Scientists revive brain function in dead pigs

Yahoo – AFP, Patrick GALEY, April 17, 2019

Frankenswine: Experts said the study threw into question at what point an
animal, or even humans, are dead (AFP Photo/Damien MEYER)

Paris (AFP) - Scientists have managed to restore cell function in the brains of pigs hours after they died, in a breakthrough Wednesday that experts said threw into question the very notion of what makes animals -- or even humans -- alive.

Authors of the US-based study said their research could one day be used to help treat victims of heart attacks and strokes and unravel the mysteries of brain trauma.

In human and large mammal brains, cells crucial for neural function begin to degrade as soon as blood supply is cut -- a process long considered to be irreversible.

But the findings of the trial, published in the journal Nature, show that the brains of pigs can have their blood flow and cell function restored even hours after death.

The team from the NIH BRAIN initiative, a federally funded US research programme, used the brains of 32 pigs that had been slaughtered for food and discarded, without blood or glucose flow, for four hours each.

Then, using a tissue support system that pumps a liquid designed to mimic blood through organs, they rehydrated the brains for a further six hours.

Some brains received the patented life-support solution and others were given a control substance.

Flickers of life

The results were astonishing: the brains that received the artificial blood had basic cell function restored. Their blood vessel structure was revived, and the team even observed some localised processes -- including in synapses and immune responses -- flickering back to life.

Those that received the control solution turned within hours to what researchers described as "something a bit like yoghurt".

"I was tremendously surprised," Nenad Sestan, a researcher at Yale University and lead study author told AFP.

"We were surprised how well the structure was preserved. We found that cell death is reduced, which is very exciting and promising.

The findings suggest that brain cells and arteries remain functional for hours 

after death (AFP Photo/Fred TANNEAU)

"The main conceptual finding is this: cell death in the brain occurs across a longer time period than we previously thought," Sestan added.

The team stressed that they saw no "higher level functional activity" such as electric signalling associated with consciousness in the revived brains.

"That is a clinical sign that the brain is alive, and we never found it," said Sestan. "This is not a living brain, it is a cellularly active brain."

Had any such activity been detected, the team said they would have had to deliver anaesthetic to the brains to null any pain -- despite them having been dead for hours.

"If some activity shows up that indicated consciousness, we would have to stop the experiment," said Stephen Latham, from Yale's Centre of Bioethics.

"This would be unique: inducing consciousness in an organ that's not connected to any living being."

'Not alive, not dead'

The findings suggest that scientists may have underappreciated the brain's capacity for self-restoration after a patient is declared brain dead.

But for experts invited to comment on the study, it raised deeper philosophical and ethical questions.

Writing in a linked editorial, Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy at Duke University, said that the study "throws into question long-standing assumptions over what makes an animal -- or a human -- alive."

She said researchers had inadvertently created an ethical grey area where the pigs used were "not alive, but not completely dead."

Dominic Wilkinson, professor of medical ethics at the University of Oxford, said that the study could have vital implications for future brain research.

"This research reminds us that 'death' is less an event, and more of a process that occurs over time," he said.

"Cells within the human organism may be alive for some period of time after the human person has died."

Zvonimir Vrselja, also at Yale School of Medicine's Department of Neuroscience, said the team planned to use their support system on dead brains for longer periods of time in order to see how the cells react.

"We could potentially get some insight into how these brains could be saved," he told AFP.

Related Article:

"The Biggest Filter" - July 18-19, 2015 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Carroll) - (Text version)

“..  The Biggest Filter that Hinders Truth is Your Biased Knowledge

The biggest filter of humanity, the one that keeps Humans from actual truth, believe it or not, is called knowledge. We speak of that which humanity perceives currently as knowledge. That which you do not know is, therefore, future knowledge. Now, every single scientist understands the difference - every single one - for they know what is coming is going to teach them what they don't know yet. This is part of the scientific process. Even so, they take what they know, or think they know, and completely let it temper the experiments for what they don't know. They base the future on what they know or believe, even though they know better!

