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The health and social care visa route was introduced in August 2020 as a response to labour shortages after Brexit and the COVID pandemic. Now, the independent chief inspector of borders and immigration has found that the Home Office’s “limited understanding of the sector” has put care workers at risk of exploitation.

An independent report, published in March, details the Home Office’s “shocking” mishandling of the visas. It highlights problems in the way that the system to give social care providers the ability to sponsor workers from abroad operates. In one case, “275 certificates of sponsorship [were] granted to a care home that did not exist”.

The Home Office responded that this incident involved “a licence granted in the name of a real care home without their knowledge … obtained using false information/evidence”. It has accepted the chief inspector’s recommendations to improve the system, and said that many of these improvements were already underway.

The report details how the Home Office system has buckled under unforeseen demand for visas. The number of registered sponsors tripled from 30,730 organisations in 2019 to 94,704 by the end of November 2023, putting considerable pressure on the officials responsible for checking compliance with UK employment law and preventing migrants from working illegally. These issues are particularly acute in the care sector due to low pay and poor working conditions.

According to the inspector’s report, these weaknesses have created a scenario that puts large numbers of care workers at risk of exploitation. And the nature of restrictive visas, where your legal immigration status is tied to your role at a specific employer, means that care workers are discouraged from raising concerns about pay and conditions out of fear of losing their status.

Exploitation in the care sector

Exploitation in the care sector, including forced labour (a type of modern slavery), has been a concern for years. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation highlighted these issues in a report more than a decade ago. But figures have spiked alarmingly in recent years, according to the charity Unseen, which runs the UK’s modern slavery helpline.

In 2022, the year that the new health and care visa was added to the UK’s shortage occupation list, Unseen recorded a year-on-year increase of 606% in cases reported by care workers. Calls from potential victims of modern slavery from the care sector rose from 708 potential victims in 2022 to 918 in 2023.

My own research shows that care worker exploitation usually falls into one of four areas: debt bondage, recruitment, pay and substandard working practices. Live-in care workers are particularly vulnerable. Migrants may seek out live-in care jobs because accommodation is included.

Workers may become indebted to a recruitment agency, loan shark or members of their own family to secure a visa, only to then find that this is almost impossible to pay off from their wages. They may be deceived by the sponsoring organisation into paying extortionate visa costs – illegal recruitment fees of between £2,000 and £18,000 have been reported. And when they arrive in the UK, some find the job they expected fails to materialise. At least one local authority has identified a small number of such cases of organised immigration crime.

The visa was introduced to cope with a care worker shortage.
Yuri A/Shutterstock

There have also been reports of “clawback clauses” in care workers’ contracts. Some of these clauses require care workers to forego their final month’s salary and to pay back training and immigration costs to their employer. While proportionate repayments are legal, there is little guidance on the exact amounts that can be reclaimed. There have been reports of exit penalties amounting to between £1,300 and £11,500.

Transparency in supply chains

The Modern Slavery Act requires large commercial organisations to publish details of how they are preventing exploitation. But this does not currently apply to the majority of smaller providers or the local authorities who commission social care. The government has yet to make good on its 2019 promise to extend the transparency in supply chains duty to public authorities.

An encouraging number of local authorities have participated voluntarily, and have added their statements to a repository run by the Local Government Association.

But the government should be doing more to require transparency, given the level of exploitation still in the sector. The introduction of sanctions on all organisations who fail to publish annually could also encourage compliance and, as in other countries, provide valuable compensation funds for survivors.

At Nottingham University’s Rights Lab, I have worked with three English local authorities and the Local Government Association, to publish a set of guidelines for social care commissioners. These guidelines, which build on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Responsible Business Conduct framework, encourage local authorities to shore up worker protection in their social care contracts.

The UK needs social care workers, and visas for them, but even with planned changes to the sponsorship rules, it seems the risk of exploitation among care workers will remain. Läs mer…

Three years after the federal government launched the Canada-wide early learning and child-care plan (CWELCC), our study conducted through the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development at the University of Toronto finds mixed results in terms of the plan’s ambitions to improve families’ access to affordable child care. Across the country care is less expensive, but finding it is more difficult.

Early Childhood Education Report highlights

Our Early Childhood Education Report
with detailed profiles for each province and territory, identifies developments in child-care enrolment, affordability, funding, workforce compensation, administration and quality by province and territory.

As researchers on this project, we reviewed all data related to the above
to capture changes to services from March 2020 to March 2023. We then met with directors of early childhood policy in each province or territory to score how each is doing on a 15-point scale.

New Brunswick leads with 13.5 points, a record achievement reflecting its efforts to support child-care operators to add spaces, while supporting program quality. Overall, the provinces east of Ontario rank higher than the rest of the country.

All provinces and territories have met their affordability targets. Parent costs were reduced by 50 per cent by the 2022 deadline. Except for Québec and the Yukon, where parents were already paying below $10 per day, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and most recently the Northwest Territories, have all dropped child-care fees to an average of $10 per day, well ahead of the 2026 schedule.

Big savings, difficulty finding care

A child plays on a play structure at the YMWCA daycare in Winnipeg, March 3, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

While parents with access to child care are enjoying savings; those looking for care are frustrated. More than 60 per cent of parents wanting child care reported difficulties finding it, up from 53 per cent in 2019. As a result, roughly one in three respondents said they had to change their work or study schedules, work fewer hours, or delay their return to work.

The CWELCC plan for 250,000 new child-care spaces by 2026 — for children from infancy to five years of age — is also having mixed success. By March 31, 2023, halfway through the plan’s time frame, 97,859 spaces have been added for this age group.

