Ministry introduces code word ‘Masker 19’ for domestic abuse

DutchNews, May 1, 2020

Photo: Depositphotos.com

As of Friday victims of domestic violence can use the code word ‘masker 19’ (mask 19) at pharmacies so staff can help them contact social services, the health ministry has announced. 

The same code is already being used in France and Spain. Although no figures are available as yet, help organisations in the Netherlands are afraid incidents of domestic violence have been increasing in the Netherlands over the past weeks because the lockdown is forcing people to spend more time in the home. ‘

Pharmacies provide a safe and trusted environment, pharmacy association KNMP chair Aris Prins told broadcaster NOS. ‘Questions about masks are common and if people ask for ‘masker 19’ it won’t attract much attention,’ he said 

The scheme will make it easier for people to ask for help, Prins said. If they are accompanied by others, staff will contact the relevant service on their behalf. 

Last week, the ministry launched an information campaign aimed urging victims to ask for advice by contacting domestic violence prevention organisation Veilig Thuis (0800 2000). The organisation has also added a chat function to its internet site. 

But not everyone is able to use the phone without alerting an abusive partner so a ‘low threshold method is needed to alert help victims of domestic violence in a particularly difficult time’, health minister Hugo de Jonge said. 

People who are in immediate danger must call the police at 112, the ministry said.

How to survive coronavirus quarantine, French style

Yahoo – AFP, Sébastien RICCI, February 1, 2020

'There are worse places' for a two-week quarantine, says Marc Ziltman, the Red
Cross chief on site (AFP Photo/GERARD JULIEN)

Carry-le-Rouet (France) (AFP) - Twice a day they will have their temperature taken and nurses will check them for coronavirus symptoms: other than that, their main concern will be how to keep their phone charged and get their laundry done.

The 179 evacuees -- mostly made up of French nationals and their Chinese spouses -- flown back from China were settling into their new life in quarantine on Saturday. A holiday resort in the southeast of France that will be their home for the next two weeks.

These special guests will have the run of their seaside base in Carry-le-Rouet, about 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the Mediterranean port city of Marseille -- so long as they wear a mask.

On Saturday, their first morning there, some were up to take in the sunrise, others sat outside in the mild weather reading while others explored inside the hotel complex.

By Saturday morning, the day after their arrival, residents were already sitting 

outside enjoying the mild Mediterranean weather (AFP Photo/Hector RETAMAL)

"There are worse places," said Marc Ziltman with a smile, as children's shouts echoed across the facility.

"The easy solution would have been a disused barracks," Zilman, the senior Red Cross official on site, pointed out. Instead, the French authorities opted to make the evacuees stay as comfortable as possible.

"The site needs to be as agreeable as possible because people are going to pass 14 days there," he told AFP.

Gendarme patrols

There is volleyball for the teenagers, art classes for the toddlers and a space for the grown-ups to relax over a coffee, making it more holiday resort than hospital or clinic.

For the moment, no one here has shown any symptoms that could indicate they have caught the new coronavirus. Two possible cases identified as the evacuees came off their plane on Friday tested negative at La Timone hospital in Marseille.

While the evacuees have the run of the resort, they have to wear masks and 

stay on site (AFP Photo/Hector RETAMAL)

The medical team looking after the evacuees is about 20 strong, including doctors, nurses and psychologists. Backing them are are soldiers from France's civil security units and 30 Red Cross volunteers, who mainly take care of the logistics of their stay.

On their first day back on Saturday, the new arrivals got down to solving the immediate challenges raised by their rather hasty repatriation: how to do their laundry, change their Chinese currency and get hold of cigarettes.

A concierge service was already up and running to attend to their needs.

"Yesterday, they were tired, which is quite normal," said Zyltman. They had their evening meal and went quietly to bed. "Now, life is back on course and it's going rather well," he added.

As the special guests got their bearings, members of France's paramilitary gendarme force patrolled the site, keeping careful guard at the resort's only access point.

Two suspected cases of coronavirus were tested when they got off the plane 

from China, but both tested negative (AFP Photo/Hector RETAMAL)

But they are in any case at a fairly isolated site, in the middle of a pine forest, in a cove more than 3 kilometres from the seaside village of Carry-le-Rouet itself.

