Day: September 16, 2002

The NFL’s Lousy Medical Ethics

ESPN has an excellent article about the conflict of interest that team doctors in the National Football League face as well as the surprisingly low level of care that athletes making hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars a year receive.

The things that Jeff Novak faced from the Jacksonville Jaguars team doctor is just obscene, but unique only because Novak’s leg wound is just so visibly disgusting — that and the idiocy of the team doctor maintaining it was appropriate to do surgery on Novak’s leg at a stadium in non-sterile conditions.

One of the worst incidents I remember (though the player and team escape me) was a team doctor who was giving a player a pain killing shot and ended up puncturing his lung.

A major part of the problem is that the team doctor’s rely on their connections with the team to build their practices. As such, it is in their interest to put the coaches and owners demands above the medical needs of players.

Source:

At what price a player’s pain? Tom Farrey, ESPN.Com, Sept. 12, 2002.

Rwanda May Indict French Military for Their Role in 1994 Genocide

Last month Reuters reported that Rwanda may try to indict several French military officers for their alleged role in aiding the 1994 genocide in that country as well as providing protection for the former Rwandan government as it fled the country in the summer of 1994.

In 1998, a French parliamentary commission looked into the charges and found that there had been “errors of judgment” but no direct French participation in genocide.

Beginning in 1990, the French government had been a major supporter of the Hutu-led government, supplying it with large amounts of military aid and training, including the loaning of French officers. The charges surrounding the French involvement with the genocide include:

  • The French continued aid and training even after the Rwandan army began training the militias that would ultimately carry out the genocide.
  • According to some witnesses, the French continued to supply arms to the Rwandan military even after the genocide was underway.
  • That France’s humanitarian intervention, Operation Turquoise, in June 1994 allowed those who masterminded the genocide to flee to Zaire

Operation Turquoise is interesting, especially given France’s habit of complaining about U.S. military actions in the world. Basically they sent 2,500 soldiers backed with 100 armed vehicles and limited air support. The soldiers largely stood around while the genocide continued just beyond their reach. They did save an estimated 10,000 Tutsis, but they also did the job of providing a rear guard for the Hutu government to escape the advancing Rwandan Patriotic Front army (who the French had saved the Hutu government from on previous occasions). France also did much to create a false impression that the RPF was engaged in genocide as well.

French President Francois Mitterand best expressed his government’s view of the genocide when, at its height, he reportedly quipped that, “In those countries, a genocide is not really important.”

Sources:

Rwanda to indict French officers for alleged role in genocide. Marco, Domeniconi, Reuters, August 20, 2002.

Was British Group Negligent in Testing of Bangladesh Wells?

As part of a UNICEF program designed to create over a million wells for poor people in Bangladesh, Great Britain’s National Environment Research Council’s British Geological Survey was brought to Bangladesh to test the potability of water. The BGS tested the water and certified it was clean and safe for drinking. Unfortunately, they never tested the water for arsenic.

Over the next few years, people in the area began reporting skin diseases which are similar to arsenic poisoning. The BGS was called back in to test the water in 1998 and found high levels of arsenic in the water.

Now two British law firms are suing the NERC and the BGS arguing that it was negligent for not testing for arsenic in 1992.

The geologists argue, however, that at the time there was no good reason to test for arsenic. As the BGS put it in a press release on the lawsuit,

Arsenic only occurs in a water-soluble form in certain hydrogeological conditions. It is one of a large number of trace elements which are therefore not routinely tested for in groundwaters unless there is independent evidence to suggest its presence.

Since the area in Bangladesh did not meet those hydrological conditions, arsenic was not tested for. Several years later, however, researchers began to realize that arsenic could occur in the sort of aquifers present in Bangladesh.

The lawsuit against the BGS argues that since arsenic was found in groundwater in nearby West Bengal, that common sense dictates that the water in Bangladesh should have been tested for arsenic as well.

Sources:

Bangladeshis sue British geologists for ‘largest mass poisoning ever’. Andy Coghlant, New Scientist, Sept. 7, 2002.

Article on Arsenic Poisoning in Bangladesh. Martyn Day and Bozena Michalowska, April 2002.

Bangladesh claims against the British Geological Survey.