Prince Edward Island, Alberta, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories are on track to exceed the new space targets set out in their child-care agreements. Expansion is curtailed where governments offer insufficient funding to meet the actual cost of new builds and renovations.

Staffing shortages

The major roadblock to opening new spaces, however, is staffing shortages. Difficulties finding and keeping staff directly impact child care availability, stability and quality. Without educators, centres operate with reduced enrolment, impacting their financial viability. Program quality is compromised when government exemptions allow centres to run without the legislative requirements for qualified staff.

The federal government has given one-off infusions to help stem the workforce exodus. Most jurisdictions have used the money to improve educator wages.

In addition, Prince Edward Island has joined Québec and Manitoba in developing a sector pension plan. Prince Edward Island and Québec have benefit plans. Nova Scotia’s pension and benefit plans are in development.

Few topping up federal funds

Provincial and territorial governments complain there is not enough money in the CWELCC agreements to accomplish everything promised. We question the claim when some jurisdictions are not using the federal funding available to them. Governments have added just over $4.5 billion to their child-care spending since 2020, well below the $15 billion available to date through CWELCC.

Read more:
Ontario’s child-care agreement is poised to fail low-income children and families

If concerns about funding is pressing provincial and territorial governments could, of course, add their own funding, but few have done so. Relying on federal funds is now the norm.

Uneven implementation of a new social program isn’t new. The hope is that some jurisdictions will use the Canada-wide opportunity to do child care very well, becoming models to envy and emulate.

This is the fifth edition of the Early Childhood Education Report which has been released every three years since 2011. We meet with government policymakers in between reports to review data, and update the methodology to reflect any policy changes. The next report will be released in 2026. Läs mer…

The discovery of viral fragments of avian flu virus in milk sold in U.S. stores suggests that the H5N1 virus may be more widespread in U.S. dairy cattle than previously realized.

The Food and Drug Administration was quick to stress on April 24, 2024, that it believes the commercial milk supply is safe. However, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus can make cows sick, and the flu virus’s presence in herds in several states and now new federal restrictions on the movement of dairy cows between states are putting economic pressure on farmers.

Five experts in infectious diseases in cattle from the University of California, Davis – Noelia Silva del Rio, Terry Lehenbauer, Richard Pereira, Robert Moeller and Todd Cornish – explain what the test results mean, how bird flu can spread to cattle and the impact on the industry.

What are viral fragments of avian flu, and can they pose risks to people?

It’s crucial to understand that the presence of viral fragments of H5N1 doesn’t indicate the presence of intact virus particles that could cause disease.

The commercial milk supply maintains safety through two critical measures:

First, milk sourced from sick animals is promptly diverted or disposed of, ensuring it does not enter the food chain.
Second, all milk at grocery stores is heat treated to reduce pathogen load to safe levels, mainly by pasteurization. Pasteurization has been shown to effectively inactivate H5N1 in eggs, and that process occurs at a lower temperature than is used for milk.

The viral fragments were detected using quantitative polymerase chain reaction testing, which is known for its exceptional sensitivity in detecting even trace amounts of viral genetic material. These fragments are only evidence that the virus was present in the milk. They aren’t evidence that the virus is biologically active.

To evaluate whether the presence of the viral fragments corresponds to a virus with the capacity to replicate and cause disease, a different testing approach is necessary. Tests such as embryonated egg viability studies allow scientists to assess the virus’s ability to replicate by injecting a sample into an embryonated chicken egg. That type of testing is underway.

On April 24, 2024, the FDA said it had found no reason to change its assessment that the U.S. milk supply is safe. The agency does strongly advise against consuming raw milk and products derived from it because of its inherent risks of contamination with harmful pathogens, including avian flu viruses.

How does an avian flu virus get into cow’s milk?

Currently, cows confirmed to have H5N1 have different symptoms than the typical flu-like symptoms observed in birds.

Abnormal milk and mastitis, an inflammatory response to infection, are common. While there is speculation that other bodily secretions, such as saliva, respiratory fluids, urine or feces, may also harbor the virus, that has yet to be confirmed.

Milking equipment can help viruses spread.
Loic Venance/AFP via Getty Images

How waterfowl or other birds transmitted H5N1 to cattle is still under investigation. In 2015, an outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza in commercial poultry farms reached its peak in April and May, the same time birds migrated north. Birds can shed the virus through their oral, nasal, urine and fecal secretions. So the virus could potentially be transmitted through direct contact, ingesting contaminated feed or water, or inhaling the virus.

Infected dairy cows can shed the virus in milk, and they likely can transmit it to other cows, but that still needs to be proven.

Contagious pathogens that cause mastitis can be transmitted through milking equipment or contaminated milker’s gloves. Ongoing research will help determine whether this is also a potential transmission route for H5N1, and if so, what makes the virus thrive on mammary tissue.

If H5N1 is found to be widespread in milk, what risks can that pose for the dairy industry?

For the dairy industry, infection of cattle with H5N1 avian influenza virus creates challenges at two levels.

The overriding concern is always for the safety and healthfulness of milk and dairy products.

Existing state and federal regulations and industry practices require sick cows or cows with abnormal milk to be segregated so that their milk does not enter the food supply. Proper pasteurization should kill the virus so that it cannot cause infection.

The American Association of Bovine Practitioners has also developed biosecurity guidelines for H5N1, focusing on key practices. These include minimizing wild birds’ contact with cattle and their environment, managing the movement of cattle between farms, isolating affected animals, avoiding feeding unpasteurized (raw) colostrum or milk to calves and other mammals, and ensuring the use of protective personal equipment for animal caretakers.

The other major concern is for the health of the dairy herd and the people who take care of the dairy cattle. A farm worker who handled dairy cows contracted H5N1 in Texas in March 2024, but such cases are rare.

