What family law news Kathleen Walker found interesting today
March 10, 2010
If you don't immediately see the story you are looking for, scroll down. Stories are kept posted for at least 24 hours
Ex-Edwards Aide Ordered to Jail Over Sex Tape
North Carolina Judge Sends Andrew Young and Wife to Jail for Up to 75 Days for Contempt
By JAMES HILL and LAUREN SHER
March 9, 2010—
Former John Edwards aide Andrew Young and his wife Cheri were ordered to spend up to 75 days in jail today over their handling of a purported sex tape allegedly made by the one-time presidential candidate and his mistress, according to ABC affiliate WTVD.
Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones said that he held the Youngs in contempt because he believes they are withholding other items from the court, including, WTVD says, additional copies of the tape.
"There were things told to the court under oath, in affidavits, in testimony that turned out to be inaccurate. Right now, part of me says they didn't tell me the truth before in this court," Jones said, according to the Raleigh News and Observer.
The Youngs were not placed in custody immediately, according to WTVD in Raleigh, N.C.
At today's hearing, lawyers for Edwards' mistress, Rielle Hunter, accused Young of lying and contended that he has not handed over all materials that the court demanded in the judge's Feb. 5 contempt order.
The ex-aide handed over the alleged sex tape, along with additional items, including a CD of photos, to the court last month, but Hunter's lawyers said copies of the tape could be missing.
Young's lawyers maintain that he turned over all copies of the tape to the court last month, except for a copy of the tape that was given to the FBI in Washington, D.C., as part of a grand jury investigation into Edwards' campaign finances.
Hunter's lawyers produced a new affidavit from freelance journalist Roger Draper, who said in a statement that Young showed him the tape in March 2009.
Young failed to mention in his own affidavit that Draper had been shown the tape. His lawyers cited memory lapse for the oversight.
Young and his wife Cheri will testify later today on what Jones identified as discrepancies in their statements.
Today's hearing was the fourth in the more than month-long legal battle over the tape.
Click here for complete coverage of the John Edwards scandal.
Hunter, 42, was granted a temporary restraining order last month to prevent Young from distributing the tape and other photos, which she contends are her property.
The judge has yet to rule on ownership, but gave Youngs' new legal team permission to view the tapes in the court's posession. Hunter's attorneys say this a continued invasion of her privacy.
Sex Tape Revealed in Young's Book
The existence of a sex tape, along with other revelations on Edwards' affair and allegations of an expensive cover-up of Hunter's pregnancy, came to light in Young's new tell-all book, "The Politician."
Hunter said she made and hid a videotape that "depicted matters of a very private and personal nature" in or around September 2006, according to an affidavit filed Jan. 28, 2009.
Young said the woman in the tape was noticeably pregnant. While the woman's face is not seen in the video, Cheri Young said the woman is wearing a bracelet and a thumb ring typically worn by Hunter. Young, who had worked for Edwards since his 1998 Senate win, said he was absolutely sure it was Edwards in the tape.
In a second affidavit, submitted after Young had handed over copies of the tape to the court, Hunter said that after viewing the tape, she was able to recall when and where the tape was made and that she was not pregnant at the time. She called the Youngs' public assertions to the contrary lies.
Hunter claimed the video was left in a hatbox where she kept personal items, like her passport, in a house that the Youngs rented for her. The Youngs said the video was found in a box of trash in their own home after Hunter stayed with them for several weeks in 2007.
Hunter also has filed suit against the Youngs to seek damages for invasion of privacy.
Tamara Gibbs of ABC's Raleigh affiliate WTVD and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Have you considered a digital will?
Creating a plan that allows your loved ones to deal with your online accounts after your death is a growing need
The lives people live online are so disconnected from their family lives that, when they pass away, their families aren’t necessarily clued into the fact that their loved one has an online community of people that they’ve never met.
ADELE McALEAR
STRATEGIC MARKETING CONSULTANT
What would you write if you could update your Facebook status from beyond the grave?
Would you bequeath your website and blog to a loved one or would you delete your accounts — letting your online self ‘ die’ with you?
Crafting a “ digital will” never occurs to most people, experts say, but as we increasingly live our lives online and inside our computers, relationships and assets can disappear into the ether if people don’t make provisions for their digital footprint before they die. In response, a small but growing cottage industry of “ digital executors” is offering services that allow people to hand down passwords and instructions so their loved ones can access — or shut down — their web domains, PayPal and eBay accounts, blogs, e-mail addresses and social networking profiles after they die.