UPI 'Journalist' Defends Ecoterrorism

United Press International environmental reporter Dan Whipple wrote an op-ed about environmental terrorism that soft pedaled the phenomenon based largely on Whipple’s inability to actually do any research on the topic.

According to Whipple,

Despite a bonfire of publicity, and apocalyptic warnings from property rights activists and congressional committees, the list of ELF’s “accomplishments” is small: Two “actions” in 1996, three in 1997, eight in 1998, three in 1999, nine in 2000 and four in 2001.

In fact, ELF committed at least 22 actions in 2001 causing at least $1.6 million in damage (the actual damage total was probably closer to double that). How do I know this? Because the North American Liberation Front Press Office published a report listing all 2001 actions. Apparently Whipple prefers to just pull his numbers out of the air rather than go to the source.

Moreover, Whipple wonders if ELF terrorism is really terrorism,

Having pulled up a few survey stakes myself, I’m not in a position to take the high moral ground. But is it terrorism? Is even burning a restaurant — and we all know how tough it is to find a good restaurant — on the same level as blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., or leveling the World Trade Center?

Is burning down an abortion clinic or a black church the same thing as flying a plane into a building? Of course not, but it is nonetheless still terrorism, as is environmental terrorism.

I also find it odd that UPI has hired as an environmental journalist someone who admits engaging in illegal acts to disrupt logging. Would they hire someone who admitted illegal acts in anti-abortion protests to cover women’s issues?

Whipple continues,

There is an enormous difference between principled civil disobedience — including monkeywrenching — and murder. The word “terrorism” has been thrown around too loosely.

I wonder if he’d feel that way if people burned down his house or the office where he works because of ideological reasons. Somehow, I doubt it.

Source:

Blue Planet: Ecoterrorism redefined. Dan Whipple, United Press International, Sept. 13, 2002.

Great Britain's Rural Ministry Likely to Propose Compromise Bill on Fox Hunting

Great Britain’s rural affairs minister, Alun Michael, will likely soon propose a compromise bill on the contentious issue of hunting foxes with dogs that would bring such activities under national anti-cruelty statutes, but leave the details up to local tribunals.

Under the compromise proposal that appeared to be shaping up after three days of hearings conducted by the rural minstry, what constitutes cruel fox hunting would be established nationwide, but enforcement and delineation of acceptable hunting practices would be left to local tribunals. Any infractions against such laws would be outside of the criminal law and those violating them would not have criminal records.

The other proposal that was advanced by laywer Gordon Nardell would institute a Scottish-style ban on all fox hunting with dogs, with some exemptions for using dogs to flush out foxes so they can be shot.

During the last legislative session, the House of Commons voted for a complete ban on all fox hunting with hounds, while the House of Lords voted for an alternative bill that would allow fox hunting ot continue but under greater regulatory oversight.

As many as one million sporters of fox hunting are expected to turn out later this month to protest in favor of continued fox hunting with hounds.

Sources:

Compromise bill on hunting ‘within weeks’. The Daily Telegraph (London), September 12, 2002.

Hunt tribunal plan. Charles Clover, The Daily Telegraph (London), September 12, 2002.

Karen Davis: Chickens Have Feelings Too

The Register-Guard (Oregon) made the mistake recently of publishing an article in which it quoted the manager of local Noti’s Greener Pastures Poultry as claiming that chickens don’t have feelings. Karen Davis responsded with a letter in which she begged to differ and described her personal relationship with her favorite chicken.

Noti’s manager Aaron Silverman told the newspaper that,

If you spend time with chickens, you realize pretty quickly that they don’t hae feelings and emotions the way horses or dogs do. I’ve even had pigs that pout, but I have never seen a chicken pout.

That slight of the chicken was just too much for Davis, who describes her close personal relatinship with her chicken, Viva,

My nonprofit organization, United Poultry Concerns, grew out of the bond I formed with a chicken named Viva who escaped being slaughtered in 1987. From Viva, I learned many things. For example, when you hold a chicken close to your heart and she squirrels her neck around your neck and buries her face in your hair, she often purss like a cat. If you have — as I do — a yard full of hens and roosters, you learn quickly how emotional these birds are.

Whatever you say, Karen.

Source:

Chickens have feelings. Karen Davis, letter to the editor, The Register-Guard (Oregon), September 7, 2002.