No vaccines or specific therapies are available for avian influenza infections in dairy cattle. But following good sanitation and biosecurity practices for both people and cows will help to reduce risk of exposure and spread of the avian influenza virus among dairy cattle.

For cows that get the virus, providing supportive care, including fluids and fever reducers as needed, can help them get through the illness, which can also cause loss of appetite and affect their milk production.

Dairy farms facing an outbreak will have economic losses from caring for sick animals and the temporary reduction in milk sales. Approximately 5% to 20% of the animals in the affected herds have become ill, according to early estimates. Affected animals typically recover within 10 to 20 days.

At least 21 states have restricted importing dairy cattle to prevent the virus’s spread, and the federal government announced it will require that lactating dairy cattle be tested before they can be moved between states starting April 29, 2024. While the overall impact on U.S. milk production is projected to be minor on an annual basis, it could lead to short-lived supply disruptions.

How worried should people be about avian flu?

The federal government’s monitoring and food safety measures, along with pasteurization, provide important safeguards to protect the public from potential exposure to avian influenza virus through the food chain.

Drinking raw milk, however, does represent a risk for exposure to multiple diseases, including H5N1. This is why the FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly recommend drinking only pasteurized milk and dairy products. Läs mer…

To work in nature conservation is to battle a headwind of bad news. When the overwhelming picture indicates the natural world is in decline, is there any room for optimism? Well, our new global study has some good news: we provide the strongest evidence to date that nature conservation efforts are not only effective, but that when they do work, they often really work.

Trends in nature conservation tend to be measured in terms of “biodiversity” – that is, the variety among living organisms from genes to ecosystems. We treasure biodiversity not only for how it enriches society and culture, but also its underpinning of resilient, functioning ecosystems that are a foundation of the global economy.

However, it is well known that global biodiversity is decreasing, and has been for some time. Is anything we are doing to reverse this trend effective?

As part of a team of researchers, we conducted the most comprehensive analysis yet of what happened when conservationists intervened in ecosystems. These were interventions of all types, all over the world. We found that conservation action is typically much better than doing nothing at all.

The challenge now is to fund conservation on the scale needed to halt and reverse declines in biodiversity and give these proven methods the best chance of success.

First, the less good news

Globally, biodiversity is being depleted by human activities like habitat clearance, overharvesting, the introduction of invasive species and climate change.

To arrest its decline, people in various places have taken measures including creating protected areas, removing invasive species or restoring habitats, such as forests and wetlands. These efforts are interdependent with traditional stewardship of the world’s richest biodiversity by indigenous people and local communities. And in 2022, governments adopted new global targets to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

Conservation aims to give nature a helping hand. Here, volunteers shepherd turtle hatchlings to the sea.
Evan Aube/Shutterstock

Our team, led by the conservation organisation Re:wild, the universities of Oxford and Kent, and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, analysed the findings of 186 studies covering 665 trials of different conservation interventions globally over the course of a century.

We wanted to understand whether the outcomes of these conservation actions improved on what would have happened without any intervention. Lots of studies have tried to compare the effects of conservation projects this way, but this is the first time such research has been combined in a single analysis to determine if conservation is working overall.

And now, the good news

What we found was extremely encouraging: conservation efforts work, and they work pretty much everywhere.

We found that conservation actions improved the state of biodiversity or slowed its decline in the majority of cases (66%) compared with no action. But more importantly, when conservation interventions work, we found that they are highly effective.

Examples from our far-reaching database included the management of invasive and problematic native predators on two of Florida’s barrier islands, which resulted in an immediate and substantial improvement in the nesting success of loggerhead turtles and least terns. In central African countries across the Congo basin, deforestation was 74% lower in logging estates subject to a forest management plan versus those that weren’t. Protected areas and indigenous lands had significantly less deforestation and smaller fires in the Brazilian Amazon. Breeding Chinook salmon in captivity and releasing them boosted their natural population in the Salmon River basin of central Idaho with minimal side effects.

Even species with complex lifecycles can benefit from conservation.
Danita Delimont/Shutterstock

Where conservation actions did not recover or slow the decline of the species or ecosystems that they were targeting, there is an opportunity to learn why and refine the conservation methods. For example, in India, removing an invasive algae simply caused it to spread elsewhere. Conservationists can now try a different strategy that may be more successful, such as finding ways to halt the drift of fragments of algae.

In other cases, where conservation action did not clearly benefit the target, other native species benefited unintentionally. For example, seahorses were less numerous in protected sites off New South Wales in Australia because these marine protected areas increased the abundance of their predators, such as octopus. So, still a success of sorts.

We also found that more recent conservation interventions tended to have more positive outcomes for biodiversity. This could mean modern conservation is getting more effective over time.

The majority of examples studied showed positive outcomes.
Langhammer et al. (2024)/Science

What comes next

If conservation generally works but biodiversity is still declining, then simply put: we need to do more of it. Much more. While at the same time reducing the pressures we put on nature.

Over half of the world’s GDP, almost US$44 trillion (£35 trillion), is moderately or highly dependent on nature. According to previous studies, a comprehensive global conservation programme would require an investment of between US$178 and US$524 billion. By comparison, in 2022 alone, subsidies for the production and use of fossil fuels – which are ultimately destructive to nature as fossil fuel burning is the leading cause of climate change – totalled US$7 trillion globally. That is 13 times the upper estimate of what is needed annually to fund the protection and restoration of biodiversity. Today, just US$121 billion is invested annually in conservation worldwide.

