Just days after spending a night in jail and being charged with mischief, emergency room physician Dr. Tarek Loubani climbed on top of a riser at Parliament Hill and called for a “Free Palestine,” while demanding the government of Canada push for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza.
“I will not go back to sewing children’s heads without anesthesia,” said Loubani, 41, who has volunteered in Gaza over the past decade. “We must make our voices heard here and tomorrow … Ceasefire is not enough. We must have a free Palestine.”
The London, Ont., doctor spoke in front of thousands of protesters on Saturday, aware that his activism in a politically charged climate puts his job at risk.
He has emerged as a prominent voice, advocating for human rights for Palestinians since Israel declared war on Hamas.
According to the Israeli government, about 1,200 people were killed in the Oct. 7 attacks. In the seven weeks since then, at least 14,800 Palestinians — mostly women and children — in Gaza have been killed, according to the Hamas-run Ministry of Health.
“These things shouldn’t happen. That’s why you see a lot of fighting back against the weaponization of antisemitism to include any criticism of Israel,” Loubani said in an interview with CTV News ahead of his speech on Parliament Hill.
On Nov. 16, London police arrested Loubani and charged him with mischief for allegedly vandalizing the office of a member of Parliament. Last month, the front door and porch of London MP Peter Fragiskatos’s constituency office was defaced by squirts of ketchup.
While he has continued to speak out since his arrest, Loubani’s criminal charge has triggered an investigation by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. Loubani said he knows at least five Gazan physicians who have been killed by airstrikes, and dozens of other health workers who have been injured.
“We come from a place of privilege – but people there are losing their family members. The catastrophe continues and cannot be stopped unless there is a ceasefire and a just solution to this conflict,” Loubani said.
In addition to Dr. Tarek Loubani, at least three other physicians are under investigation for their social media posts in support of Palestinians. Critics have accused them of antisemitism. (Judy Trinh/CTV News)
CONDUCT OF 5 ONTARIO DOCTORS UNDER REVIEW
Loubani is one of at least five medical doctors in Ontario being investigated for potential professional misconduct after sharing their views on Israel and the Palestinian territories publicly or through social-media posts. Four of the doctors under scrutiny expressed solidarity with Palestinians, while one is pro-Israel.
James Turk, director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, said he has reviewed some of the social media posts that led to the investigations.
He said he is concerned universities and hospitals are capitulating to pressure from lobby groups.
“As far as I know, none of them engaged in illegal speech in Canada. It was simply that people who disagreed with their views were able to put pressure on their employers to take actions against them. There’s no place for that in a democratic society,” Turk said.
At the time of publishing this story, none of the five doctors under scrutiny for their political views on Israel-Gaza faced concerns about their medical expertise.
According to records from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, there were no complaints from patients about their medical care.
“There’s no suggestion they’re treating Jewish patients or Arab patients or Muslim patients any differently than anyone else. So in that sense, it’s not a question of their professional behaviour,” Turk said.
“The real allegation is that patients who disagree with them politically may feel uncomfortable going to them. We can’t silence people because others may be troubled.”
CTV News reached out to the doctors and none agreed to be interviewed, other than Loubani.
Dr. Ben Thomson, nephrologist. (Submitted)
DR. BEN THOMSON
Nephrologist Dr. Ben Thomson was initially suspended on Oct. 13 for a month from Mackenzie Richmond Hill Hospital after he questioned information posted by the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs on X, formerly Twitter.
Thomson’s suspension was confirmed to CTV News by hospital staff who did not want to be identified because of the ongoing legal matter.
Thomson wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Oct. 10: “No babies were beheaded, there have been no confirmed reports of rapes. You repeat this nonsense out of racism.”
When Thomson made the post, unverified reports of decapitated babies were widely posted on social media. The claims involving mutilated infants still remain in dispute, according to fact-checking by the Poynter Institute, a non-profit journalism school and research organisation.
Following his post, Thomson was doxed, threatened and accused of antisemitism on social media.
CTV News has also heard a recording of a voicemail that referred to Thomson as a “disgusting human being” and threatened him and hospital staff with violence unless his social media post was removed.