A medical doctor will look in the past and he'll remember being taught about a time when humans would report to the barbershop for healing. That's when they would actually bleed people for healing. By the way, that's the reason for the barber pole having the red stripe on it - it's the tradition of barbers doing the bleeding. So back then, you went to get healed in the barbershop by being bled! This, of course, led to many deaths because there was no understanding of germs, sterilization or today's common sense. Doctors know this, and they laugh at how far you all have come from this. So doctors absolutely know that what is coming will someday be actually laughable, yet they are also absolutely and completely closed to what it might be. They just think it will be an advancement of what they currently know.  ….”

“..  Medicine - Where It's Going

I want to show you some other areas to consider. There are several categories that we'd like to talk about, but they're not in a specific order except for the last one. So let's talk about medicine. What is future medicine going to look like?

The most elegant predictions of medicine fall short of what's really coming. What you have today is a high-tech approach to designer chemistry. Now, since the body is made up of chemistry, it makes sense to look at this chemistry and work with it. It makes total sense to discover how it reacts to disease and then design cures with more chemistry. It's absolutely normal what you have done, but it's going to reach an end very soon. Because the future of medicine is physics, dear ones, not chemistry.

You're going to start understanding and developing new medical physics. You will discover that medi-physics is going to literally speak to cellular structure and give it instructions, without one chemical involved. There's always a reaction to chemistry, isn't there? There's always a side effect. When you push one thing, something else reacts, doesn't it? How do you like it so far? Your most elegant chemical designs, the ones that are helping with the worst diseases on the planet, all have side effects - and some of those side effects are death! I say to you, how do you like it so far?

Does it really seem elegant to you? Or perhaps it's just a more sophisticated way of bleeding in the barbershop? Dear ones, that's how you're going to look at it someday! You're going to slap your heads and say, "Remember the day when we did everything with chemistry and drugs?"

Right now, these kinds of changes have already started in several areas. There are discoveries being made that are healing some of the most heart-breaking diseases you have. I reveal one, because it's not a secret. I will always give you information that is either being worked on or has been postulated through free choice on this planet. That is the guideline of channelling. We can't give it to you. You've got to develop it yourself. However, we can put you in an energy that has a faster discovery potential - that is to say, discoveries become more obvious.

Alzheimer's is heart breaking. There are millions on this planet who develop this condition, more all the time. You're living longer and a plaque-like material that literally obfuscates your memory within the brain is becoming more common. It clings to certain parts of your brain, encrusting and restricting it, imprisoning the Human's ability to remember and eventually process information at all. The result is death, slow death. It's caused by your environment, a fact which will be discovered eventually. Your long-lived Ancients didn't have it.

It's going to be cured with physics. Your science is starting to find out that the plaque-like substance has a resonance that allows it to be weakened with sound. High-frequency sound, tuned to a certain frequency and amplitude, will cause the sheaths to weaken, dissolve, and come off. There's a lot of research to do yet, but it's a Eureka! moment - realizing that physics alone, without chemistry, can change the structure of biology. This is with no side effects whatsoever. It's coming, it's coming.

There are those working with fresh umbilical cord stem cells right now who are using pure physics to guide the stem cells to a specific destination in the body in order to repair failing systems. Dear ones, the future of health and healing is not through better chemistry, yet medicine is still waiting for better pills! Did you connect the dots and realize that all biology is physics based? There is magnetics, leverage, the energy of consciousness, electricity and much more within cellular structure. With physics alone, you can "tune in" to disease and destroy it! You can fine-tune your system with cooperative resonances and extend life with benevolent, physical assistance. Sixteen years ago, I told you this when I spoke of the Temple of Rejuvenation. I described the super-cooling needed to do it and the temperatures needed to work with it (-55C). This is physics!

Now, the false expectation of greater chemistry for the future is totally caused from the filter of knowledge. What you have and know then gives you your expectation of what is going to take place. It literally blocks you from seeing some of the potentials that you may have.  ….”

Four in 10 cigarettes break rules on tar and nicotine: safety board research

DutchNews, April 17, 2019

Four in 10 cigarettes tested by the Dutch product safety board contain too much tar and other chemicals, but manufacturers are rarely being fined, the AD said on Wednesday. 

Of the 100 plus cigarettes tested in 2017, 43 did not meet official Dutch standards, which say smoke should not contain more than 10 milligrams of tar, 1 milligram of nicotine and 10 milligrams of carbon monoxide, the AD said. 