Potential funding priorities include more and better managed protected areas. Consistent with other studies, we found that protected areas work very well on the whole; studies that highlight where protected areas are not working often cite ineffective management or inadequate resources. More large-scale investment in habitat restoration would also help according to this new research.

Our study provides evidence that optimism for nature’s recovery is not misplaced. Though biodiversity is declining, we have effective tools to conserve it – and they seem to be getting better over time. The world’s governments have committed to nature recovery. Now, we must invest in it.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like?
Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 30,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far. Läs mer…

Work is an inescapable feature of the modern world. Most of us, except for a lucky few, spend a significant portion of our lives working. If this is the case, we may as well try and make it meaningful. In a 2019 report, 82% of employees reported that it is important to have a purpose in their work and that creating meaningful work was one of their top priorities.

But what exactly makes a particular job an instance of “meaningful work”? Is it just any sort of work people happen to believe is meaningful? Or is it a job with certain objective features?

To answer these questions, we might first think about what makes work meaningless. Take the Greek myth of Sisyphus, whose punishment for misbehaviour was to roll a boulder up a mountain only for it to roll back down just before he reached the top. He had to walk back down and start again, repeating the process forever. Today, we describe laborious and futile tasks as Sisyphean.

The gods knew what they were doing with this punishment – anyone who has spent time doing Sisyphean tasks in their work will understand how soul crushing they can be.

Fyodor Dostoevsky certainly understood this. Partly informed by his own experience in a labour camp, the novelist wrote that: “If one wanted to crush and destroy a man entirely … all one would have to do would be to make him do work that was completely and utterly devoid of usefulness and meaning.”

This article is run in partnership with HowTheLightGetsIn, the world’s largest ideas and music festival, which returns to Hay-on-Wye from May 24-27. On Sunday, May 26, The Conversation’s Avery Anapol will host a live event delving into whether “meaningful work” exists in today’s age. Check out the festival’s full line-up of speakers and don’t miss an exclusive 20% off tickets with code CONVO24.

People may believe such Sisyphean tasks are meaningful (maybe this is the only thing that makes it bearable), but is this belief alone enough to make it so? Many philosophers don’t think so. Instead, they argue that for an activity to be meaningful, it must also contribute to some goal or end that connects the person doing it to something larger than themselves. As philosopher Susan Wolf puts it, meaning requires seeing “one’s life as valuable in a way that can be recognised from a point of view other than one’s own”.

In my own research into the meaning of work, I argue that for a job to be meaningful, it requires some objective feature to connect the worker with a larger framework that extends beyond themselves.

This feature, I suggest, is social contribution: are you making a positive difference with your work? Is your work useful, and does it help others carry out their lives? Confidently answering “yes” to these questions places your work in the larger context of society.

Sisyphean work clearly fails against this standard of social contribution, and so cannot be meaningful. There are, at least according to some studies, a surprising number of jobs like this in modern economies. The recent penchant for “lazy girl jobs” and “fake email jobs” suggest that some young people may actually be seeking out such work as a way to maintain a healthier work-life balance and separate their sense of self from their job.

Read more:
This philosophical theory can help you stop taking criticism personally

Do no harm

Another implication of my view is that work cannot be meaningful if it not only fails to help others but actually harms them. Examples might be marketing intentionally defective products, or working in sectors that contribute to the environmental crisis and all its affiliated harms. The phenomenon of “climate quitting” (leaving an employer for environmental reasons) could be seen as the result of people deciding to quit out of a desire for meaningful work.

These examples suggest that a job will not automatically be meaningful just because it contributes to the economy. While market value and social value sometimes overlap (for example, working in a supermarket helps put food in people’s stomachs), these two kinds of value can come apart.

We must think about who benefits from our work, whether their social position means this benefit comes at the cost of others being harmed, and whether there are likely to be unintended negative consequences from our work.

Where do you fit in at work?
Dean Drobot/Shutterstock

Meaningful work within organisations

On top of just asking whether some jobs positively contribute to others, I also suggest that work will struggle to be meaningful when workers do not experience their contributions as palpable. In other words, can you see the contribution you are making in your work, or do you feel abstract and removed?

This is especially relevant to people with jobs in complex companies or large organisations. Most companies do not give ordinary workers influence over big decisions that affect how the company operates in society (such as decisions about what product to produce or service to offer, which markets it operates in and so on). Instead, this influence is limited to managers and executives.

As a result, workers can easily become disconnected and alienated from the social contribution contained in their work, thereby preventing it from being meaningful for them. Take the following from an auditor of a large bank: “Most people at the bank didn’t know why they were doing what they were doing. They would say that they are only supposed to log into this one system … and type certain things in. They didn’t know why.”

The issue here isn’t that the workers aren’t contributing (banks have an important social function after all), but that in their day-to-day work they are completely removed from how they are contributing.

One way to make more work more meaningful for more people would be to think about how large organisations could more democratically involve workers in these sorts of decisions. This could mean giving workers veto powers over strategic decisions, having worker representatives on company boards, or even turning the company into a worker cooperative.

Research suggests democratic arrangements like these can help people find a sense of meaning in their work by connecting them more closely to the positive outcomes that result from it.

A fan of cutting-edge debate and putting ideas at the centre of public life? Then you won’t want to miss HowTheLightGetsIn, the world’s largest ideas and music festival this spring. Returning to Hay-on-Wye from May 24-27, the event will convene world-leading thinkers and Nobel prize-winners including David Petraeus, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, Amy Chua, Peter Singer and Sophie Scott-Brown. A remedy to online echo-chambers, the festival unites speakers across disciplines to chart tangible solutions to the crises of our era.

