Published as a Letter to the Editor in the Westmount Independent, 16 April 2024 The Police Report (April 2, 2024, p10) headline “‘Flash mob’ thieves rob Sherbrooke boutique…” left me confused. Are the perpetrators thieves, or are they robbers? Fortunately, the body of the article helped to clear up the…
Read morePublished as a Letter to the Editor in the Westmount Independent, 2023-12-12. City Council has decided to reduce public meetings to one per month (November 28, p. 1), but will continue to hold “general committee” meetings, closed to the public, mid-monthly. How does this respect the Quebec Cities and Towns…
Read morePublished as a Letter to the Editor in the Westmount Independent, 2023-5-30 The Police Report on p. 3 of the Independent’s May 23 edition uses the word “overdose” in relation to incidents where individuals suffer serious and sometimes fatal effects from using opioids. “Overdose” suggests that the person either knowingly…
Read morePublished as a Letter to the Editor in The Suburban, 2022-11-30 Robert Libman, in his excellent opinion piece (Suburban 2022-11-23, p A13) alludes, among other issues, to the health and safety concerns posed to CSL residents living near the CP rail yard. In addition to the illness-promoting effects of noise…
Read moreWhile governments and journalists blame selfish vaccine refusers for the high rates of hospitalization and ICU bed occupation of unvaccinated people, there are likely causes other than the vaccine itself.
Read more(Published on The Suburban’s website, 2021-7-28) The other day, I was looking for a set of earbuds, you know, the ones that come with Apple iPhones and have a microphone built in to one of the earphone cords. My latest iPhone no longer has an earphone jack, and I needed…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Westmount Independent, published on 2021-2-16: I received in the mail, from the City of Westmount’s Traffic Advisory Committee (TAC), a poll addressed to the residents of Lansdowne between de Maisonneuve and Sherbrooke, soliciting our opinions on a proposal to move on-street parking from the…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, posted online 2018-12-15 as a response to the Editorial “Take turmeric with a grain of salt” by Kirsten Patrick and Matthew B. Stanbrook CMAJ October 29, 2018 190 (43) E1270; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1503/cmaj.181358 Wow, I’m impressed! The CMAJ has really gone…
Read moreLetter to the editor of the Westmount Independent, published in the 2020-8-25 issue I support the suggestion by Richard Lock at city council on August 3 to switch parking from the west to the east side of Lansdowne Ave. between Sherbrooke and de Maisonneuve. Not only would this provide more…
Read moreLetter to the editor of The Suburban, published in the 2020-9-16 issue. A couple of days ago, I was listening to a radio programme (“The Current” with host Matt Galloway, on CBC Radio One). The 7 Sept 2020 episode was a national call-in show, “How concerned are you about schools…
Read moreMore government is rarely the answer. Legault should use the tools he already has to bring about significant improvements. Published by the Montreal Gazette as an op-ed piece on 2020-5-20: Premier François Legault has suggested that private nursing homes could be “nationalized” in response to problems brought to light by…
Read moreThe following was published as a Letter to the Editor by the Westmount Independent on 2018-10-23, with the above title: With reference to the article by Martin Barry, “Westmount has no say on cell tower installation, says city official” (2018-10-9, p3) I would like to take issue with the interpretation…
Read moreThis Letter to the Editor was published in the Montreal Gazette on 2018-11-16. Re: “The new Champlain Bridge won’t be ready on time” (Montreal Gazette, Oct. 26) Over the past couple of years, I’ve observed the construction of the new Champlain bridge when I’ve crossed by bicycle from Westmount to…
Read moreThis letter to the Editor was published in the Montreal Gazette, 2018-10-17. Re: “Don’t drive even five hours after smoking pot: study” (Montreal Gazette, Oct. 16) While this study confirms the fears of many that marijuana use leads to impairment of tasks requiring concentration and rapid reaction times, the good…
Read moreThe following email was sent to Dr. Andreas Wagner, the author of the book “Arrival of the Fittest” on 2017-1-7: Dear Dr. Wagner, I was attempting to explain your theory to a friend recently, and thought that it would it be easier if I re-read your excellent book first. After…
Read moreWhy is it that our national, publicly funded broadcaster, CBC/Radio Canada, chooses to provide lower-quality over-the-air (OTA) television signals than everyone else? When analog OTA signals were discontinued in 2012, CBC/Radio-Canada chose to downgrade its OTA broadcasts to 720p from 1080i, although clearly they had the equipment to provide higher…