The parents of a student flown back from China were already outside, having come to deliver him a travel bag with clean clothes. They had to leave it with the gendarmes at the entrance.

But the father seemed reassured that their son was being looked after in France.

Their son had described the atmosphere there as "fairly convivial", he said.

"I think they are all relieved to be there, in very good conditions, he told the journalists gathered outside.

French MPs okay budget for medical marijuana experiments

Yahoo – AFP, October 25, 2019

Lawmakers in France, one of few European countries to ban medical cannabis use,
has approved the budget for two years of patient experiments many hope will pave
the way for a change in the law (AFP Photo/Pablo PORCIUNCULA BRUNE)

Paris (AFP) - Lawmakers in France, one of few European countries to still ban medical cannabis use, approved the budget Friday for two years of patient experiments that advocates hope will pave the way for a change in the law.

The National Assembly voted for the tests, already given the green light by France's ANSM medicines regulator, to be paid out of the social security budget for 2020.

"I sincerely hope that the experiments can begin in the first quarter of 2020," junior health minister Christelle Dubos said after the vote.

Olivier Veran, a lawmaker from President Emmanuel Macron's centrist party who proposed the budget inclusion, said the experiments could target some 3,000 sick people in France.

They will seek to determine whether cannabis derivatives can alleviate the symptoms of certain illnesses, and in which doses, he said.

Seventeen other European Union members have already authorised cannabis-based therapies, he added.

The tests will be done at a number of hospitals, with people who have serious conditions such as epilepsy, chronic pain, cancer or involuntary muscle contractions associated with multiple sclerosis.

In July, the ANSM gave the go-ahead for the experiments, which will not see patients getting a prescription for an old-fashioned joint.

For the purposes of the research, the cannabis can be ingested in the form of oil capsules, infusions, or drops.

France, which has one of the highest proportions of recreational drug users in Europe, softened penalties on marijuana use, making in punishable only by an on-the-spot fine of 200 euros.

In June, a group of French economists recommended fully legalising the drug, arguing it said would add billions to state coffers.

But Macron's government has consistently ruled out changing the law to allow people to get legally high.

Final puffs for France's last tobacco factory

Yahoo – AFP, Nathalie ALONSO, October 2, 2019

Eric Tabanou, director of the France Tabac, factory in the Dordogne region of
southwest France, said keeping the country's last tobacco processing site
open became unviable. (AFP Photo/Mehdi FEDOUACH)

Sarlat-la-Caneda (France) (AFP) - Gerard Chanquoi looks sadly at the conveyor belts of France's sole remaining tobacco processing factory as they whirl for the last times ahead of its final closure, a victim of changed economic times and a different public health landscape.

Anti-smoking campaigners may cheer its demise, but for its workers and local tobacco growers, the closure of the France Tabac factory after 34 years of operation is a devastating blow to the Dordogne region of southwest France.

"It's a fine mess," lamented Chanquoi, 61, who has worked for over 30 years at the factory in the town of Sarlat-la-Caneda.

"It makes you well up a bit, it's hard. I am at the end of my career, but for my friends... who have a decade of career ahead of them, it is tough," he added.

In its heyday after opening in 1985 in one of France's main tobacco growing regions, the factory was a mainstay of the local economy, extending over 10 hectares (25 acres) and processing 20,000 tonnes of tobacco leaves from France and Europe every year.

"Our know-how is recognised across all of Europe," said Chanquoi, looking ruefully at an almost empty warehouse where only years ago bundles of processed tobacco would have stretched to the ceiling.

"This used to be a hive of activity."

The homegrown tobacco used in cigarettes like Gauloises, beloved of French film icons and philosophers, used to be a symbol of France.

But the country's last cigarette factory, la Seita in Riom in the Puy-de-Dome region, closed in 2017 and the Gauloises brand is now produced in Poland.

Inspecting tobacco leaves at the France Tabac plant, 

which will close down for good this month. (AFP Photo/

Mehdi FEDOUACH)

The number of smokers in France remains above the average for a developed country, with 32 percent of adults aged between 18-75 smoking in 2018, according to official figures.

But the number of people describing themselves as daily smokers has fallen sharply in recent years as the price of cigarettes has risen.

'Doomed'

The production line at the factory in Sarlat-le-Caneda finally came to a halt just before midday on Monday. Some workers remain in the plant this week for a final clean-up before a meeting with the director next week ahead of being laid-off.