And don’t miss The Conversation’s live event at the festival on Sunday, May 26 with Avery Anapol delving into whether “meaningful work” exists in today’s age. We’re delighted to offer 20% off tickets with the code CONVO24. Get discounted tickets here. Läs mer…

Recent surges in measles cases globally underscore the urgent need for heightened vigilance and action to combat the resurgence of this highly contagious and potentially deadly disease.

While Canada has made significant strides in measles control, declining vaccination rates and increasing vaccine hesitancy pose a concerning threat to the health of the public.

Measles, once on the brink of eradication, has resurged, exacerbated by the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic interfering with routine vaccination programs. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported a staggering 79 per cent increase in global measles cases in 2023 compared to the previous year. Europe alone reported 40 times the number of cases (2023 over 2022), highlighting the pressing need for sustained efforts to maintain high vaccination coverage.

There were zero cases of measles in 2021 in Canada. Following the global trend, we are seeing increasing measles cases in Canada in 2024. As of April 13, 60 cases had been reported in four Canadian provinces. Since then, Alberta has became the fifth province to report measles this year with a case confirmed on April 24. Most cases are in unvaccinated children, but adult cases have been reported.

Measles is so highly contagious that simply being in a room where someone with measles has been within the past two hours is enough to risk transmission, and infected people can transmit the virus four days before the rash appears. The reproduction number (R0) of measles is 12-18, meaning that one person with measles will infect between 12 and 18 others. For context, the R0 of COVID-19 is between two and four.

Vaccines, such as the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, have proven highly effective in preventing measles infections, with two doses providing up to 97 per cent protection.
(Shutterstock)

Practically, this means that up to 90 per cent of the unimmunized can develop the disease after exposure to an infectious case. Measles can infect anyone but is most common in children.

Tragically, measles also has one of the highest death rates of all vaccine-preventable diseases. One to three cases in 1,000 unimmunized individuals will die, one in 1,000 will be brain damaged and some will experience permanent deafness or blindness.

Vaccines provide life-saving protection

Vaccines, such as the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine, have proven highly effective in preventing measles infections, with two doses providing up to 97 per cent protection. However, vaccine hesitancy and misinformation have fueled the resurgence of measles, placing unvaccinated individuals, particularly infants and young children, at heightened risk of infection and its severe complications.

There is also a global need to reinvest in the public health-care system, particularly the recruitment and retention of public health personnel lost during COVID, including those involved in immunization and outbreak detection and control.

The measles vaccine is extremely safe, with more than 60 years of evidence proving its effectiveness and safety. The evidence includes multiple studies confirming no link to autism. For those relying on evidence-based public health decision-making, this is one of the safest preventative measures we possess.

The ongoing pertussis (whooping cough) outbreak in Alberta further underscores the importance of vaccination in preventing communicable diseases. With vaccination rates dropping across the province and outbreaks occurring, public health efforts must focus on renewing the public health infrastructure and promoting vaccine acceptance and accessibility.

People most at risk for pertussis are those who are unvaccinated, and almost all deaths occur in children under the age of one. Between November 2021 and Feb. 21, 2024 there have been 966 lab-confirmed cases of pertussis, with 78 of those cases confirmed between Jan. 1 and Feb. 21, 2024.

Vaccination rates vary significantly across the province but are 20-35 per cent below the optimum to prevent epidemic spread, with less than 60 per cent of the population vaccinated in some communities.

Protecting communities

There are four doses in the primary series of pertussis vaccination, a booster at school entry, and a further booster in grade nine.
(Shutterstock)

As public health physicians and researchers, we emphasize the critical importance of vaccination in protecting individuals and communities from preventable diseases like measles and pertussis. We urge people to ensure they and their families are up-to-date with vaccinations, following recommended vaccination schedules to safeguard against measles, pertussis and other vaccine-preventable diseases.

Given the worldwide resurgence of measles, it is also imperative that travellers (particularly those with infants and small children but including adults) are up to date on their immunizations six to eight weeks before travel.

Common guidance says those born before 1970 do not require measles vaccination because they were alive when measles circulated widely, and likely have immunity from infection. If you were born after 1970, and do not know if you had two vaccines, calling 811 (where available) can advise on the proper course of action to ensure you are fully protected.

There are four doses in the primary series of pertussis vaccination, a booster at school entry, and a further booster in grade nine. One booster should be provided for all adults (about every 10 years) and pregnant women during each pregnancy.

If you, or someone in your family, has symptoms of measles, stay home and call health information services (811 for example) before visiting any health-care facility or provider.

In light of the recent resurgence of measles and pertussis, it’s imperative to protect the well-being of our communities. The most effective way to prevent the return and spread of vaccine-preventable diseases is through vaccination and combating vaccine hesitancy. Through collective action and commitment to evidence-based practices, we can prevent the spread of measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases, ensuring a healthier future for all. Läs mer…

In France, #MeToo is having a second moment. A year after 13 women accused Gerard Depardieu of sexual assault on film sets in April 2023, the French actor is having to reckon with fresh charges of sexual misconduct during the shooting of the 2022 film “The Green Shutters”. Equally, if not more impactful, have been actress Judith Godrèche’s decision to press charges against high-profile film directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon for rape and sexual assault. Godrèche has now called for a parliamentary enquiry into working conditions in the cinema industry, along with its “risks for children”.

Another striking development is that French men are opening up about sexual assault for the first time via the hashtag #MeTooGarçons (in English, #MeTooBoys). Actors Aurélien Wiick and Francis Renaud recently revealed that they had been sexually abused as youth by film directors or producers.

To better understand this phenomenon, The Conversation France sat down with sociologist Lucie Wicky, a PhD student researching the specific nature of sexual violence against boys and young men.

