What Individuals Should Know about Protecting their Genetic Information
March 17, 2014
Hosted by Dr. Gordon Atherley
[Download MP3] [itunes] [Bookmark Episode]
Guest Information
Episode Description
Dr. Bill Bonner is Associate Professor at the Paul J. Hill School of Business, University of Regina, Saskatchewan, http://is.gd/HozMoL. Ma’n H. Zawati, LLB, LLM, lawyer, is Academic Coordinator of the Centre of Genomics and Policy at McGill University, www.genomicsandpolicy.org. They highlight their careers and work in protecting personal health and genetic heritage information. They identify challenges to privacy with the increasing use of big computers. They discuss the most challenging of the challenges for individuals deciding whether to consent to computer compilations of their personal health and genetic heritage information. They discuss the effects on privacy with the increasing use of big computers, and explain what they think individuals should know about the need for protection. They say what more they would like to do through their work and see done by governments and healthcare systems to improve protection of personal health information and genetic heritage information.
Family Caregivers Unite!
Archives Available on VoiceAmerica Variety Channel
Family caregivers are the people who provide care to partners, parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, friends, neighbors and even co-workers. They are the people who provide care when everyone else has gone home. They are the people who organize the functioning of the home for the person with special needs, and for the family as a whole. They are the coordinators of care, the managers of appointments, the preventers of loneliness, and the makers of decisions even to the point of Power of Attorney. And they are so often people who themselves are burdened with their own health challenges and who may be in only marginally better health than the persons to whom they are providing family caregiving.
Dr. Gordon Atherley
Dr Gordon Atherley holds the British equivalent of the Canadian PhD and MD degrees, and LLD, Honoris Causa, from Canada’s Simon Fraser University. His awards include Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, UK. His medical specialties are occupational medicine and public health.
As first President and Chief Executive Officer of the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, the Canadian equivalent of the US National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he led the creation of Canada’s electronic information service in occupational health and safety, now used in more than 40 countries.
In academia, he held senior, tenured, full-time positions, including departmental chair, in university faculties of physics, engineering, and medicine. He is the author of a textbook and numerous articles and publications.
Since retiring from medical practice, he’s built up Greyhead Associates, which critically researches the safety, effectiveness and fairness of health services for persons with special needs.
Through Virtual Care International, a company of which he’s President, he’s involved in providing sensible technology to family caregivers to help them with their responsibilities, workloads, and concerns.
Now an activist, he urges family caregivers to unite because, more and more, it’s not just their families who depend on them, it’s also the healthcare system as a whole, as it struggles to meet more and more needs of more and more people.