The factory's director Eric Tabanou said that announcing the closure to the employees was painful, while insisting there was no other option.

"We stood up in front of 200 employees. It was dramatic... The factory was on borrowed time, the end was inevitable," Tabanou said.

Trouble began in 2010 when the European Union announced that, as part of its drive to cut smoking, tobacco producers would no longer receive subsidies from the bloc.

"Tobacco production diminished from year to year and certain products were not in line with the demands of the market," Tabanou said.

"Also, we had to submit to increased competition from tobacco manufacturers who would do anything to save a single cent."

In 2016, the factory was processing over 5,300 tonnes of tobacco a year, far below the 20,000 tonnes processed in the 2000s.

Patrick Maury, a tobacco grower in Mazeyrolles, France, said he hopes to 

find new buyers for his crop. (AFP Photo/Mehdi FEDOUACH)

"French production makes up just one percent of Europe's output, and it is doomed," Tabanou said.

French tobacco will now be processed outside the country, notably in Croatia.

"It is the turning of a page in our agricultural history," Jean-Jacques de Peretti, the mayor of Sarlat-la-Caneda, said when the closure was announced in late August.

'New opportunities'

But some producers hope that all is not lost, and say they will focus on the high-end market and also producing the raw material needed to create vaping cartridges.

"It is a tough blow, but we will try and find new opportunities," said Patrick Maury, who grows tobacco and also runs a dairy farm in Mazeyrolles, around 35 kilometres from Sarlat.

"Along with my son, we need this crop to live, it makes up 40 percent of our revenues," he said.

Laurent Testut, head of the local Perigord Tabac cooperative, said the industry had managed to adapt before, for example by moving to lighter tobacco blends in line with changing tastes and regulations.

"We risk having to come closer to world prices, but it is up to us to focus on production niches. We have some leads already," he said.

French drugmaker, watchdog on trial for diabetes pill deaths

France – AFP, Anne-Sophie LASSERRE, September 21, 2019

Pulmonologist Irene Frachon had alerted French health authorities of heart
problems among patients who had taken the drug (AFP Photo/FRED TANNEAU)

Paris (AFP) - France's medicines watchdog will join a pharma firm in the dock from Monday on fraud and negligence charges linked to the deaths of multiple people prescribed a diabetes pill for weight loss despite safety concerns.

At least 500 people are thought to have died of heart valve problems in France after taking the drug, Mediator, in a major health scandal that became the subject of a 2016 French movie called "150 Milligrams".

Legal experts have concluded the drug may cause as many as 2,100 deaths in the long term.

The criminal trial, with 12 individuals in the dock, will focus on 91 victims, four of them deceased, for whom lawyers believe a link can be shown between their illness and Mediator.

The medicine was on the market for 33 years, and used by about five million people.

Though initially intended for overweight people with diabetes, it was widely prescribed to healthy individuals as an appetite suppressant.

Safety alerts were first flagged in the mid-1990s, but the drug was only banned in France in 2009 -- long after being outlawed in the United States, Spain and Italy.

Victims "want to understand how this medicine could have been left on the market for so long," said Charles Joseph-Oudin, who will represent about 250 complainants in the trial expected to run for six months in the Paris criminal court.

Drug manufacturer Servier and nine subsidiaries are charged with fraud for allegedly concealing Mediator's risks, while the ANSM drug watchdog is being pursued for negligence and allegedly dragging its feet in suspending the drug.

'Selling poison'

At the end of the trial, both risk a fine or an order to compensate victims.

"Servier knew that it was selling poison," said 71-year-old Joy Ercole, who took Mediator for six months ten years ago, and said she suffered heart damage as a result.

"The unlucky ones, like me, are condemned to a slow death. My life is ruined."

Francois de Castro, a lawyer for Servier, said the company was "keen to come and explain that they did not identify the risk before 2009."

Pulmonologist Irene Frachon had alerted French health authorities of heart problems among patients who had taken the drug. She published a book in 2010, which became the basis for a documentary movie.

In 2015, a civil court found Servier negligent for having left "defective" medicine on the market.

It ruled that in 2003 and 2006, when the medicine was prescribed to two claimants, "the state of scientific knowledge meant the risks of pulmonary hypertension" and heart valve damage "could not be ignored".

