raid.

Biden has insisted that did not know about the raid ahead of time and that he is not involved in the ongoing DOJ investigation into whether Trump's taking of official documents broke multiple federal laws including the Espionage Act.

Trump has called the raid a "break-in" in multiple Truth Social posts and suggested that Biden was involved in planning the raid and what calls a "political Witch Hunt" targeting him.

On Friday, the former president expressed outrage over the release of the redacted affidavit that was used to justify the Mar-a-Lago search warrant. Trump had demanded that the full, unredacted version of the affidavit be released instead.

The DOJ opposed releasing the affidavit over concerns that it could jeopardize an ongoing investigation and the safety of witnesses, including confidential informants in Trump's orbit, at risk.

The version that was released on Friday following an order from Judge Bruce Reinhart was heavily redacted and obscured any clues about the identities of the informants.

However, experts including Trump-friendly former attorney Alan Dershowitz have said that the affidavit likely gives the DOJ enough evidence to indict the former president, if an indictment is pursued.

Trump lashed out at the redactions on Truth Social soon after the affidavit was released, accusing the federal authorities of participating in "public relations subterfuge."

"Affidavit heavily redacted!!!" Trump wrote. "Nothing mentioned on 'Nuclear,' a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI & DOJ, or our close working relationship regarding document turnover - WE GAVE THEM MUCH. Judge Bruce Reinhart should NEVER have allowed the Break-In of my home."

Newsweek reached out to Trump's office for comment.

Original post:
Joe Biden Mocks Donald Trump Over Claim He 'Declassified Everything' - Newsweek