Thomson is the co-founder of Keys of Health, a charity that places doctors from developing nations into specialized training programs in Canada. Most recently, Thomson has helped several physicians from Gaza and the West Bank secure fellowships.
Dr. Christian Zaarour, anesthesiologist. (Submitted)
DR. CHRISTIAN ZAAROUR
On Nov. 17, Honest Reporting Canada, a pro-Israel advocacy group, flagged a post it claimed was from Dr. Christian Zaarour’s personal Instagram account.
Zaarour is an anesthesiologist with The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.
The post quoted Musa al-Sadr, a dead Iranian-Lebanese cleric, and stated, “We consider Israel to be absolute evil. There is nothing worse than Israel. If Israel and the devil fight each other, we will stand with the devil.”
On its X account, Honest Reporting Canada asked: “Would any #Jewish person feel comfortable getting treatment or being taught by him?”
Without naming Zaarour, SickKids said in a statement that “any forms of racism are completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” and would be investigated under its code of conduct.
The hospital said one of its physicians was on voluntary paid administrative leave while an investigation was being completed.
Dr. Yipeng Ge, fourth year medical resident. (Submitted)
DR. YIPENG GE
Dr. Yipeng Ge, a fourth-year public health and preventative medicine resident with the University of Ottawa faculty of medicine, was suspended following pro-Palestinian posts he made on social media, after another physician, Dr. Yoni Freedhoff, called them antisemitic on his blog.
Freedhoff posted screenshots allegedly of Ge’s Instagram account showing posts supporting a “Free Palestine.”
The screenshots show a repost of a quote from Harvard law student Tala Alfoqaha, which stated: “If the phrase ‘from the river to the sea’ makes you feel uncomfortable then you probably believe that Palestinian freedom is an inherent threat to Jewish safety. The issue isn’t how we articulate our demands for freedom, it’s that your comfort is predicated on our lack of freedom.”
Freedhoff claimed on his Substack page that Ge’s post “equates Zionism with the genocide of Palestinians.”
More than 92,000 people have signed a petition on Change.org calling on the University of Ottawa to reinstate Ge and issue an apology for denying him his “fundamental right to free expression.”
According to Ge’s LinkedIn profile, he sits on the board of the Canadian Medical Association and was a member of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research’s anti-racism advisory committee.
Hamilton cardiologist Dr. Eva Lonn’s social media behaviour is under review after she made a post on LinkedIn calling for the deportation of supporters who marched in a pro-Palestinian march in Brooklyn, N.Y. (Submitted)
DR. EVA LONN
Although most of the doctors in this story who have been sanctioned support Palestinians, there is at least one case of a pro-Israel doctor under investigation.
In late October, Dr. Eva Lonn, the medical director of cardiac health and rehabilitation at McMaster University, commented on an article about a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The Hamilton doctor wrote in a LinkedIn post “deport them all to where they came from.”
A Charge.org petition called on the university to act and McMaster said it is reviewing the matter.
Without naming Lonn, McMaster said in a statement the post does not align with the university’s “values in advancing inclusive excellence or responsibilities as health-care educators and professionals.”
McMaster says it does not discuss employment matters and did not answer questions about whether Lonn’s hospital or teaching privileges have been suspended while the investigation is underway.
At this time of heightened concerns over antisemitism and Islamophobia, employment lawyer with Samfiru Tumarkin, Aaron Levitin, says all workers should review their workplace policies around social media.
“Employees should be mindful of what they are posting because it could have a significant impact in terms of their employment,” Levitin said. “And employers need to monitor to make sure they are keeping their workplace safe for all staff and clients.”
CENSORSHIP CARE
In response to questions about whether the above doctors were acting responsibly on social media, one Jewish human rights organization, B’nai Brith Canada, said physicians should not publicly voice their political concerns.
“It’s not about picking sides,” says Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith’s manager of research.
“Doctors have a responsibility to remain apolitical to ensure they can retain the confidence of all their patients.”
Now back in London, Loubani continues to work in the emergency room. He says he’s committed to using his medical training and skills to treat all patients.
“In reality, we all have biases and those biases do not interfere with our ability to care for our patients. This is a simple oath I took. I did not go into medicine to discriminate against patients. I care deeply about people. I care deeply about my patients.”