Nevertheless, just one fine was handed out because the NVWA maintains a 20% margin of error, the AD said. The paper bases its claims on documents released under freedom of information legislation to anti-smoking campaign group Rookpreventie. 

The makers of Lexington cigarettes received the only fine but brands such as Camel Original and Lucky Strike Original Red also failed to meet the legal standards, the AD said. 

Margin of error 

In some cases, smoke was found to contain almost 30% more tar than is legal. However, the makers were not fined because the NVWA maintains a margin of error of 20% for tar and nicotine and 25% for carbon monoxide, a spokesman for the organisation told the paper. 

The campaign group says the safety watchdog should take action and the margin of 20% is far too high. ‘It is as if you are driving 145 kph in a 130 kph zone and the police note that you are speeding but do nothing about it,’ the foundation’s lawyer Phon van den Biesen told the paper. 

The testing was carried out using the controversial ISO method which experts consider records lower cigarette emissions than smokers really inhale. Campaigners want a switch to the new Canadian method which they say gives a more accurate picture. 

Tests last year on 100 cigarettes using the Canadian method by the Dutch public health institute RIVM found they contained up to 26 times more tar and nicotine than indicated on their packaging.

Supreme court upholds sentence for man who helped mother, 99, to die

DutchNews, April 16, 2019

An elderly man who helped his 99-year-old mother to die 10 years ago has had his six month suspended jail sentence upheld by the Supreme Court, ending a lengthy legal process. 

Albert Heringa (75) was earlier cleared on all charges but the Supreme Court said in March 2017 there should be a retrial because euthanasia carried out by someone other than a doctor must be subject to ‘very strict rules’. 

In the subsequent trial, Heringa was sentenced to a six month suspended jail term, which he appealed. That conviction has now been confirmed. 

Heringa’s lawyer Tim Vis told website Nu.nl that he was disappointed with the ruling. ‘We will consider the verdict carefully and may look at approaching the European court for human rights in Strasburg,’ he said. 

Lethal dose 

Heringa decided to help his mother die when doctors refused her request to administer a lethal dose of medication. 

He filmed his mother, who was almost blind and suffering from crippling back pains, as he helped her take the pills that would kill her. She had been secretly storing up the pills for some time. 

The footage featured in a documentary called De laatste wens van Moek (Mum’s final wish) which was broadcast in 2010.

Germany's highest court reopens painful debate on assisted suicidehttps://t.co/Gu0219lu2z pic.twitter.com/07mpBif8N4

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 16 april 2019

Dutch fertility doctor secretly used his own sperm to father 49 children

DutchNews, April 12, 2019

The owner of a fertility clinic used his own sperm to father 49 children, according to DNA tests revealed on Friday. 

Jan Karbaat died in 2017, and after his death dozens of people came forward to say that they suspected that he had used his own sperm to impregnate their mothers, without their knowledge. 

A court case gave permission for materials containing his DNA to be collected and then the 49 Dutch people fought for the right to test their own DNA against these samples. 

Tim Bueters, lawyer for the group, has said that he is happy that an end has come to their uncertainty, reports the NOS . 

The doctor, who had a clinic in Barendrecht, had recognised 22 children.

New York mandates vaccine to contain Brooklyn measles outbreak

Yahoo – AFP, Thomas URBAIN, April 10, 2019

A school bus on April 9, 2019 in a Jewish quarter of Williamsburg, Brooklyn -- where
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a public health emergency over an
outbreak of measles (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

New York (AFP) - New York's mayor declared a public health emergency in parts of Brooklyn on Tuesday, ordering all residents to be vaccinated to fight a measles outbreak concentrated in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

The order concerns all people living or working in four zip codes of Williamsburg, northwest Brooklyn, where some residents oppose vaccines on religious grounds -- although neither Jewish texts nor local Jewish authorities advise against vaccination.

"It was time to take a more muscular approach," de Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference as the emergency measures were announced.

"This can be turned around quickly," he said. "We can stop this."

Under the new rules, anyone who has not received the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine or does not have evidence of immunity risks a fine of $1,000.

The city also warned that yeshiva religious schools and day care programs serving the local Orthodox Jewish community would face penalties and possible closure if they keep taking in students who are not vaccinated against measles, which can cause severe diarrhea, pneumonia and vision loss and can potentially be fatal.