“ I think that in a few years this will be as natural as writing a ‘ normal’ will or life insurance,” said Lisa Granberg, co-founder of My Webwill, a Swedish company that’s the newest entry to this market. “ Just like we have always done, we document our lives by writing diaries, photos and letters. Today, the big difference is that most things are digital and password-protected.”
My Webwill will launch to the public in the next few weeks, she said, allowing people to decide whether each of their online accounts should be deactivated upon their death, transferred to someone else to manage or updated with a final message from the beyond. Password information is encrypted for security, she said, and members choose two “ verifiers” who will inform My Web will when the member dies and provide a copy of the death certificate, prompting the company to carry out their final wishes.
Memberships range from a free trial account with limited options to a $ 179 US lifetime membership.
Deathswitch is another service that prompts users for their password on a regular basis “ to make sure you are still alive.” If multiple attempts to get a response fail, the program assumes they’re “ dead or critically disabled” and sends out messages to designated contacts. The website suggests uses ranging from passing along computer passwords and banking info to releasing “ unspeakable secrets” or getting in the “ last word in an argument.”
Slightly Morbid, on the other hand, is aimed at helping members notify their online friends of their death by compiling their contacts in a single account and providing access instructions to a trusted third party.
“ The lives people live online are so disconnected from their family lives that when they pass away, their families aren’t necessarily clued into the fact that their loved one has an online community of people that they’ve never met,” said Adele McAlear, a strategic marketing consultant in Montreal who researches and speaks on death and digital legacies.
In the case of Jeremy Toeman’s family, they knew there were friends to notify — they just couldn’t get to them.
Toeman’s grandmother loved playing bridge online and had e-mail buddies all over the world, he said, but when she died at age 94, his family didn’t have any of her passwords to notify her online friends. Eventually, they gave up.
He searched for a service that would solve that problem and didn’t find anything consumer-friendly, so he created Legacy Locker, a “ digital safety deposit box” where people can compile information for all their accounts, designating a different beneficiary for each. The site now has about 10,000 members, he said, and in the year since they launched, he’s seen many similar services cropping up.
“ I still think we’re at a very young time for this. This and next year will be when we really see people start to take the topic seriously,” said Toeman, who now lives in San Francisco. “ If you’re going to spend six hours a day doing stuff online — whether that’s Facebook, blogging, Warcraft, working, Farmville — you are creating value. For some people, that online asset will have tangible value that they’ll care about and we think they’ll start to deal with it.”
Donna Neff, an Ottawa estate lawyer, has a computer sitting in her office right now that’s a perfect example of what can happen if they don’t.
The machine belonged to a computer-savvy man in his 80s who left a sizable estate when he died recently, she said. No one knows how to get into it without a password, so her firm is awaiting instructions from the family on whether they should hire someone to crack the machine in case it contains information about other assets.
“ What surprises me is how few people — well, almost no one — are even thinking about it until we raise it in the estate-planning process,” she said, adding that none of her legal colleagues have brought it up, either. “ I don’t think it’s a commonly thought of or discussed topic at all.”
In response, Neff’s office has added a question on digital assets to their estate-planning checklist. She said she believes the lack of attention to the issue is driven by demographics, since people nearing the end of their lives and planning their estates now are less likely to be heavy computer and Internet users. She predicts protecting digital assets after death will become a major issue in the coming years.
Web developers are fixated on creating the Internet’s next big thing and attracting new members, so they don’t think about how to handle the accounts of the dead, said McAlear, who founded DeathandDigitalLegacy.com after the sudden death of someone she followed on Twitter. Facebook is the only big social media site she’s aware of that has a policy for dealing with death — it provides a form for family members to report a deceased member and “ memorializes” accounts by removing sensitive information and making them visible to friends only.
“ The phenomenon of putting so much online is so new that people are not [ thinking of this]. It hasn’t gone through a generation yet,” said McAlear.
World without HIV babies 'possible by 2015' CBC News
Abandoned HIV-positive babies Sifiso, left, and Rose in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002.(Denis Farrell/Associated Press)
Mother-to-child transmission of HIV could be eliminated in five years if the current rate of health investments are at least maintained, officials said Monday.
The Global Fund to fight HIV, malaria and tuberculosis released its annual report ahead of a funding meeting in The Hague on March 24.
