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Bad Pills

Many medicines are poisons. According to Paracelsus, everything is poisonous in some degree. This fact presents a legal problem, depending on how it is looked at; if a medicine damages the patient, how can the doctor or the manufacturer be held liable? It was generally known that the medicine was harmful, was it not? The doctor’s case is more straightforward. If the doctor follows general practice and the manufacturer’s instructions, in the prescribing and administering of the medicine she will not […]

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Sticking in your craw?

Recent posts have been food oriented. If the posts or your food are, reportedly, sticking in your craw, you are using a figure of speech. Humans do not have a craw, birds do. It is also known as the crop. Just down the bird’s alimentary system is the gizzard. Food does not stick there. Chickens, for instance, store small pebbles in the gizzard to grind food, they not having teeth. It’s suggestive of their ancestry in the dinosaurs, some of whom […]

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Our Risky Environment

We are rightly worried about our beef burgers. The supposed international criminal conspiracy undermining the meat industry is easily located; it is the meat industry. But the meat industry is not unique. Consider our bread. We have been suspicious about it for a long time. When white bread was invented or introduced it was popular with the rich; they felt more confident that they were not eating bread contaminated with mouse droppings or insects or their body parts. (Bleached excrement […]

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The Connacht Gold wall accident

The Health and Safety Authority is a good institution but an odd one. It was established under the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005. It has as its central purpose, as recited in Section 34 of that Act, “to promote, encourage and foster the prevention of accidents, dangerous occurrences and personal injury at work in accordance with the relevant statutory provisions” So, oddly enough, when some customers were killed and injured in the Connacht Gold shop in Longford, […]

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Faulty Beef Burgers

This is the appropriate editorial to replace that of the Irish Times of 2nd February 2013. The blame for Ireland’s faulty beef burgers lies with the relevant Irish meat processors and, maybe, with someone in Poland. The testing of the burgers showed two pertinent facts; the animal source of the burger content and the proportion coming from each animal type. Of the tested burgers, most contained trace elements of horse and/or pig. One did not. That one burger, from Silvercrest […]

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How to read a newspaper

Noted in the Irish Times, 2nd February 2013, page 15.  “With no evidence of fraud…” This phrase means there was no evidence of deceit by Silvercrest Foods Ltd. There was in fact deceit. Tesco was deceived as to the sources of the burger meat; it described it as a breach of trust. My online dictionary defines “fraud” as: “a person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities”

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Sack the Minister

When the Food Safety Authority of Ireland tested a range of Irish frozen beef burgers, purchased from Irish and British supermarkets, it found evidence that they contained horse meat and/or pig meat. It found that the source of the offending meat was the respective manufacturer of the beef burger. In the case of Silvercrest Foods Ltd. almost 30% of one burger constituted horse meat. These facts were sufficient evidence to prosecute the various manufacturers (and the retailers). Prosecutions are necessary […]

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The Medical Council’s Guidance on Abortion

The Medical Council is the professional governing body for doctors in Ireland. It describes its role as being “responsible for protecting the public by promoting and better ensuring high standards of professional conduct and professional education, training and competence among doctors. Doctors must always be guided by their primary responsibility to act in the best interests of their patients.” To aid Doctors in meeting those responsibilities in difficult situations, the Medical Council has produced The Guide to Professional Conduct and […]

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Pandemrix

This is exactly what has been determined by the Irish and Finnish reports; it is probable that Pandemrix caused the cases of narcolepsy appearing in young people who got the vaccine.

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Narcolepsy: Ireland

The liability, in law, for this is clear. The services delivered to these patients were subject to the implied terms of the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act 1980. The production of Pandemrix triggered the terms of the Liability for Defective Products Act 1990.

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