New York authorities warned that yeshiva religious schools and day care programs 

serving the Williamsburg Orthodox Jewish community would face penalties and 

possible closure if they continue to take in unvaccinated students (AFP Photo/

Johannes EISELE)

Like all but three American states, New York requires a series of vaccinations for school-age children but has until now granted exemptions on both medical and religious grounds.

Since October, however, 285 cases of measles have been confirmed in New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). None proved fatal, but 21 patients required hospitalization and five were admitted to intensive care.

"I urge everyone, especially those in affected areas, to get their MMR vaccines to protect their children, families and communities," de Blasio said in a statement.

'Safe, effective and life-saving'

"There's no question that vaccines are safe, effective and life-saving."

That message was echoed by Dr Herminia Palacio, deputy mayor of health and human services.

"When you make the decision not to vaccinate your child, please understand you're also making that decision for the people around your child," warned Palacio, who said her services had received reports of so-called "measles parties" held to purposely expose children to the disease.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said it was time for "a more muscular approach" to

the resurgence of measles in parts of the city (AFP Photo/Jim WATSON)

Although measles was declared officially eliminated from the United States in 2000, a total of 465 cases have been confirmed in 19 states from January 1 to April 4, according to the CDC.

"This is the second-greatest number of cases reported in the US since measles was eliminated in 2000," it said.

The highest figure -- 667 -- occurred in 2014.

The resurgence of the once-eradicated, highly-contagious disease is linked to a growing anti-vaccine movement in richer nations -- which the World Health Organization has identified as a major global health threat.

Most of the New York cases involved unvaccinated or incompletely vaccinated individuals, according to de Blasio's office.

The so-called anti-vax, or anti-vaxxer phenomenon has adherents across Western nations but is particularly high profile in the US, where it has been fueled by medically baseless claims spread on social media.

Although measles was declared officially eliminated from the United States in 2000, 

cases have been confirmed in 19 US states this year, according to the Centers for 

Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (AFP Photo/Johannes EISELE)

Rockland County, located near New York City, has also declared a 30-day public health emergency over a measles outbreak there that has seen 168 people contract the disease, according to the CDC.

Non-vaccinated minors in the county were banned from public places in a bid to prevent the spread of the disease, and hundreds of people have now been vaccinated, according to authorities.

Patricia Schnabel Ruppert, the health commissioner there, said that since October she has been waging an uphill fight to persuade people vaccines are safe and necessary to protect the larger community.

Among her daily battles: having to constantly repeat that the vaccine does not cause other diseases, that it does not lead to autism, and that the practice of using fetal tissue to produce the vaccine ended decades ago.

Related Articles:

Vaccination debate rages on, €2m allocated to answer parents’ questions

“To vaccinate or not to vaccinate, that is the question”

Kryon Q&A

Question (2003): Dear Kryon, I have a new grandson. He's going for his first vaccination in the next few weeks. If we're beginning to transmute toxins with reconnections to our endocrine system through our DNA, then what happens to our babies, who by law have to be vaccinated? What are your thoughts on this subject?

Answer: First, know that vaccinations are a God-given science that humanity earned. They're a tried and proven homeopathic method that have been with you for years. You were probably vaccinated yourself, and it worked.

We have three answers: (1) God is not in a vacuum. Even the vaccinated Human Being who's older can modify and rework their DNA. So there's no time limit, and there are no rules that say "Once vaccinated, you're ruined." (2) The Human who is of the age of awareness can say, even as they are vaccinated, "Let nothing inappropriate enter my chemistry." This is a conscious instruction given to your "intelligent cellular structure" (the same one responsible for kinesiology and homeopathic results). This will result in your cells only using what they need and casting away everything else. (3) Finally, about babies: There has been a push by your science lately to vaccinate against many things at the same time. You'd be advised to seek out a doctor who will only vaccinate your child for only the basic diseases that have been known in the last 40 years. Eliminate the vaccinations for the new ones. This leaves you with approximately seven or eight - the very ones that have been used for years. What your science is not appreciating yet is the results of combining all the vaccination substances together. There's a problem that will show itself in time. Stick with the basic ones.