You are the first researcher in France to research sexual violence against men in detail. How did you go about it?

I based my work on the 2015 Virage study, which carried out phone interviews with more than 27,000 respondents between 20 and 69 living in mainland France. Similarly to the first survey on violence against women 25 years ago, the study asks respondents whether they suffered assaults in the last twelve months, and throughout their life.

The survey takes respondents’ biography into account and deals with the full spectrum of sexual violence, from the psychological to the physical level. It covers public life, on the one hand, by looking into schools, workplaces and public spaces, and private life on the other, by investigating couples, ex-partner, family and friends. The questionnaires avoid the terms violence or rape, which are fraught, and instead lists the facts and leaves it up to each respondent to answer “Yes” or “No”, as many of the respondents did not identify the violence as such.

Finally, I conducted 50 biographical interviews with men who had reported sexual violence in the Virage survey and agreed to an additional interview. I also interviewed 10 women to provide a point of comparison.

We don’t have a lot more data, precisely because of the type of investment that this type of survey requires. And that also says a lot about the extent to which public authorities take into consideration this violence.

I also believe that were the survey to be repeated today, the figures would be higher, thanks to the rise of the #MeToo movement. The movement has certainly helped to qualify the violence suffered by victims. Part of my research focuses precisely on this question.

In what sense?

My thesis looks at the violence suffered by men at different points in their lives, whether as children, teenagers or adults, and the way in which they describe it. During the interviews, I realised that some of the respondents found it difficult to qualify the abuse they had suffered as “sexual violence”, especially when the abuse occurred during adolescence or adulthood.

On the other hand, when the event occurred during childhood (mainly before the age of 11), a victim is more likely to express their feelings “easily” once they have described it. Some of them talk about the event in the third person to distance themselves from violence suffered. The majority describe sexual violence committed by other men, usually adults, who usually have a position of domination.

This led me to rework the very definition of gender-based violence. I decided to reclassify some of the facts described by the respondents as sexual assaults, even when they did not state it in this way. Their accounts describe sexual practices constrained by interactional and structural relations of domination, in other words, domination linked to power relations: gender, social status, age, etc.

What also struck me was the public focus on the facts in terms of a gradation from touching to rape, in a rather heteronormative legal straitjacket – i.e., where heterosexuality is the norm – but which does not necessarily reflect feelings and perceived seriousness. Thus, for many of the respondents, it is indeed exposure to violence through repetition, duration, frequency, the environment, proximity to the perpetrator – without there necessarily being systematic violence with penetration – that influences the feeling of seriousness.

How do you explain this phenomenon of “silencing” rather than taboo that you describe in your work?

We need to distinguish between “silencing” and taboo. On the one hand, men who have been sexually abused mainly talk about acts committed during childhood and adolescence (80% of sexual violence reported occurred or began before the age of 18), and less so once they are adults. For women, this violence exists and continues throughout their lives. And when they do lodge a complaint, as a survey published in the UK in 2019 recently showed, their words are taken into account less than those of men, for whom complaints more often lead to a trial.

Like women, men rarely talk about the violence they suffered as children, but rather as adults. However, unlike women, they are more likely to be taken seriously when they talk about violence, and are more likely to be supported by those close to them, except when they are gay men. In these cases, as with women, they are made to feel responsible for their aggression, as if their bodies were in fact sexualised, and they are reminded of the heterosexual order by being made to feel responsible for the sexual violence they have suffered. In other words, society considers that “men are children before the age of 11 while women are ”girls” whatever their age at the time of the violence”, unless they identify as gay men.

Anne-Claude Ambroise-Rendu, “The history of the recognition of incest suffered by boys”, 2022.

But the common denominator is that they were all assaulted mainly by men (adults, sometimes minors too; according to the interviews, they are always older than the victims, but the data don’t allow us to be as precise). On that basis, I don’t think we can talk about a taboo, but we can talk about silencing.

According to my results, these practices operate at different levels. First of all, structurally, with, for example, the late creation of a number, 119, which has been free since 2003, but also reports that are not followed up and complaints that come to nothing.

Everything serves to remind victims that their stories will not lead to any action or punishment for the violence. These structural practices permeate the institution of the family: when there is violence, no one talks about it, no one reacts. And, of course, there is the level of silence imposed by the perpetrator(s). Very often these are downplayed or internalised as being “normal”, including by the perpetrators who will talk about “initiation” to sexuality or “games” for example.

How do you explain the fact that so many people are speaking out today?

The emergence of social networks provides new spaces for both men and women to speak out. These socio-historical effects and those of the legitimisation of speech, driven more by celebrities, are now producing a greater number of people speaking out than in the past, leading to a degree of visibility, combined with a partial social awareness of the reality of sexual violence, despite the fact that it has long been observed and described.

This is where the generational effect also plays a role: men who grew up in the 1950s, until around 1980, lived with the idea that a child is silent and that his or her words are not important. At the dinner table, in public, with adults… A child does not speak, either within the family or within public spaces.

Male and adult domination is illustrated here through the figure of the all-powerful man, the “head of the family” with a hegemonic role within the household. He leaves no places for discussion. This was also part of the way in which masculinity was viewed, valued in the past through a certain form of violence, less so today. This is also why men who suffered violence after the start of their gender construction – in adolescence or young adulthood – find it hard to see themselves as victims.

How do you analyse these changing times?

My research questions the concept of childhood that has long been dominant: one in which the social hierarchies and the needs of adults take precedence over those of children.

Children’s voices are discredited and silenced, and their bodies are not respected. When we force a child to kiss an adult, when we physically constrain him, we remind him that the adult has control over his body, and that his body does not belong to him.

