Thanks for the reminder in your article on trans fat and its effect on heart diseases in the world. I was doing a presentation on the heart, contacted the Heart & Stroke Foundation, which confirmed that here in Canada, $8.1 billion was spent on heart disease!
How about using your good office to challenge the Government, businesses and manufacturing companies of cookies to cut out trans fat.
Thanks for all you do. Blessings.
- Maureen
Human rights and mentally ill persons
Dear Dr Abel,
"All persons with a mental illness, or who are being treated as such persons, shall be treated with humanity and respect for the inherent dignity of the human person ... There shall be no discrimination on the grounds of mental illness." The UN, 1991.
The statement of nondiscrimination above is itself faulty: "All persons with a mental illness" suggests that mental illness is our only definition. I assure you, it is not. I define myself by my achievements, not by any illness, as do the people who know me.
The second-half of the statement is far more accurately presented; it speaks to people whom a society defines by their illness, as by skin tone, gender, religion, ethnicity or whatever prejudice a society employs, in limiting the definition of human beings.
- Harold A. Maio
Send questions and comments to our health specialists at Your Health, c/o The Gleaner, 7 North Street, Kingston; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com. Unless otherwise indicated, letters and the specialists' responses are usually published in our letters section and in our articles.