Drugs firm GSK stops visiting Dutch family doctors

DutchNews, April 8, 2019

Photo: Depositphotos.com

Representatives of British pharmaceuticals giant GSK have stopped visiting family doctors in the Netherlands because they are ‘less open’ to information about drugs, the Financieele Dagblad said on Monday. 

GSK Nederland director Daan Gijbels told the paper that the decision to stop the visits is ‘painful’ and that he fears it will be more difficult to get new and more effective products to patients. 

‘Society has become more negative about the pharmaceuticals industry,’ he said. ‘This means the doctors visits were no longer effective.’ On average, GSK reps visited seven to eight doctors a week. 

The Dutch family doctors association NHG said it welcomed the decision and that it had been advising doctors for some time to refuse visits by sales reps.

Global life expectancy up 5.5 years since 2000: WHO

Yahoo – AFP, Nina LARSON, April 4, 2019

While most people who die in rich countries are old, nearly one in three deaths
in poorer countries are children under five (AFP Photo/GREG BAKER)

Geneva (AFP) - Global life expectancy grew by 5.5 years between 2000 and 2016, the World Health Organization said Thursday, warning though that unequal income and access to healthcare translates into far shorter lives for many.

The UN health agency also stressed significant gender differences in life expectancy worldwide.

On average, a child born in 2016 can expect to live 72 years, up from 66.5 in 2000, according to the annual World Health Statistics report.

The first 16 years of the century saw dramatic drops in deaths among children under five, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where progress has been made against malaria, measles and other communicable diseases, WHO said.

Life expectancy has also increased thanks to advances against HIV/AIDS, which ravaged much of Africa in the 1990s.

But despite progress in poorer countries, WHO said there remained significant life expectancy gaps between developed and developing nations.

People in low-income countries live 18 fewer years on average than those in high-income nations, statistics showed.

In Lesotho, for instance, people on average live to be just 52, or 53 in the Central African Republic 53 years of age, compared to over 83 for Switzerland and over 84 in Japan.

While most people who die in rich countries are old, nearly one in three deaths in poorer countries are children under five, WHO said.

'Shocking differences'

For the first time, WHO broke down its global health statistics by sex, clearly showing that females have better longevity prospects than males.

Life expectancy for people in full health and in less than full health (AFP 

Photo/Jonathan WALTER)

At birth, babies are more likely to be male than female, with some 73 million boys expected to be born this year, compared to 68 million girls, WHO said.

But due to greater biological frailty and riskier behaviours, mortality rates tend to be higher among boys and men, and the ratio shifts as the population ages.

At a global scale, girls born in 2016 are expected to live to the age of 74.2, while and boys on average will make it to 69.8 years, the report showed.

One reason why women appear to live longer is that they tend to be better about using available healthcare.

In countries facing HIV epidemics, for instance, women are far more likely to take HIV tests and access antiretroviral therapies than their male counterparts. Female TB patients are also more likely to seek treatment, WHO said.

It is therefore perhaps not surprising that the gap between men's and women's life expectancy is narrowest in places where women lack access to health services.

In low-income countries with scarcer services, one in 41 women die from maternal causes, compared to one in 3,300 women in high-income countries.

These are "shocking differences", WHO's head of data and analytics, Samira Asma, told reporters.

Overall, the statistics showed that life expectancy has risen in most countries, including significant jumps in places like Eritrea, where people on average are now expected to live 22 years longer than the 43 years predicted in 2000.

In Syria, meanwhile, which has been ravaged by eight years of conflict, life expectancy dropped by a decade, from 73 years in 2000 to 63.8 years in 2016.

People in the United States have meanwhile seen their life expectancy slip from 79 years in 2014 to 78.5 years two years later, the WHO numbers showed.

Asma said the drop was in part driven by the obesity epidemic.

Related Article:

"Recalibration of Free Choice"–  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)

“…  3 - Longer Life is Going to Happen, But…

Here is one that is a review. We keep bringing it up because Humans don't believe it. If you're going to start living longer, there are those who are frightened that there will be overpopulation. You've seen the way it is so far, and the geometric progression of mathematics is absolute and you cannot change it. So if you look at the population of the earth and how much it has shifted in the last two decades, it's frightening to you. What would change that progression?