Not talking to children, not teaching them that their bodies are their own, not taking into account what they have to say, their mobilisation (think of the high school strikes for example and the heavy repression in response) hinders their understanding of violence but also their autonomy and thus shapes their vulnerability.

Perhaps today we need to rethink the status of minor and what it covers to better protect children – and perhaps also consider letting them protect themselves.

Interview by Clea Chakraverty. Läs mer…

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that Spotify saved the music industry. Global revenue for recorded music reached its zenith in 1999 – the same year that the seeds of the industry’s near destruction were sown.

When Napster launched that year it gave music lovers around the world access to an almost limitless catalogue of songs for free. To millions of young people, it would take more than legal action against Napster and others to persuade them that they should return to analogue modes of listening. Spotify’s emergence in 2006 demonstrated that it was possible to monetise streaming in a way that was both legal and attractive to music lovers.

Eighteen years on and Spotify has just turned its largest quarterly gross profit – more than a billion euros (£859 million) in the three months to the end of March. Previously, its regular posting of quarterly losses had many commentators arguing that Spotify was ailing.

One reason for this was that its initial success in striking deals with record labels for streaming their music was imitated by what would become formidable competitors: Amazon Music, Apple Music and YouTube Music. What makes these rivals particularly powerful is that their music offerings can be subsidised by their wider business. This willingness to bear losses in music streaming if it benefits other aspects of their business might explain why the monthly subscription for all the main platforms was held at the arbitrary cross-currency price point of 9.99 from 2009 to 2021.

This decline in real terms of music streaming subscription revenue has been mirrored in the real terms drop in total global revenue for recorded music. Thus, despite massive rises in the number of subscribers in the last decade, with 2016 alone witnessing a worldwide growth of 65%, it took until 2021 for recorded music revenue to return to the level of 1999, even though that represented a significant decline in real terms.

Is streaming working for musicians?

This drop in overall revenue has had an acute impact on those whose content enables the market in music streaming, namely musicians and songwriters. Their revenue from streaming is dependent on a pro-rata payment model. This means that the proportion of a platform’s overall revenue that they receive is calculated by the platform’s total number of streams divided by the number of times their particular songs are downloaded. One of the consequences is that money from individual subscribers does not go directly to the musicians whose music they play, but into a general revenue pot.

Musicians’ dissatisfaction with what they see as poor and opaque forms of streaming revenue was brought into stark relief when COVID stopped their main sources of income: gigging and selling merchandise. Parliamentarians launched an investigation in 2020, with one of its discussions centred on replacing the pro-rata payment model with a user-centric model. This would involve remunerating musicians and songwriters from the subscribers who actually paid for their songs, creating a direct link between fans and the music they play.

If the lack of overall revenue is the main problem with music streaming, then more money will need to be generated from subscriptions. Slowing growth in global subscriptions in the past few years bears out former Spotify chief economist Will Page’s claim that the number of subscribers is reaching saturation point. Indeed, Spotify’s Q1 profits came at the expense of its forecast for growing its monthly active users.

Growth in revenue will therefore need to come from increases in the subscription price. Studies have shown that adopting a user-centric model would not make much difference in the short term to musicians’ earnings. But I would argue that indicating to consumers a clear link to the creators of the music they streamed would make them more amenable to price rises.

Can Spotify move towards a more sustainable model?

Unlike video streaming platforms, each of which has distinct content, the main music streaming platforms offer the same unlimited menu. Spotify’s attempts to differentiate itself from competitors have involved a very expensive move into podcasting, with much of the US$1 billion (£804 million) being spent on luring high-profile celebrities like Joe Rogan, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, and Barack and Michelle Obama.

Meghan and Harry parted ways with Spotify last year.
lev radin/Shutterstock

This part of its business has, though, haemorrhaged money, which puts further pressure on musicians. Nonetheless, this, and recent ventures like the opening of a merch hub for artists last year, demonstrate to its investors that Spotify is still a company that is constantly innovating to stay one step ahead of its rivals.

The recent laying off of 17% of its workforce will lead to a short-term hit of 130-145 million euros in redundancy payments. But this week’s results seem to show it has put the company on a more financially sustainable footing. The 9.99 price point spell was broken last year when subscriptions rose to 10.99, with a further rise to £11.99 in the UK from next month.

Despite that first price point rise in July 2023, the last quarter for that year saw Spotify increasing its premium subscribers by 4%, suggesting that its growth strategy is starting to pay off. Spotify continues to lead its formidable competitors in the race for subscribers. And it might well have stumbled upon a strategy to continue its dominance and to start generating a long-term profit. Läs mer…

The Misogyny In Music report, published in January 2024 by the Women And Equalities Committee, was the first major report into the working conditions of women and girls working across the UK music sector.

The scope of the report, which I contributed to, was ambitious. It covered performers, songwriters, audio engineers, major music companies and institutions and both classical and popular music education. The report revealed the level of inequality across the music supply chain and the sexism, misogyny, bullying and sexual abuse that women and girls experienced in their working lives.

As part of the report, back in September 2023, the BBC broadcaster DJ and author Annie Macmanus (better known as Annie Mac) gave evidence to the House of Commons committee, calling the music business a “boys’ club” that is “rigged against women”.

The report was widely heralded as a turning point. Finally, the boys’ club of the music industry was laid bare. But on Friday, April 19, the government issued its response to the report’s recommendations – a wholesale rejection.

This article is part of our State of the Arts series. These articles tackle the challenges of the arts and heritage industry – and celebrate the wins, too.

With the publication of the report and its recommendations, it seemed for a moment as if women’s needs might be being addressed given the cross-party support the committee had garnered.