"A world where no children are born with HIV is truly possible by 2015," said Michel Kazatchkine, head of the Global Fund.
"It is also possible now to imagine a world with no more malaria deaths, since already an increasing number of countries have been reporting a reduction in malaria deaths of more than 50 per cent over the past couple of years," he said.
"No other area of development has seen such a direct and rapid correlation between donor investments and live-saving impact as these investments in fighting AIDS, TB and malaria."
According to the report, programs supported by the fund saved at least 3,600 lives per day in 2009 and an estimated total of 4.9 million since the fund was created in 2002.
UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibe and South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi joined Kazatchkine in appealing to governments and private donors to continue investing in the fund.
"Without a fully funded Global Fund, our shared dream of universal access to HIV prevention, treatment care and support could become our worst nightmare — putting the lives of millions of people currently on treatment in jeopardy and millions of pregnant women in a position not able to protect their babies from becoming infected," Sidibe said in a statement on the UNAIDS website.
By the end of 2009, these funded programs provided antiretroviral treatment to 2.5 million people, including 790,000 pregnant women with HIV, which reduces the chances that babies will be born with the virus.
Treatment was also given to six million people who had active TB, and 104 million insecticide-treated nets were provided to prevent malaria.
The group estimated that between $13 billion to $20 billion US will be needed from 2011 to 2013 to meet its goals of eliminating mother-to-child HIV transmission, eliminating malaria as a public health problem within a decade in most countries where it is endemic, and halving the prevalence of TB by 2015.
Legal action: A mother has gone to court her daughter referring to her stepmother as 'Mum' (picture posed by models))
An Australian mother has gone to court to prevent her daughter from calling her stepmother 'Mum'.
She has asked the court to stop her ex-husband and his new wife from encouraging the young girl to refer to the stepmother as 'Mum', 'Mummy' or 'my other Mummy'.
The Adelaide mother, who cannot be named, told the Family Court that her ex-husband was deliberately undermining her role as their child's mother.
She said he was encouraging his new wife to answer to the terms 'Mum', 'Mummy', and 'Mummy-D' - the D being the initial of the stepmother's first name.
The court was told that the girl's parents separated when she was four months old.
The case will be of interest to separated couples around the world where arguments have erupted over the role adults should play in children's lives.
In the Adelaide case, Sydney's Daily Telegraph reports, the mother argued that the stepmother should not allowed to refer to herself as 'a motherly figure'.
The child's father agreed that his new wife should not be called 'Mum' or 'Mummy' but he thought 'Mummy-D' was all right.
The mother, however, claimed that he was 'attempting to replace her as the child's mother by encouraging the child to call his new wife "Mum".'
She said in a statement that the new wife would sign the child's school notes 'Mum' and take the child to medical appointments where she 'presented herself as the mother'.
She was 'adamant that the child should only call her Mum' or any variation of 'Mum'.
The stepmother told the court that she rejected the accusation that she presented herself as the child's mother.
The court eventually declined to make an order that the child should be prevented from referring to her stepmother as 'Mummy-D'.
The judge said he was concerned that making such an order would lead to further litigation 'where it would be up to the court to determine whether the father had breached the order in relation to encouraging the child to use the term Mummy-D'.
The judge said it was hoped that the child would grow out of 'Mummy- D' and begin calling her stepmother by her first name.
All other matters including where the child should live and what school she should attend, were settled before the 'Mummy' argument went to court.
The child's parents will continue with a shared-care arrangement.
SEXTING: From pressures to conflicting messages, navigating the landscape has its challenges
OTTAWA — It’s a girl’s world online, but not an easy landscape to navigate.
researchers say that girls face a challenging environment with new technology. While some experts say online media is empowering girls to break out of roles defined by the mainstream, others are concerned they’re reproducing the same stereotypes.
From cyberbullying and sexting, to pressures to be thin, girls face a challenging online environment, according to researchers speaking Friday at a conference at the University of Ottawa. But girls are also using the Internet to build real-world friendships and try on different identities, they say, and they’re more keen adopters of social networking than their male classmates.
“We sort of assume that technology is a boy world, but new research is indicating that it’s a girl’s world and that girls are jumping into online media at a faster rate than boys,” says Valerie Steeves, a professor of criminology at the University of Ottawa.
Steeves and Jane Bailey, an associate professor of law at the university, co-chaired a panel at the Taking Stock of Technology conference held Friday to launch the university’s new Centre for Law, Technology and Society.