The ANSM, then known as Afssaps, in 2010 linked at least 500 deaths to Mediator.

Victims have submitted nearly 10,500 claims for compensation from Servier, and many have accepted payment in return for not taking part in criminal proceedings.

'Unpunished'

Servier's website states it has made offers of compensation to more than 3,700 sickened people for a total amount of 164.4 million euros ($182 million), of which 131.8 million euros have been paid out.

The amounts range from a few thousand euros per person to a million euros in one case.

About 100 witnesses are expected to take the stand, including Frachon, who told AFP ahead of the trial it was time for justice to be served.

"We cannot live in a society where white collar crime goes unpunished," she said.

The trial will happen in the absence of a key protagonist: company founder Jacques Servier who died aged 92 in 2014.

The 12 individuals on trial include Servier's former number two Jean-Philippe Seta, doctors who were members of Afssaps commissions but were also paid as consultants for pharma companies, and former senator Marie-Therese Hermange who is accused of producing a report that was favourable to Servier.

France has seen its share of medical scandals.

Thee include 36 baby deaths in the 1970s linked to a contaminated talcum powder, HIV-contaminated blood given to haemophiliacs in the 1980s, and the recent discovery that a popular brand of breast implants contained a cheap, industrial-grade -- not medical-grade -- silicone gel.

No cheating: Frenchwoman was world's oldest person, researchers say

Yahoo – AFP, September 16, 2019

The new article insists that Calment's identity "has not been
usurped" (AFP Photo/GEORGES GOBET) 

Paris (AFP) - Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died two decades ago aged 122, should retain the title of the oldest person on record, French researchers said Monday, rejecting claims of fraud.

Ageing specialists Jean-Marie Robine and Michel Allard, who declared Calment the longest-lived person in the 1990s, said their review of old and new data confirmed she "remains the oldest human whose age is well-documented".

"Recently the claim that families Calment and Billot (her in-laws) organised a conspiracy concerning tax fraud based on identity fraud between mother and daughter gained international media attention," Robine, Allard and two other researchers wrote in The Journals of Gerontology.

"Here, we reference the original components of the validation as well as additional documentation to address various claims of the conspiracy theory and provide evidence for why these claims are based on inaccurate facts," they wrote.

Calment, who used to joke that God must have forgotten her, died in southern France in 1997, setting a longevity record that has been questioned.

Last December, Russian researchers Valery Novoselov and Nikolay Zak claimed in a report that Calment had actually died in 1934 and that her daughter Yvonne stole her identity to avoid paying inheritance tax.

According to their research, the woman who died in 1997 was Yvonne, not her mother, and at a young 99.

The Russian repoprt was based on biographies, interviews and photos of Jeanne Calment, witness testimony, and public records of the city of Arles where she lived.

The new article insists that Calment's identity "has not 

been usurped" (AFP Photo/GEORGES GOBET)

Meeting Van Gogh

The new article insists Calment's identity "has not been usurped", according to a statement from the French research institute INSERM, where Robine works as research director.

The authors cross-checked the original data used to validate the centenarian's identity with newly uncovered documents, to show "there was neither tax fraud nor falsification of Jeanne Calment's identity" the article says.

The team also turned to mathematical modelling to counter arguments that her considerable age was impossible.

In every 10 million centenarians, one can reach the age of 123, they said, "a probability that is certainly small, but that is far from making Ms Calment a statistical impossibility."

"All the documents uncovered contradict the Russian thesis," Robine told AFP, as the team demanded a retraction from Zak and Novoselov.

Novoselov, however, insisted Monday that the original work verifying Calment's identity and age "is full of flaws and mistakes", while Zak said he found the new article "weak".

Born on February 21, Calment became the biggest attraction of the southern French city of Arles since Vincent Van Gogh, who spent a year there in 1888.

She said she had met the artist when he came to her uncle's store to buy paints, and remembered him as "ugly as sin" and having an "awful character".

Calment used to talk of enjoying chocolate and port and would smoke an occasional cigarette before her health deteriorated.

INSERM said however that it could not "support any requests for exhumation" of Calment's body, on which no autopsy was performed after her death.

