statism watch

Associated Press
September 01, 2008

Russia warned the West on Monday against supporting Georgia’s leadership, suggesting that the United States carried weapons as well as aid to the ex-Soviet republic and calling for an arms embargo until the Georgian government falls.

The remarks by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his spokesman came as European Union leaders delicately approached their relations with Russia, weighing how to punish Moscow for its invasion of Georgia without isolating the continent’s major energy supplier.

The latest Russian rhetoric was likely to anger the United States and Europe and enrage Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, who has said Russia’s goal all along has been to remove him from power.

“If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions,” Lavrov said.

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Tu Thanh Ha, The Globe and Mail
September 1, 2008

The controversial vaccine for cervical cancer that will be offered to schoolgirls in all Canadian provinces this fall triggers more severe allergic reactions than other vaccines, but the risk is still so tiny that HPV inoculation remains worthwhile, says a new Australian study.

The peer-reviewed paper, which was released Monday by the Canadian Medical Association Journal, was initiated after reports of severe allergic reaction, or anaphylaxis, in a school vaccination drive in New South Wales.

The study found that the estimated rate of anaphylaxis incidence was five to 20 times higher with the HPV vaccine than other vaccines. However, the research was done on a small number of incidents, limiting its statistical clout.

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