Some experts say online media is empowering girls to break out of the narrow roles defined by mainstream media, Steeves says, while others are concerned girls and women might be simply reproducing the same stereotypes online.
Sexting shines a spotlight on the conflicting messages girls face, says Bailey. In the United States, some underage girls have been charged or threatened with child-pornography charges after posting provocative photos of themselves, she says — she’s not aware of that happening in Canada— so girls are “submerged” in a mainstream culture of hyper-sexualized imagery but face criminal punishment or chastisement when they emulate it.
“This imagery [is] so easily distributed and tradable and very difficult to get back once it’s been released,” she says of girls sending racy photos of themselves.
Most research on girls online focuses on those ages 10 to 17, Steeves says, and differences from boys emerge as they grow.
At younger ages, boys and girls are equally likely to post pictures or sound off about their opinions, she says. As they get older, boys are less likely to post pictures but more likely to share their addresses and cellphone numbers online. Older girls like posting photos but use privacy settings to control who can see any contact information that would allow someone to find them in “the real world.”
“Their real-world experiences really do structure their online behaviour,” Steeves says. “The research I’ve looked at argues that the differences reflect the fact that girls feel less safe in the real world than boys do.”
Research suggests girls are more likely to be targeted by cyber-bullying than boys and there’s growing evidence they’re active instigators, too, Bailey says.
Growing support for Glowing Hearts Day holiday
Kate Holmes wants to have a holiday in February to remember the “wellspring of national pride” that came with the 2010 Winter Games. So far, a lot of people agree. Since putting her petition online at www.gopetition.com Thursday night, the Vancouver interior designer has had more than 1,500 people support her plan to have the third Monday in February become a statutory holiday called Glowing Hearts Day.
“I have had only two emails of dissent,” said Holmes.
She remembers the moment she came up with the idea, just after Canada beat the U.S. in the men’s gold medal hockey game.
“We were walking home after the hockey game, feelin’ the love and knowing it was the last day [of the Olympics],” she recalled. “And we said, ‘Wow, we should have a holiday for today’,” she recalled.
Holmes further justifies her position by citing similar February holidays in other provinces: Family Day (Alberta, Ontario and Saskatchewan), Louis Riel Day (Manitoba) and Islander Day (Prince Edward Island).
Holmes knows she’s not the only one to propose such a holiday in B.C. As recently as 2008, B.C. Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair suggested that British Columbians be given a holiday on the first Monday of the 2010 Winter Olympics and then subsequently on the second Monday of every February.
His suggestion came in response to a plea from VANOC boss John Furlong to employers to give their workers a holiday during the Olympics to prevent traffic gridlock.
Sinclair suggested the holiday be named Terry Fox Day, for the one-legged runner that galvanized the nation with his daily marathon run to raise money for cancer research.
“This would be an Olympic legacy, so everyone in B.C. will have a lasting benefit,” said Sinclair at the time.
But nothing happened and the province’s legacy from the Olympics appears to be a lot of publicity, the Sea-to-Sky Highway, the Canada Line, the new Convention Centre — and the bill for it all.
You can find the Holmes petition by going to www.gopetition.com and searching for “glowing hearts.”
Internet dating creates web of sorrow when parents move on
JOEL GIBSON AN EXPLOSION in online romances is making the toughest Family Court issue even tougher, with more divorcees than ever wanting to move their children interstate or overseas to be with a new partner.
A world-first study of 80 parents involved in relocation disputes shows online dating is having a devastating impact on already-broken homes, putting an average distance of 1646 kilometres between children and the parent left behind.
Parents are being bankrupted, selling their homes, losing contact with their children or travelling long distances only to have visitation rights denied.
The average legal cost for settled divorces is $50,000, and $75,000 for court cases.
Results of the study suggest some parents are not upfront about new relationships when they go to court asking to relocate their children.
University of Sydney researchers have been following 40 men and 40 women involved in 71 relocation cases since 2006. They say the growth of internet romances is combining with a rise in broken relationships, increases in international mobility and the tyranny of distances in Australia to make relocation a more vexed issue than ever.
''Internet-based introduction services have radically increased the opportunities for separated parents to meet new people, and the connections thus formed are supported by very cheap modes of communication such as email, internet 'chat' programs, and web-based telephone or video communication,'' Professor Patrick Parkinson, Associate Professor Judy Cashmore and Judi Single wrote in an article for US journal Family Law Quarterly.