But outside the hospital, Loubani says he will also continue to protest against the war and speak for Palestinians, even if his advocacy continues to result in complaints.
“The victims from Ukraine or Palestine or wherever always tells us – we don’t want you to be silent.”
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. syphilis epidemic slowed dramatically last year, gonorrhea cases fell and chlamydia cases remained below prepandemic levels, according to federal data released Tuesday.
The numbers represented some good news about sexually transmitted diseases, which experienced some alarming increases in past years due to declining condom use, inadequate sex education, and reduced testing and treatment when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Last year, cases of the most infectious stages of syphilis fell 10% from the year before — the first substantial decline in more than two decades. Gonorrhea cases dropped 7%, marking a second straight year of decline and bringing the number below what it was in 2019.
“I’m encouraged, and it’s been a long time since I felt that way” about the nation’s epidemic of sexually transmitted infections, said the CDC’s Dr. Jonathan Mermin. “Something is working.”
More than 2.4 million cases of syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia were diagnosed and reported last year — 1.6 million cases of chlamydia, 600,000 of gonorrhea, and more than 209,000 of syphilis.
Syphilis is a particular concern. For centuries, it was a common but feared infection that could deform the body and end in death. New cases plummeted in the U.S. starting in the 1940s when infection-fighting antibiotics became widely available, and they trended down for a half century after that. By 2002, however, cases began rising again, with men who have sex with other men being disproportionately affected.
The new report found cases of syphilis in their early, most infectious stages dropped 13% among gay and bisexual men. It was the first such drop since the agency began reporting data for that group in the mid-2000s.
However, there was a 12% increase in the rate of cases of unknown- or later-stage syphilis — a reflection of people infected years ago.
Cases of syphilis in newborns, passed on from infected mothers, also rose. There were nearly 4,000 cases, including 279 stillbirths and infant deaths.
“This means pregnant women are not being tested often enough,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of medicine at the University of Southern California.
What caused some of the STD trends to improve? Several experts say one contributor is the growing use of an antibiotic as a “morning-after pill.” Studies have shown that taking doxycycline within 72 hours of unprotected sex cuts the risk of developing syphilis, gonorrhea and chlamydia.
In June, the CDC started recommending doxycycline as a morning-after pill, specifically for gay and bisexual men and transgender women who recently had an STD diagnosis. But health departments and organizations in some cities had been giving the pills to people for a couple years.
Some experts believe that the 2022 mpox outbreak — which mainly hit gay and bisexual men — may have had a lingering effect on sexual behavior in 2023, or at least on people’s willingness to get tested when strange sores appeared.
Another factor may have been an increase in the number of health workers testing people for infections, doing contact tracing and connecting people to treatment. Congress gave $1.2 billion to expand the workforce over five years, including $600 million to states, cities and territories that get STD prevention funding from CDC.
Last year had the “most activity with that funding throughout the U.S.,” said David Harvey, executive director of the National Coalition of STD Directors.
However, Congress ended the funds early as a part of last year’s debt ceiling deal, cutting off $400 million. Some people already have lost their jobs, said a spokeswoman for Harvey’s organization.
Still, Harvey said he had reasons for optimism, including the growing use of doxycycline and a push for at-home STD test kits.
Also, there are reasons to think the next presidential administration could get behind STD prevention. In 2019, then-President Donald Trump announced a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. HIV epidemic by 2030. (Federal health officials later clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections — fewer than 3,000 a year.)
There were nearly 32,000 new HIV infections in 2022, the CDC estimates. But a boost in public health funding for HIV could also also help bring down other sexually transmitted infections, experts said.
“When the government puts in resources, puts in money, we see declines in STDs,” Klausner said.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists can’t know precisely when a volcano is about to erupt, but they can sometimes pick up telltale signs.
That happened two years ago with the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed rivers of glowing orange molten lava, geologists detected small earthquakes nearby and other signs, and they warned residents on Hawaii‘s Big Island.
Now a study of the volcano’s lava confirms their timeline for when the molten rock below was on the move.
“Volcanoes are tricky because we don’t get to watch directly what’s happening inside – we have to look for other signs,” said Erik Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University, who was not involved in the study.