Related Article:

“McCloud-3 Linear Reflections Part 1”, McCloud, California, US(5), June 28 – July 1, 2019 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) – (Old Souls can become on average 150 years old in the new – multidimensional - energy in the future - > 40 min)

Louvre museum removes Sackler name amid opioid controversy

Yahoo – AFP, July 17, 2019

Paris's iconic Louvre is believed to be the first museum in the world to remove
the Sackler name over the opioid crisis (AFP Photo/Ludovic MARIN)

Paris (AFP) - The Louvre museum in Paris has removed the name of the Sackler family from one of its wings, amid a controversy that has seen the billionaire donors accused of pushing a highly-addictive opioid blamed for tens of thousands of deaths.

An AFP reporter on Wednesday saw that masking tape had been put in place to hide the Sackler name on plaques in the rooms of what had been the Sackler Wing of Oriental Antiquities, which houses artefacts from the ancient Near East.

A museum spokesperson could not say when the tape had been put in place. The wing had been given the name due to a $3.6 million donation made by the Sackler family in 1996.

Louvre president Jean-Luc Martinez said on RTL television on Tuesday that the rooms no longer carried the name as such a tribute lasted a maximum of 20 years after the donation.

This would mean that the Sackler wing should not have been named after the family for several years. But the Louvre spokesperson declined to comment when asked why the name had not been removed three years ago.

American group PAIN (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now), backed by American photographer Nancy Goldin, a former opioid addict, had urged the museum to rename the Sackler Wing.

The Louvre was the latest in a string of museums to face criticism over links to the Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma, whose painkiller OxyContin is now subject to more than 1,000 lawsuits over its role in the US opioid crisis.

In recent months, galleries including New York's Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museum, and London's Tate and National Portrait Gallery, said they would stop accepting donations from the family.

But the Louvre is believed to be the first to actually remove the name, a move welcomed by a PAIN spokesperson while noting that the museum appeared unwilling to publicise it.

In 2017, 47,000 people died in the United States as a result of overdosing on opioids including prescription drugs, heroin and fentanyl, the Centers for Disease Control says.

There are hundreds of lawsuits in various US states against both Purdue and its owner the Sackler family, who are accused of pushing for the prescription of OxyContin despite knowing how addictive it is.

But worries about the medication are not confined to the US.

Last month, around 100 French doctors warned about the risk of a health crisis claiming there were "12 million people in France taking opioids" who had not been told about the potential for addiction and risk of overdose.

Photographer Nan Goldin leads a protest out of the Guggenheim Museum in

Manhattan, New York, against its funding by the Sackler family, the owners of

Oxycontin manufacturer Purdue. Photograph: Yana Paskova/The Guardian

Related Article:

Massive lawsuit says Sackler family broke laws to profit from opioids

Canadian province sues opioid makers, distributors

Oxycodone overdoses in the Netherlands soar as prescriptions rise

Painkiller overdose deaths up 5x among US women

Dutch Seroxat teen users to sue drug maker for side effects

Science & Spiritually Conference 2018, BC – Canada (4), June 16-17, 2018 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Text version “Predictions”)

".... Let me tell you what else is in the field. Two things: These are going to be things that exist now in the field and they are upcoming potentials. The reason I give you these potentials is so if they happen, just like the handshake, you might believe a little more in this process.

There will come a time when Big Pharma will fall over because of a growing higher consciousness of the public. [Applause in the audience] There is a consciousness growing here that begins to have a new respect for each other, so that abuse of women will no longer be tolerated. Things that never happened before will begin happening, like bishops and cardinals resigning. [All 34 bishops in the Catholic Church resigned May 2018 after the new wild card pope called them on their reaction to child abuse for years by their colleagues.] All the things my partner brought today [in the seminar] are actually happening now. Why should some of these drug companies fail? Because there will be a strong reaction from your general public when they realize there are companies that have policies that would keep a Human sick or let him die for money. [Applause in the audience] It would be unconscionable, and the potential grows stronger daily that it's going to happen. The trigger? It's coming. When it does, that industry will be in trouble. Not all pharma is this way, dear ones - understand this - but the ones who are will fall. ..."