While less than a quarter of women surveyed said they wanted to move due to a new relationship, about a third of men believed it was a factor in their ex-partner's decision. ''The fathers' accounts indicated the possibility that in certain cases the existence of a new partner might not have been disclosed to the court,'' the authors wrote.
The legal costs of relocating often reached hundreds of thousands of dollars and the costs of maintaining contact with children were as much as $15,000 a year.
This led the authors to urge lawyers and judges to test if the moves were realistic before encouraging them.
Relocation disputes are ''the San Andreas fault of family law'', according to former Family Court judge Richard Chisholm. They are the most difficult decisions judges must make.
The disputes end in expensive court cases more than any other family law matter, with 59 per cent decided by a judge (four times the general rate). And it is almost always the mother who wants to move, making gender a major issue in the debate.
A High Court decision last week swung the pendulum slightly back in favour of parents wanting to relocate.
In a high-profile case code-named ''Rosa v Rosa'', a mother had been forced to remain in a Queensland caravan park, depressed and living on welfare payments, after she moved there from Sydney for her husband's mining career and they separated. The High Court said the decision was wrong and ordered a fresh hearing.
Judges will have to ask whether an arrangement is ''practicable'' before they can make orders for equal time in future.
About 23,000 divorces, half involving children, are granted in Australia each year.
Haiti earthquake opens window on hellish prisons
AP – A 19-year-old boy, who spent four years in jail without being charged or face a judge, speaks with the …
By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press Writer Michelle Faul, Associated Press Writer – Sat Mar 6, 5:16 pm ET
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – The skinny teenager appears nervous, and with reason: He is waiting for a tap on the shoulder that could send him back to the dismal prison where he spent four years without being charged or seeing a judge.
He is one of more than 5,000 prisoners who fled their cells after January's devastating earthquake and are now being rounded up by Haitian police and returned to a system notorious for appalling conditions and delays.
Legal experts say the earthquake has given the country a chance to reform its judiciary, which has been the source of international condemnation for years. But the young man on the run, who insists he is innocent, is afraid any solution will come too late for him.
"I'd like to be able to go to them and just say, 'You were wrong, let me be free,'" said the 19-year-old, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of his legal situation. "But I'm scared that they'll just lock me up again."
Justice Minister Paul Denis acknowledged that the justice system is guilty of "extremely serious" human rights violations and agreed the problem is particularly bad for juveniles. Authorities will seek to speed up the process in the future, he added, though no one has yet offered a formal plan for rebuilding the judiciary.
Still, Denis said the country is seeking to round up all the prisoners who were either released or escaped during the Jan. 12 earthquake under circumstances that remain murky.
"It's an unacceptable situation, but what can I say, it's the law. They must give themselves up and will without doubt be re-arrested," Denis told The AP at his temporary office in a prefab building behind the collapsed Ministry of Justice.
There are conflicting accounts about what happened on the night of the earthquake. A guard, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity, said the prisoners began to riot and set fire to the building. The guards, faced with the choice of shooting or releasing them amid the chaos and aftershocks, chose to let them go.
The teen, who only gave the AP his first name, Guy, supported the guard's story, saying the prisoners shook the bars and screamed for help as the walls shuddered. Some prisoners set a fire to force their release.
"We thought we were going to die," Guy said.
U.N. officials say eight of the country's 17 prisons were destroyed or damaged, and 60 percent of the 9,000 prisoners fled — including 300 considered very dangerous. Some were notorious gang leaders, while hundreds were jailed supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in a violent rebellion in 2004.
Denis said that as of Wednesday about 160 had been recaptured. Two more were arrested Friday as they tried to cross the border into the neighboring Dominican Republic.
Haiti has reopened its national penitentiary in the largely destroyed downtown. The prison built for 800 held 4,300 at the time of the earthquake, which the Haitian government says killed at least 230,000 people.
Many prisoners and detainees suffered from a lack of basic hygiene, malnutrition and poor quality health care, the U.S. State Department said in a 2009 report on human rights. Incidents of preventable diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis "remained a serious problem," it said.
At the end of 2008, 88 percent of the country's 316 incarcerated juveniles had been held three years without charges or trial, according to the report.
Guy was charged with criminal association — a catchall violation used against everyone from political prisoners to the 10 American missionaries arrested on Jan. 29 for trying to bring 33 children out of the country without the proper papers after the quake.