The answer is simple, but requires a change in thinking. The answer is a civilization on the planet who understands a new survival scenario. Instead of a basic population who has been told to have a lot of children to enhance the race [old survival], they begin to understand the logic of a new scenario. The Akashic wisdom of the ages will start to creep in with a basic survival scenario shift. Not every single woman will look at herself and say, "The clock is ticking," but instead can say, "I have been a mother 14 times in a row. I'm going to sit this one out." It's a woman who understands that there is no loss or guilt in this, and actually feels that the new survival attribute is to keep the family small or not at all! Also, as we have said before, even those who are currently ignorant of population control will figure out what is causing babies to be born [Kryon joke].

Part of the new Africa will be education and healing, and eventually a zero population growth, just like some of the first-world nations currently have. Those who are currently tied to a spiritual doctrine will actually have that doctrine changed (watch for it) regarding Human birth. Then they will be able to make free choice that is appropriate even within the establishment of organized religion. You see, things are going to change where common sense will say, "Perhaps it would help the planet if I didn't have children or perhaps just one child." Then the obvious, "Perhaps I can exist economically better and be wiser with just one. It will help the one!" Watch for these changes. For those of you who are steeped in the tradition of the doctrines and would say that sounds outrageously impossible, I give you the new coming pope [Kryon smile]. For those of you who feel that uncontrolled procreation is inevitable, I encourage you to see statistics you haven't seen or didn't care to look at yet about what first-world countries have already accomplished on their own, without any mandates. It's already happening. That was number three.….”

Canadian province to presume consent for organ donations

Yahoo – AFP, April 3, 2019

Nova Scotia already has one of the highest organ donation rates of any province
in Canada, but officials say it is still not high enough to meet demand (AFP Photo/
PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU)

Ottawa (AFP) - Canada's province of Nova Scotia has proposed a law that would presume all citizens consent to being organ donors unless they opt out, breaking new ground in North America.

Unveiled Tuesday and assured of passage by the province's ruling Liberals, the bill would flip the current practice in Nova Scotia of requiring signed consent before a person's organs can be harvested after death.

Under the proposed law, consent would be assumed unless a person has actively opted out.

The province already has one of the highest organ donation rates in the country, but officials said it is still not enough to meet demand.

Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil "was concerned that people on wait lists for these life-saving transplants had passed away, and this seemed like a reasonable step to try to address this issue," spokesman David Jackson told AFP.

It is expected to take 18 months to work its way through the legislative process and go into effect.

As early as next week, locals will be given an opportunity to comment on the proposed law at legislative committee hearings, while the province steps up public awareness and medical training over the coming year "to increase capacity in the system," he said.

"It'll be a significant push to increase transplants."

Cindy Ryan, who received two liver transplants since 2013 after a virus attacked her own, was on hand for the bill's unveiling.

She told local media the life-saving transplants allowed her to see her children graduate school and start careers, marry her current husband and celebrate her 50th birthday.

"So many changes in my life, so many things to be grateful for every day, and all because someone I'll never have the honor to meet gave me the most generous gift of all -- the gift of organ donation, the gift of life," she told public broadcaster CBC.

"Recyle yourself, together we live on," reads a tattoo on her arm.

Currently in Nova Scotia, prospective donors carry wallet card identifying themselves as such so hospitals can know they can harvest their organs when they die.

Other countries including Belgium, France and Spain saw their respective donations rise after adopting systems like the one being proposed for Nova Scotia.

On Monday, Germany, which has about 10,000 patients awaiting organ transplants, became the latest EU nation to consider adopting the principle of presumed consent.

Critics warned that the practice amounts to turning patients into spare parts.

Juveniles and persons unable to consent for themselves would be excluded from the Nova Scotia law.

Related Articles:

Germany debates 'presumed consent' to boost organ donations

Dutch senate votes in favour of ‘yes unless’ organ donor system

Dutch MPs vote for ‘yes unless’ organ donor register

Germany debates 'presumed consent' to boost organ donations

Yahoo – AFP, April 1, 2019

German Health Minister Jens Spahn holds a new donor card as the government tries
to reduce Germany's current backlog of about 10,000 patients awaiting transplant
organs (AFP Photo/Tobias SCHWARZ)

Berlin (AFP) - Germany's health minister Monday pushed an initiative to boost the availability of transplant organs by making everyone a potential donor after death unless they have expressly objected.