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  Dallas Texas, Mar 3, 2012 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: (Old) Souls, Midpoint on 21-12-2012, Shift of Human Consciousness, Black & White vs. Color, 1 - Spirituality (Religions) shifting, Loose a Pope “soon”, 2 - Humans will change react to drama, 3 - Civilizations/Population on Earth,  4 - Alternate energy sources (Geothermal, Tidal (Paddle wheels), Wind), 5 – Financials Institutes/concepts will change (Integrity – Ethical) , 6 - News/Media/TV to change, 7 – Big Pharmaceutical company will collapse “soon”, (Keep people sick), (Integrity – Ethical)  8 – Wars will be over on Earth, Global Unity, … etc.) - (Text version)

Doctors start halting support for vegetative Frenchman

Yahoo – AFP, Renaud LAVERGNE, May 20, 2019

Doctors started halting Lambert's life support at the Sebastopol Hospital in the
northern French city of Reims (AFP Photo/FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI)

Reims (France) (AFP) - Doctors in France on Monday began removing life support for a quadriplegic man who has been in a vegetative state for the last decade, in a hugely controversial case that has drawn in Pope Francis.

The dispute over the fate of Vincent Lambert, 42, who sustained severe brain damage in a 2008 traffic accident, has split his own family and become a subject of political tensions in France.

Lambert's parents, devout Catholics, have repeatedly launched court action to keep him alive, putting them at odds with Lambert's wife and six siblings who believe the most humane course is to let him die.

A last-minute request Monday to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, eastern France, to halt the decision pending a review by the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was rejected.

The court had already refused a similar request in April and said Monday there was "no new evidence" that would justify a new hearing.

Following a final judicial ruling to end the nutrition and hydration Lambert receives, doctors started halting his life support at the Sebastopol Hospital in the northern French city of Reims.

Medical sources told AFP that Lambert could die within days or a week.

The case has re-ignited a contentious debate over France's right-to-die laws, which allow so-called "passive" euthanasia for severely ill or injured patients with no chance of recovery.

Critics say the decision on Lambert is akin to killing a handicapped person, and Pope Francis weighed in Monday in favour of keeping him alive.

"Let us always safeguard life, God's gift, from its beginning until its natural end. Let us not give in to a throwaway culture," the pontiff said.

French President Emmanuel Macron rejected calls by Lambert's parents and others to intervene, saying "the decision to stop treatment was taken after a constant dialogue between his doctors and his wife, who is his legal representative."

Lambert's wife Rachel said Monday that "to see him go, is to see him as a freed man."

"Everyone can have their own opinion and convictions... but above all can we now have our privacy," she told RTL radio.

Doctors started halting Lambert's life support at the Sebastopol Hospital in the 

northern French city of Reims (AFP Photo/FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI)

'As peaceful as possible'

Vincent Sanchez, the doctor treating Lambert who has been the target of the parents' anger, said in a message to the family that the "halting of treatments" and "profound and continued sedation" had been initiated.

In the message seen by AFP, he urged everyone to "rally around him (Vincent Lambert) so these moments are as peaceful, intimate and personal as possible."

The family has been torn apart by the case.

"They are monsters! Monsters!" said his mother Viviane, 73, as she came to the hospital on Monday. The day before she had organised a demonstration outside with her husband Pierre, 90.

An emotional video of Viviane comforting her son in his room, telling him not to cry as he appears to blink away tears, was later posted on the website of the conservative Valeurs Actuelles magazine.

The parents returned later Monday accompanied by two Benedictine monks who were family friends.

One of Lambert's cousins, Helen Liaud, told journalists she would start a hunger strike, calling the decision "unacceptable in a country like France."

"It means that we can... kill all handicapped people who can't feed themselves," she said.

A march was planned later Monday in Paris towards the Elysee palace "to ask for a presidential pardon," lawyers said, before adding: "There is still time to stop this madness."

Legal wrangling

In 2014 Lambert's doctors, backed by his wife and siblings, decided to stop his nutrition and hydration in line with the law.

But the parents, and his half-brother and a sister obtained a court order to block the move on grounds his condition might improve with better treatment, setting off a complex and wrenching legal saga that lasted half a decade.

Early this year, a French court sided with Sanchez's decision to stop the care keeping Lambert alive.

The ruling was upheld last month by France's State Council which decides on the validity of laws and legal decisions.

The UN committee on disabled rights this month asked France to suspend the decision while it conducts its own investigation, which could take years. The French government has made clear there is no legal obligation to abide by this.