Two of the Americans are still in custody, but a judge has said he would probably release them soon.
Guy said he was arrested in March 2006 when he was 16 and never appeared before a judge. He had been walking with a friend who was carrying a pistol when they were stopped by police; his friend escaped.
It was impossible to confirm the details of his story, but lawyers and experts on Haiti said it sounded sadly familiar.
The U.S.-based Rural Justice Center conducted a survey of 1,000 prisoners at the penitentiary before the quake and determined that only about 2 percent should have actually been in prison. Most of the rest had already been in custody longer than the sentence for the crimes they were detained for. Or they were held without adequate justification in the first place.
One man was arrested for dancing with the wife of a policeman, said Dorvil Odler, a Haitian lawyer who helped conduct the survey. He served three years. Even after being ordered released by a judge, the man was still in custody at the time of the earthquake.
Denis said he has been working since he became justice minister in November to get magistrates to rule more quickly on minor infractions. His predecessor also tried, but met resistance because magistrates didn't want more work, said Maurice D. Geiger, director of the New Hampshire-based Rural Justice Center.
"If you're rich, you never go to jail because you bribe a policeman," Geiger said. "I spoke to one judge about a lawyer paying a bribe to just get his client's case onto the judge's docket. His response was 'If he has enough money to hire a lawyer, he has enough money to just pay me and he won't need a lawyer.'"
Guy shudders at the thought of going back. He was jailed in a cell of 20 prisoners, who squeezed onto five narrow mattresses placed side by side on the floor at night.
In the day, they leaned the mattresses along the wall for more space.
"That is a place where no one should be allowed to live," he said.
____
Associated Press Writer Ben Fox contributed to this report.
Genital Herpes
March 6, 2010 by Maureen McGrath Herpes has been around since Hippocrates, but it took the sexual revolution of the ’60s to turn it into an epidemic. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that 1 in 5 Americans over the age of 12 (approximately 45 million) have genital herpes, a 30 percent increase since the 1970s. Millions more have facial herpes or cold sores.
Herpes viruses take their name from the Greek word herpein, which means “to creep” a reflection of the way common herpes skin lesions or ulcers spread. When individuals refer to herpes simplex they are primarily concerned with two prevalent types, HSV-1and HSV-2. There is a common belief that HSV-1attacks above the waist and is responsible for cold sores, while HSV-2 attacks below the waist and is responsible for the genital lesions. However, both herpes viruses HSV-1and II can cause herpetic lesions on the oral mucosa and the genital region. Herpes HSV-1 is primarily the cause of recurrent cold sores while HSV-2 are generally responsible for the genital lesions.
An estimated 21% of persons 12 years and older are infected with herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2). The prevalence has increased by 30 percent in the past 15 years. Many patients with HSV-2 are asymptomatic, and an estimated 80% of cases are never diagnosed.
Genital Herpes Treatment.
Fortunately, there are now very effective oral medications such as acyclovir and valtrex that can reduce the number of recurrent outbreaks associated with the herpes virus. As well, the announcement that Health Canada has approved Gardasil for males 9 to 26 is a positive move.
Clinical trials have demonstrated that these oral medications are the most effective treatment options for the treatment of the herpes virus.
Oral medications can significantly shorten the duration and/or severity of symptoms during a genital herpes outbreak.
By the end of 12 months, one-third of the patients taking oral medications still had not had a single genital herpes outbreak compared to only 4% of those taking placebo (sugar pill).
Over half of the patients (55%) who experienced a high frequency of genital herpes outbreaks (six or more per year) did not have a single outbreak for 6 months while taking the oral medications.
Patients with 9 or fewer genital herpes outbreaks showed comparable results by using the oral medications.
Low levels of vitamin D is linked to muscle fat and decreased strength in young people.
A deficiency of vitamin D in study subjects has surprised doctors at the McGill University Health Centre.
A study, released Thursday, found that 59 per cent of study subjects had too little vitamin D in their blood and nearly a quarter of the group had serious deficiencies.
"Vitamin D insufficiency is a risk factor for other diseases," said Dr. Richard Kremer, the principal investigator of the study at the research institute.
"Because it is linked to increased body fat, it may affect many different parts of the body. Abnormal levels of vitamin D are associated with a whole spectrum of diseases, including cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes, as well as cardiovascular and autoimmune disorders," he said.