Read moreThe following was submitted as a letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette, on 2018-1-28. I’m writing this in Ottawa, where we are spending a weekend. Looks like the city saves a ton of money by not removing snow from side streets, so on-street parking can be a nightmare!…
Read moreThe following was published in the Letters to the Editor section of the Westmount Independent (p24), on 2017-10-3, under the heading “Insist on definition of ‘private’ council meeting this election.” To the Editor: Observers of the process of governance by our elected municipal government in Westmount have remarked on the…
Read moreIn his letter “Excessive number of stop signs in Hampstead contribute to pollution” (Letter to the Editor, The Suburban, 2017-8-16), Leslie Satenstein decries the brake and tire dust as well as unnecessary fuel use, occasioned by the large number of stop signs along Fleet/Van Horne, in Hampstead. His annoyance is…
Read moreThe letter to the editor below, was published in the Suburban, on 2017-8-16, with the title “All municipal council meetings must be held in public by law“: I wholeheartedly agree with Michael Shafter (Letter to the Editor, The Suburban, 2017-8-9) that we need more transparency at the municipal level (in…
Read moreThis letter to the Editor was published in the November 2001 issue of Parkhurst Exchange, p7 Gentlemen: In the June 2001 issure of Parkhurst Exchange, your consultant AS reported no serious side effects from the longterm use of pantoprazole, to his knowledge. Gastric acid suppressive therapy in general has been…
Read moreThe Q&A response to the question “What could multiple hyperdensities on brain MRI in the absence of migraine indicate?” (Parkhurst Exchange, April 2010, p28) did not include B12 deficiency as a possible cause. There are a number of case reports (1-4) reporting the finding of white matter hyperintensities on T2-weighted…
Read moreWhile catching up on my reading, I came across an item in “Consultant’s Corner” which piqued my interest, and I am writing to bring both your readers and your consultant up to date. In the Aug 2007 issue of the Canadian Journal of CME, a question was submitted by a…
Read moreThe article “Age-related macular degeneration” Oct 2008, p52) lists the risk factors for AMD as age, genetics, history of smoking, Caucasian race, and diet low in antioxidants. Not mentioned was the association between a lower risk of AMD and higher fish and/or omega-3 fatty acid consumption. Augood C, Chakravarthy U,…
Read moreThe following was submitted as a letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette, and was published in the edition of 2014-11-1. Re: “Reforming health care” (Opinion, Oct. 22) Jacques Hendlisz and David Levine point out the danger of leaders becoming disconnected from the professionals who deliver care, when health…
Read moreThe following was submitted as a letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette, and was published on the Gazette’s website on 2014-10-23. The RCMP is reported to have taken away the passport of Martin (Ahmad) Couture-Rouleau out of concern that he would travel to Iraq or Syria. Would it…
Read moreThe study reported on in the article “Acute impact of immediate release methylphenidate administered three times a day on sleep in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” (Corkum, Panton, Ironside, Macpherson, & Williams, 2008) found a significant reduction in total sleep time of almost an hour with medication compared to the no…
Read moreThis letter to the editor of the “Canadian Medical Association Journal” was published electronically on the CMAJ website, on 2008-11-18, in response to this article: Targownik LE, Lix LM, Metge CJ, Prior HJ, Leung S, Leslie WD. Use of proton pump inhibitors and risk of osteoporosis-related fractures. CMAJ. 2008;179:319-326. Article…
Read moreThis letter to the editor of “Canadian Psychiatry Aujourd’hui” , a newspaper published by the Canadian Psychiatric Association, appeared in the October 2008 issue (volume 4, no. 5) While I enjoyed the articles on sleep in your August 2008 issue, I felt that the headlines were misleading. For example, the…
Read moreI wrote this letter in response to an article, entitled “Omega-3 no help for Crohn’s”, which appeared in the 2008-5-6 edition of the Medical Post. My original letter, as submitted, included references, and was clear that it was a response to the Medical Post article, and not to the research…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. It appeared in the 2006-11-24 edition under the heading “Puerile bullyboy”. Dan McTeague criticises Prime Minister Harper (letters, 23 Nov 2006) for “openly” chastising China on its human-rights record and bringing up the case of Huseyin Celil, then complains that he should…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. It appeared in the 2006-3-8 edition under the heading “Lack of vitamin B12 also causes lesions”. The article “Brain’s ‘sleeper cells’ stalking boomers” (7 mar 2006) points out that white matter lesions in the brain predict stroke and dementia. It fails to…