Related Articles:

"Current" Events –  Apr 10, 2005 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll)

"... The Ethics of Life

You, as a Human Being, are designed to appreciate and love life. But you put it in a box. You think you live once. You say, life is precious; make it count; keep it going at all costs; make it work. And the underlying thought is that because you only go around one time, all the purpose is wrapped up in one lifetime. Well, I'm going to give you something to think about, something that happened just recently that tens of millions of people all over earth who have the western news media know of.

It was all about one woman's life, and you know who I'm talking about. I'm talking about Terri [Terri Schiavo]. And I'm going to talk about Terri because, you know, she's here [speaking of the real Terri]! And I'm going to give you a perspective about Terri that perhaps you hadn't thought about before, and as I do it, she's going to watch.

It's very metaphysical, you know? This perspective is one from my side of the veil. Terri leaned into the wind of birth many years ago, just as you did. I was there, too. There were potentials laying in front of her - a track that she could take if she wished. There was no predestination, only predispositions of energy that laid before her: the parents she would have (which she had selected), the man she might meet or marry, the accident waiting to happen. All of these things were in her "potential track," and she could have chosen not to go there.

But like so many of you, she looked at it and examined it. These were the times we spoke to her and said, "Dear one, you're going into another Human lifetime that has a potential that's awesome - grander than most Humans on the planet will ever experience. You'll get to present something to tens of millions of people. You'll make them think about life. You'll change the legal system of your country. You'll awaken peoples' awareness to situations that need to be addressed with respect to morality, integrity, and even intuition. Will you do it?"

And I remember what she said. The grand angel who stood before me, who you now call Terri, smiled broadly and said, "I'm ready for that." And some of you cry in your sorrow and say "Why is this Human dead? How could such a thing be tolerated? Why would such a thing happen? Life is so precious." And I ask you this, as Terri looks on in her joy, would you take this away from her? Would you take that away from humanity, what she showed and did that resulted directly in her passing?

Start thinking of these things, perhaps differently. We've told you before that there are even those Human Beings who come in with a predisposition of suicide! What a horrible thought, you might say. "Kryon, could that even be appropriate?" And we say this: More than appropriate, it's by design! "But why should that be?" You might say. "What a horrible dishonorable death." And if that's your reaction, you're placing the whole grand picture in your own little Human box.

When you start examining it spiritually, without Human bias, you start to see that around a suicide there's this energy that develops. It's all about the family. Is there shame? Is there drama? Does it kick the family in the pants so that perhaps they might study things they never did - or perhaps they might they even look within themselves for spirituality? Blessed is the one that comes in with these tasks [like suicide]. There are so many of them who do. For these are the grease of personal change within families, and provide a gift that is grand!

You see, Spirit looks at these things differently. The curtain goes up, it goes down. You come and you go and there are profound lessons, some of which are taught harshly, by those who teach them through their own deaths.

"Well, what is it Kryon? Don't dodge the question with a diversion to suicide, for this isn't what Terri did. Is it proper or is it improper to have somebody in this vegetative state put to death by others around her?" Our answer: Exactly which Human are you talking about? You want a blanket answer, don't you? For six and half billion souls and paths, you want one answer for all. Well, you won't get one. For Terri, the answer is a solid yes. It was as it should have been. She came in with this grand opportunity to change the world, and she did it while everyone watched.

There is appropriateness in all things and sometimes you create for yourselves what seems to be inappropriate. Yet later you understand what the gift was within the challenge. Celebrate Terri, and don't think of this as a shameful thing that Humans did to her. Think of it instead as a book that was written for you to look at, one which pushes you to a place to ask, "What should we do about this now, personally? What should our legislatures do about this, if anything? How can we approach these things more humanely and with more honor? Is our culture addressing this issue? Are we addressing this issue personally?" Let's put these questions where they belong. It's not about "right to life"; it's about the appropriateness of "this life." Each case is individual, and some are profoundly given for the planet and for those around the individual.

Oh, as all of you came into this planet and leaned into the wind of birth separately, each was unique. Each of you has a different story, a different goal, but all have the same purpose: the elevation of the vibration of the planet. Sometimes it happens to many of you at the same time. We'll get to that before we finish. ..."

"THE THREE WINDS" – Feb 23-24, 2013 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Humanity, Home - other side of the veil, Wind of Birth - Birth, Wind of Existence - Life, Wind of Transition - Death) - (Text version)