Upswelling ground and increased earthquake activity near the volcano resulted from magma rising from lower levels of Earth’s crust to fill chambers beneath the volcano, said Kendra Lynn, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study in Nature Communications.
When pressure was high enough, the magma broke through brittle surface rock and became lava – and the eruption began in late November 2022. Later, researchers collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.
The chemical makeup of certain crystals within the lava indicated that around 70 days before the eruption, large quantities of molten rock had moved from around 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) under the summit to a mile (2 kilometers) or less beneath, the study found. This matched the timeline the geologists had observed with other signs.
The last time Mauna Loa erupted was in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists consider to be active are found in Hawaii, Alaska and the West Coast.
Worldwide, around 585 volcanoes are considered active.
Scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can make a “forecast,” said Ben Andrews, who heads the global volcano program at the Smithsonian Institution and who was not involved in the study.
Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts – informed “probabilities” that an event will occur. And better data about the past behavior of specific volcanos can help researchers finetune forecasts of future activity, experts say.
(asterisk)We can look for similar patterns in the future and expect that there’s a higher probability of conditions for an eruption happening,” said Klemetti Gonzalez.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Waymo on Tuesday opened its robotaxi service to anyone who wants a ride around Los Angeles, marking another milestone in the evolution of self-driving car technology since the company began as a secret project at Google 15 years ago.
The expansion comes eight months after Waymo began offering rides in Los Angeles to a limited group of passengers chosen from a waiting list that had ballooned to more than 300,000 people. Now, anyone with the Waymo One smartphone app will be able to request a ride around an 80-square-mile (129-square-kilometer) territory spanning the second largest U.S. city.
After Waymo received approval from California regulators to charge for rides 15 months ago, the company initially chose to launch its operations in San Francisco before offering a limited service in Los Angeles.
Before deciding to compete against conventional ride-hailing pioneers Uber and Lyft in California, Waymo unleashed its robotaxis in Phoenix in 2020 and has been steadily extending the reach of its service in that Arizona city ever since.
Driverless rides are proving to be more than just a novelty. Waymo says it now transports more than 50,000 weekly passengers in its robotaxis, a volume of business numbers that helped the company recently raise $5.6 billion from its corporate parent Alphabet and a list of other investors that included venture capital firm Andreesen Horowitz and financial management firm T. Rowe Price.
“Our service has matured quickly and our riders are embracing the many benefits of fully autonomous driving,” Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana said in a blog post.
Despite its inroads, Waymo is still believed to be losing money. Although Alphabet doesn’t disclose Waymo’s financial results, the robotaxi is a major part of an “Other Bets” division that had suffered an operating loss of $3.3 billion through the first nine months of this year, down from a setback of $4.2 billion at the same time last year.
But Waymo has come a long way since Google began working on self-driving cars in 2009 as part of project “Chauffeur.” Since its 2016 spinoff from Google, Waymo has established itself as the clear leader in a robotaxi industry that’s getting more congested.
Electric auto pioneer Tesla is aiming to launch a rival “Cybercab” service by 2026, although its CEO Elon Musk said he hopes the company can get the required regulatory clearances to operate in Texas and California by next year.
Tesla’s projected timeline for competing against Waymo has been met with skepticism because Musk has made unfulfilled promises about the company’s self-driving car technology for nearly a decade.
Meanwhile, Waymo’s robotaxis have driven more than 20 million fully autonomous miles and provided more than 2 million rides to passengers without encountering a serious accident that resulted in its operations being sidelined.
That safety record is a stark contrast to one of its early rivals, Cruise, a robotaxi service owned by General Motors. Cruise’s California license was suspended last year after one of its driverless cars in San Francisco dragged a jaywalking pedestrian who had been struck by a different car driven by a human.
Cruise is now trying to rebound by joining forces with Uber to make some of its services available next year in U.S. cities that still haven’t been announced. But Waymo also has forged a similar alliance with Uber to dispatch its robotaxi in Atlanta and Austin, Texas next year.
Another robotaxi service, Amazon’s Zoox, is hoping to begin offering driverless rides to the general public in Las Vegas at some point next year before also launching in San Francisco.
