Flu: dangers of risk compensation

The Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson has been commenting very sensibly and calmly about the outbreak of pig flu and what we should be doing about it. I was struck by his comments about the use of face masks. He was not very optimistic about their effectiveness and worried that if they were used routinely, they might provide a false sense of security and make the problem worse.

Does that sound familiar?

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1962 Missal pdf online

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SPUC Clergy information day

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SPUC today held a Clergy Information Day. Unfortunately, because of an urgent meeting I had to be late for this so I missed the first half of the morning lecture by Fr John Fleming. I could catch up with most of it from his notes and look forward to the published version when it is available from SPUC. Fr Fleming was speaking about the rights of the unborn under international law, the pro-life battle at the UN and the nature of the early human embryo. As a lecture, it was certainly not "dumbed down". He presented some of the latest research on the biochemistry of the human embryo in relationship with the mother and then tied this in to the philosophical question of the status of the embryo, dealing with such hoary chestnuts as twinning and the differentiation of cells in the embryo. It was a most helpful and informative presentation: intellectually challenging but well put together. I think that the sheer quality of these presentations has been the important factor in the gr
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