The aim of the presumed-consent rule is to reduce Germany's current backlog of about 10,000 patients awaiting transplant organs -- and the about 2,000 deaths a year of those who wait in vain.

Under the new proposal, citizens would be asked to state whether they object to having their organs or tissue harvested after they are pronounced brain dead.

Those who say "no" would be listed in a national registry run by the health ministry, while all others would be considered potential donors -- a principle in place across most of the European Union.

This would spell a reversal of Germany's current rules, which ask people to state their consent to becoming organ donors.

Close relatives would still be able to block the taking of organs if they convincingly argue that the deceased would have objected.

Health Minister Jens Spahn of the centre-right CDU said there are about 10,000 patients waiting for transplant organs and that 2017 had seen a record-low of fewer than 800 donations.

"Anyone of us could be in need of an organ tomorrow," Spahn said at a Berlin press conference, presenting the plan with lawmakers from the conservative CSU, the Social Democrats (SPD) and the far-left Die Linke party.

Ethics debate

Spahn said Germany's potential number of organ donors is far higher as surveys had shown that over 80 percent of respondents supported the idea in theory.

Under current rules, people can sign an organ donor card and carry it in their wallets so that if they die, hospitals know they are allowed to harvest their organs.

Only about 30 percent of Germans carry such a donor card.

"We have about 10 times more people on the waiting list for an organ than the number of organs that are transplanted per year," said the SPD's Karl Lauterbach.

"Every year about 2,000 people on the waiting list die."

Some lawmakers have objected to the initiative.

The CSU's Stephan Pilsinger labelled Spahn's plan "ethically questionable" and said it amounted to turning patients into "spare parts warehouses".

Under the plan, presented jointly with Green party co-leader Annalena Baerbock, citizens would be regularly questioned whether they want to be donors.

This could be done when they extend their identity papers or during routine medical visits.

Related Articles:

Dutch senate votes in favour of ‘yes unless’ organ donor system

Dutch MPs vote for ‘yes unless’ organ donor register

Doggy diagnosis can sniff out seizures: study

Yahoo – AFP, March 28, 2019

Dogs are awesome (AFP Photo/Astrid Stawiarz)

Paris (AFP) - Dogs can use their remarkable sense of smell to recognise the specific scent of seizures, researchers said Thursday, raising hope that canine carers could one day protect sufferers before a fit takes hold.

Previous tests have shown dogs are able to detect the odours of certain diseases, including some cancers, diabetes and malaria.

There is also anecdotal evidence they can sense that their owner may be about to have a seizure, though this was poorly understood until now.

Researchers in France used five dogs -- Casey, Dodger, Lana, Zoey and Roo -- in a study to sniff out a scent specifically linked to a human seizure.

Dogs' noses have evolved to be highly sensitive, and can detect specific organic 

compounds at a concentration of less than 0.001 part per billion (AFP Photo/OLI SCARFF)

They presented the dogs with a variety of smells taken from epileptic patients, including body odours emitted during calm activity, while exercising, and during an attack.

Casey, Dodger and Zoey all identified the seizure scent 100 percent of the time, while Lana and Roo sniffed out the right sample two goes out of three.

"The results went beyond our expectations by showing that there is indeed a general odour of an epileptic seizure," Amelie Catala, a researcher at the University of Rennes and lead study author, told AFP.

"We hope it will open new lines of research that could help anticipate seizures and thus get patients to seek security."

Dogs are awesome (AFP Photo/Astrid Stawiarz)

Dogs' noses have evolved to be highly sensitive, and can detect specific organic compounds at a concentration of less than 0.001 part per billion.

The most sophisticated current "electronic noses", meant to pick up potentially harmful odours that humans can't smell, have a detection threshold of around 300 parts per billion.

Catala said that while dogs had been shown previously to be able to sniff out chronic diseases, this experiment showed they could potentially diagnose acute health episodes that last just a few minutes.

"The study of odours by the use of dogs constitutes a fast, low-cost, non-invasive, and effective screening method of diseases that can be difficult to identify normally," she said.

The paper was published in the journal Nature Scientific Reports.