Health Canada, the United States Product Safety Commission (US CPSC) and IKEA have jointly recalled PATRULL KLÄMMA and PATRULL SMIDIG safety gates with a date stamp of 1510 (YYWW- Year & Week) or earlier. The stamp label can be found at the bottom of the gate in the following models:
Model - Dimensions - Colour - Product Number
The pressure-mounted gate is not secure when positioned against the wall, causing a fall risk. The lower metal bar could also pose a tripping hazard.
Of the 18 incidents reported to IKEA worldwide, four occurred in Canada. Serious injuries resulted in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark.
Customers should stop using the recalled gate immediately and return it to an IKEA store for a full refund. Gate extensions for the PATRULL KLÄMMA and PATRULL SMIDIG models should also be returned for a full refund.
For further information, customers can contact IKEA Canada toll-free at 1-800-661-9807 or via IKEA's website.
From August 1995 to February 2015, approximately 17,035 of the PATRULL KLÄMMA and PATRULL SMIDIG safety gates were sold in Canada, and approximately 58,000 in the United States.
Passengers on a United Airlines flight en route to Portland got an unexpected tutelage in autism. The plane performed an emergency landing, and Donna Beegle's family was ordered to disembark because of her 15 year-old daughter's "potential" for a meltdown.
By all accounts, Juliette, like a great majority of people with autism spectrum disorder, is a picky eater who became distressed over her in-flight meal.
Beegle had some snacks on board for Juliette because "if her blood sugar lets go, she gets frustrated and antsy. We try to anticipate that and prevent that."
Since Juliette tends to refuse room-temperature food, Beegle asked to buy a hot meal from first-class, but was refused.
Beegle tried to negotiate with the attendant, explaining that if they waited for her daughter to have a meltdown, "she'll be crying and trying to scratch in frustration. I don't want her to get to that point."
Eventually the attendant brought the teen some rice, and she then calmly sat watching a video.
But later the plane performed an emergency landing because of a passenger with "a behaviour issue." The family was ordered to disembark, even though medics and police saw that there was no threat except the one perceived by the crew.
The attendant was described as "over-reactive." Police apologized, and fellow passengers rushed to the girl's defence.
"It just killed me for her to be treated that way," Beegle said. She is now suing the airline, “so no one else has to go through this.”
United stressed the decision was made "for the safety and comfort of all of our customers." Beegle hopes legal action will prompt airlines to give its staff adequate autism training.
As someone with a young child with autism, such stories leave me cold. My family deserves to have a life, too. We have the right to travel together, and yet we don't for this very reason.
I'm terrified that we will be met with the kind of stony ignorance and resistance faced by Beegle and her family.
As a parent of any child, there are only so many preparations you can undertake. Sometimes the unforeseeable can and will happen.
Families like mine don't expect special treatment for special needs.
What we do expect is a willingness to accommodate and support all passengers, not demonize or disregard those who happen to have needs you don't understand.
There is new hope for would-be parents undergoing IVF procedures, after the birth of the "world's first stem cell baby" here in Canada. Not the most charming way to describe a human baby, granted.
Nonetheless, the technique known as Augment could be a game-changer for those whose previous IVF attempts were unsuccessful.
Three weeks ago, Zain Rajani was born after his parents underwent Augment, a process that injects a mother's eggs with mitochondria from her ovarian stem cells. The new type of IVF by OvaScience is intended to revitalize "older eggs."
Apparently using mitochondria from young, primitive cells improves egg quality, which is vital for the development of a healthy embryo.
Before we jump the gun, out of the 36 women in four countries who have so far tested the technique, only eight are currently pregnant. And Augment is still awaiting formal clinical trials and US Food and Drug Administration approval.
And some scientists remain skeptical.
"There's a lack of evidence of efficacy, efficiency and safety," said Newcastle University's Alison Murdoch.
"The problem in older women is the quality of the nuclear genome in their eggs, and adding more mitochondria will not help that problem. Also, manipulation of the embryo at that very sensitive time could cause more problems for the nuclear genome, which is why safety data is critical."
The whole concept of mitochondrial IVF is not a new one. It has been done with a high success rate in the past, using donor eggs from younger women. This method raised ethical concerns, though, since babies theoretically had three parents, much like the controversial form of IVF recently approved in the UK.
If Augment becomes a common or widespread form of infertility treatment however, it would prove a more desirable form of IVF since it uses the mother's own cells. And for those whose previous IVF cycles have failed, the mitochondrial method offers a promising avenue on the path to conception.
Also read: Dear Jerks; Our IVF and IUI Children are not "Synthetic"
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