Read moreAn edited version of this letter to the editor appeared in the Montreal Gazette on 2005-5-10 under the heading “Taxpayers need their own senate”. Your editorial “Can taxes ever be cut?” (May 8) correctly points out that the majority of voters pay no income tax, effectively disenfranchising those middle-income “working…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. An edited version appeared in the 2005-3-3 edition under the heading “Students hurt only themselves”. The students who are striking to protest the loss of bursary funding, would be better advised to demonstrate against the quality of their education which has failed…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. An edited version appeared in the 2005-1-27 edition under the heading “It’s up to the PM to convince us”. It appears that once again the federal government is attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of Canadians. Prime Minister Paul Martin…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette, It appeared in the 2004-12-15 edition under the heading “Referendum way to express opinion”. Your editorial (”Vote no on this”, Gazette 2004-12-14) decries referendums as divisive, and blames them for creating or widening wounds in the fabric of Canadian society. In reality,…
Read moreAn edited version of this letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette appeared in the 2004-8-2 edition under the heading “Suspension with pay not a bad idea”. Given the demonstrated inability of many government or crown corporation bureaucrats to do their jobs properly, it seems pretty clear that they…
Read moreAn edited version of this letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette appeared in the 2004-6-18 edition under the heading “Lavish lunches exemplify abuses”. So Mayor Tremblay is outraged that members of his political party were reimbursed for lunches and vintage wines out of our taxes? Nothing to compare…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. It appeared in the 2003-12-21 edition under the heading “Not a user fee”. Shame on you, Gazette! Your editorial “We didn’t vote for this” (14 Dec 2003) refers to user-fee increases as tax increases by another name, and rightly so. But to…
Read moreThis letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette appeared in the 2003-10-7 edition under the heading “Rules on legal insider trading unfair to small investors”. Your editorial on insider trading, “Get tough on market fraud” (Gazette, 5 Oct.) fails to make a sufficiently clear distinction between legal and illegal…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. It appeared in the 2003-7-4 edition under the heading “Similar campaign as no-call list needed to stop spam”. If it was so easy for U.S. regulators to come up with what promises to be an effective way to put the lid on…
Read moreLetter to the Editor of the Montreal Gazette. It appeared in the 2002-11-5 edition under the heading “Let’s make those long winter evenings brighter”. Dr. Colin Shapiro recently pointed out (Changing clocks causes temporary havoc, Gazette 2002-10-28) that the switch from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time, on the last…
Read moreThe following was submitted on 1999-5-5 as a Letter to the Editor of the National Post: One theory about why we have armpit (and groin) hair: the hair shaftsprovide a larger surface area to enhance the diffusion of pheromones(chemical sex attractants) emitted by the apocrine sweat glands locatedat the bases…
Read moreThis letter to the editor of the Montreal Gazette appeared in an edited form in the 1998-5-30 edition with the title “”Programmers can do in millenium bug” The millenium bug has received a great deal of editorial comment. Hapless users of elevators, automobiles, banks, governments and all the other products,…
Read moreThis Letter to the Editor of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry was published in the April 1992 edition. Citation: Bishop M, Olders H. Alternatives to civil commitment.[letter]. Can J Psychiatry 1992;37(3):223. Download a pdf of the letter and a reply by Drs. Brouillette and Paris. 1 August 1991 The Editor The…
Read moreThis letter to the Editor of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry was co-authored by Dr. Virginia Duff and myself. It was published in the 1990 August edition (vol. 35, no. 6). Citation: Duff V, Olders H. Negative symptoms in schizophrenia.[letter]. Can J Psychiatry 1990;35(6):570-571. Download a pdf of the letter and…
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