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	Nuclear Weapons must be Eradicated for all Our Sakes by Desmond Tutu International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Norway   Until we accept that nuclear weapons are abhorrent and a grave danger no matter who possesses them, that threatening a city with radioactive incineration is intolerable no matter the nationality or religion of its inhabitants – we are unlikely to make meaningful progress in halting the spread of these monstrous devices, let alone banishing them from national arsenals.   Why, for instance, would a proliferating state pay heed to the exhortations of the US and Russia, which retain thousands of their nuclear warheads on high alert? How can Britain, France and China expect a hearing on non-proliferation while they squander billions modernising their nuclear forces? What standing has Israel to urge Iran not to acquire the bomb when it harbours its own atomic arsenal?   Nuclear weapons do not discriminate; nor should our leaders. The nuclear powers must apply the same standard to themselves as to others: zero nuclear weapons. Whereas the international community has imposed blanket bans on other weapons with horrendous effects – from biological and chemical agents to landmines and cluster munitions – it has not yet done so for the very worst weapons of all. Nuclear weapons are still seen as legitimate in the hands of some. This must change.   Around 130 governments, various UN agencies, the Red Cross and the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons are gathering in Oslo this week to examine the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons and the inability of relief agencies to provide an effective response in the event of a nuclear attack. For too long, debates about nuclear arms have been divorced from such realities, focusing instead on geopolitics and narrow concepts of national security.   With enough public pressure, I believe that governments can move beyond the hypocrisy that has stymied multilateral disarmament discussions for decades, and be inspired and persuaded to embark on negotiations for a treaty to outlaw and eradicate these ultimate weapons of terror. Achieving such a ban would require somewhat of a revolution in our thinking, but it is not out of the question. Entrenched systems can be turned on their head almost overnight if there''s the will.   Let us not forget that it was only a few years ago when those who spoke about green energy and climate change were considered peculiar. Now it is widely accepted that an environmental disaster is upon us. There was once a time when people bought and sold other human beings as if they were mere chattels, things. But people eventually came to their senses. So it will be the case for nuclear arms, sooner or later.   Indeed, 184 nations have already made a legal undertaking never to obtain nuclear weapons, and three in four support a universal ban. In the early 1990s, with the collapse of apartheid nigh, South Africa voluntarily dismantled its nuclear stockpile, becoming the first nation to do so. This was an essential part of its transition from a pariah state to an accepted member of the family of nations. Around the same time, Kazakhstan, Belarus and Ukraine also relinquished their Soviet-era atomic arsenals.   But today nine nations still consider it their prerogative to possess these ghastly bombs, each capable of obliterating many thousands of innocent civilians, including children, in a flash. They appear to think that nuclear weapons afford them prestige in the international arena. But nothing could be further from the truth. Any nuclear-armed state, big or small, whatever its stripes, ought to be condemned in the strongest terms for possessing these indiscriminate, immoral weapons.   * Archbishop Desmond Tutu is a winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace Visit the related web page
	Healthcare should be provided on the basis of people"s need not their wallets by Elaine Lies Reuters Canada   In Canada, wealth influences medical treatment.   Poorer people have a harder time getting a doctor"s appointment in Canada, even though the country"s universal health insurance pays doctors the same amount regardless of the type of patient they see, according to a Canadian study.   Researchers who called primary care practices pretended to be a bank employee were 80 percent more likely to be offered an appointment than when they called pretending to be on welfare.   "We expected that we would find the result that we did, which was that there would be preferential treatment," said Stephen Hwang, who worked on the study at St. Michael"s Hospital and the University of Toronto.   "As a physician who provides care for people who are marginalized or disadvantaged, they not infrequently tell me that they feel like they"ve been treated poorly by healthcare providers in the past simply because the"re poor," he told Reuters Health.   Hwang, whose team published their findings in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, expects the disparity to be due more to doctors and receptionists unconscious biases than an explicit policy to pick wealthier patients.   Members of his team called 375 family physicians and general practitioners in Toronto pretending to be looking for a primary care doctor. Half of the time the caller pretended to be a bank employee recently transferred to the city, and for the other half of the calls, the caller took on the persona of a welfare recipient.   Researchers impersonating the bank employee were offered an appointment almost 23 percent of the time. In the other cases, a receptionist put the caller on a waitlist or said the doctor wasn"t taking new patients.   In comparison, callers pretending to be on welfare were offered an appointment at just 14 percent of offices.   Receptionists were more likely to offer an appointment to a caller posing as someone with diabetes or low back pain than one without a chronic condition. That, at least, suggests patients who need care the most are being "appropriately prioritized," Hwang and his colleagues wrote.   Past studies suggest patient discrimination based on income is an even bigger problem in the United States, where doctors tend to be reimbursed more for treating a person with private insurance than one on Medicare or Medicaid.   "When people have no health insurance or if they have health insurance that pays less than more general coverage does, they"re much more likely to get turned away by physicians," Hwang said. "But that"s hardly surprising."   "The fact that they found the results they did in a universal health insurance population is particularly interesting," said Karin Rhodes, who has studied access to care at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, but wasn"t involved in the research.   "Everything I"ve seen has been economically driven," she told Reuters Health, referring to the U.S. system where doctors reimbursements would be affected by which patients they saw.   Rhodes added that the next step should be research to identify the reasons behind the research findings, though Hwang said it may just be human nature or unconscious bias that healthcare workers need to guard against.   "In the realm of healthcare, I feel strongly that we should be providing care on the basis of people"s need and not their wallet," he said. Visit the related web page
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