How much vitamin D do I need?
The Canadian Cancer Society recommends Canadians take in 1,000 IU of vitamin D every day. During the spring and summer, that can be accomplished through normal daily exposure to the sun. In the fall and winter months, a vitamin D supplement may be necessary.
Deficiencies in the so-called "sunshine" vitamin have been linked to increased visceral fat, decreased muscle strength and overall health problems.
The new study, which is to be published in the March 2010 Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, is the first to show a clear link between vitamin D levels and accumulation of fat in muscle tissue.
"The lower the levels of vitamin D, the more fat in subjects," said Kremer.
Though the study shows a clear link, there is still no clear evidence that vitamin D supplementation could result in less fat in muscles or increased muscle strength.
"We need more research before we can recommend interventions," said Kremer.
Health Canada recommends adults 19 to 50-years-old need 200 international units (IU) of vitamin D per day. That includes pregnant and lactating women. Everyone over the age of 50 is advised to take a daily supplement of 400 IU of vitamin D.
The Canadian Cancer Society recommends taking 1000 IU of vitamin D a day in the fall and winter months.
Icelanders likely vote "nei" in referendum on deal to repay $5.3 billion debt to UK and Netherlands
By: Gudjon Helgason And Jane Wardell, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Economically struggling Icelanders resentful of international pressure were expected to vote down a $5.3 billion plan Saturday to pay off Britain and Holland for the debt spawned by the collapse of an Internet bank.
A "no" vote would create another obstacle on Iceland's difficult road out of a deep recession, jeopardizing its credit rating and make it harder to access much-needed bailout money from the International Monetary Fund. It could also harm Iceland's chances of joining the European Union.
The global financial crisis hit particularly hard in Iceland, a volanic island with only 320,000 people. The country's three main banks, hobbled by massive debts run up during a period of rapid expansion, collapsed within the space of a week in October 2008, and the country's currency, the krona, plummeted.
One of the banks that collapsed was Icesave, an Icelandic Internet bank that offered high interest rates before it failed along with its parent, Landsbanki.
Saturday's referendum is expected to reject the payment of $3.5 billion to Britain and $1.8 billion to the Netherlands as compensation for funds that those governments paid to around 340,000 of their citizens with Icesave accounts. Many Icelanders object to the terms of the deal, not the idea of payment itself.
Britain and the Netherlands have been pushing hard for repayment and there have been fears that they will take a hard-line stance on Iceland's application to join the EU and refuse to approve the start of accession talks until an Icesave deal is signed into law.
But because of Iceland's tiny population, the deal would require each person to pay around $135 a month for eight years - the equivalent of a quarter of an average four-member family's salary.
Many ordinary Icelanders who resent forking out the money to compensate for losses incurred by potentially wealthier foreign investors who chased the high interest rates offered by Icesave.
There's also residual anger that Britain invoked anti-terrorist legislation to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks at the height of the crisis, prompting the worst diplomatic spat between the two countries since Cod Wars of the 1970s over fishing rights in the North Atlantic.
President Olafur R. Grimsson tapped into the public anger and used a rarely invoked power to refuse to sign the so-called Icesave bill after it was passed by parliament in December.
Since then, opinion polls have indicated that a strong majority intend to reject the plan. The Social Democrat-Left Green coalition government and the centre-right opposition say the country could get better terms in negotiations with Britain and the Netherlands.
Britain and the Netherlands offered better terms last week - including a significant cut on the 5.5 per cent interest rate in the original deal hammered out at the end of last year.
The British say their "best and final offer has been turned down."
But Iceland continues to hold out for more, aware that any new deal must win substantial political and public support.
"I voted no," said Rognvaldur Hoskuldsson, a 36-year-old machine technologist, after casting his vote Saturday morning. "We have to send a message that these countries are not going to profit from this situation."
Although the International Monetary Fund has never explicitly linked delivery of a $4.6 billion loan to the reaching of an Icesave deal, it is committed to Iceland repaying its international debt - the months taken to reach the original Icesave deal were responsible for holding up the first tranche of IMF funds last year.
"I am going to say no on Saturday because it's not fair and justifiable that the Icelandic nation should pay for other people's mistakes," said Benedikt Mewes, 33, a cashier at the National Post Office in Reykjavik.
Abandoned HIV-positive babies Sifiso, left, and Rose in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002. (Denis Farrell/Associated Press)
Vitamin 