The recommendations called for legislative change to increase protection for women in several different areas: from amending the Equalities Act to provide freelancers the same rights as employees, to prohibiting the use of nondisclosure agreements “in cases involving … sexual abuse, sexual harassment or sexual misconduct”.

The government argues that there are already legal safeguards in place that make nondisclosure agreements unenforceable if they are used in order to protect perpetrators.

Other recommendations include: reform of parental leave to include freelancers, that public funding and licensing of music venues should be made conditional on those premises taking steps to tackle gender bias, sexual harassment and abuse. In terms of education, the report recommends investment in training for women in areas such as audio engineering where the gender imbalance is particularly acute. The report further recommends education for school children and specifically boys “on issues of misogyny, sexual harassment and gender-based violence”.

So why did the government reject the recommendations?

Read more:
Sexism permeates every layer of the music industry – new report echoes what research has been saying for years

Annie Macmanus at the House of Commons, giving evidence on misogyny in music.
PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

The government’s response

The government’s argument was that there is no need for additional action, because action is already in play. It said: “This response has set out the many initiatives that the government is taking forward or the policies that are currently in place to provide legal protections for women in the workforce, including in the music industry.”

The response from women and commentators across the music industry has been one of great disappointment and almost disbelief.

“It’s incredibly disheartening to hear the government deny the reality of the endemic misogyny and discrimination that women face in the UK music industry”, said Nadia Khan, the founder of the charity Women in CTRL.

But should we be surprised by this government’s response? As a woman and a mother who has been working in the UK music industry for over 30 years I can say from personal experience it’s been – at best – frustrating and exhausting.

How the industry treats women

Sexism and misogyny are a daily occurrence in the industry. In 1993, I became the first woman to be appointed as an artists and repertoire manager (A&R) at Mercury Records UK. A&R is one of the most prestigious roles in any record label.

On my first day, all the men – even the ones I knew – stared silently through their office blinds as I walked into my office. Not one came out to greet me. I felt I was not considered one of them. Now there are women working in music companies in all kinds of positions from A&R to heads of departments, but they are still not treated as equal to men, as the report clearly found.

I have now been teaching in a music department of a university for nearly two decades. I have seen how slow the process of change is and how resistant institutions can be to change.

Those who contributed to the report are disappointed that the government has rejected its recommendations.
Lyndon Stratford/Alamy Stock Photo

When I started teaching, just as when I started out as a music manager and independent record label owner, I was surrounded by men. As a woman in the industry, you become accustomed to coping; managing either by being invisible and unheard or deflecting unwanted advances and patronising comments with humour and a smile. Sometimes you just lose your temper, and sometimes you make a quick getaway.

In 2016 I became a researcher focusing on the impact of inequalities on mental health and the working conditions of the music industries. My co-author and researcher George Musgrave and I published our research in two reports for the charity Help Musicians UK, and a book entitled Can Music Make You Sick? Measuring the Price of Musical Ambition (2020). In it, we examined the relationship between poor working conditions and bad mental health.

We were honoured to contribute to the Misogyny In Music report. We, like everybody else that contributed, were hoping that the data would count and that legislative action for change would follow. The government response is disappointing, to say the least. Are we surprised? No. But we will we keep on fighting.

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LSD was accidentally discovered by Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz pharmaceutical company in Switzerland in 1938. It was apparently useless, but from 1947 it was marketed as “a cure for everything from schizophrenia to criminal behavior, ‘sexual perversions’, and alcoholism”. It failed to find its niche.

Now, over 80 years later, it may finally have found one – other than expanding consciousness, that is. A new study shows that it is highly effective at treating generalised anxiety disorder for up to 12 weeks with just a single dose. And it is fast acting.

General anxiety disorder (hereafter referred to simply as “anxiety”) is a mental health condition characterised by excessive worry, fear and anxiety about everyday situations. It affects about 6% of adults during their life. Treatments include psychotherapy, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, as well as medications, such as antidepressants and benzodiazepines.

Psychotherapy is expensive and takes weeks or months, while drugs need to be taken daily for weeks, months or even years. And these can have side-effects. Benzodiazepines are very addictive, while SSRIs (the latest generation of antidepressants) have a variety of side-effects including sexual dysfunction.

In addition, there are many anxious patients for whom none of the established drugs work. Clearly, new drugs for anxiety are needed.

A clinical trial in the US by the biopharmaceutical company MindMed has shown that a form of LSD (lysergide d-tartrate), given at a relatively low dose, can effectively treat people with anxiety.

Patients were given the drug at 25mg, 50mg, 100mg or 200mg. This was a phase 2b clinical trial, which is where different doses of a drug are tested in a group of people with the illness in question. The purpose is to find a dose that works while having acceptable side-effects. It was found that the 100mg dose was very effective while having only relatively minor side-effects.

The study used the Hamilton anxiety scale to measure anxiety levels. Researchers found improvements in anxiety levels within only two days of administration of their drug.

Further improvements were seen four and 12 weeks into the study. At 12 weeks, 65% of the patients were less anxious, with 48% of patients no longer meeting the clinical criteria for anxiety.

The results were so remarkable that the Food and Drug Administration (the organisation that approves new drugs in the US) has designated this a “breakthrough” drug. This means the FDA will work closely with MindMed during the next phase of testing in humans (called “phase 3”). This is where a larger group, usually up to 3,000 patients, is tested.

In phase 3, LSD may also be tested against established drugs for anxiety to determine if it works as well or possibly even better than those already in clinical use.

Psychedelics shown to treat a range of disorders

Previous studies have examined certain illicit drugs, usually hallucinogens or psychedelics, as treatments for depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and addiction. LSD, ecstasy (MDMA), ketamine, ayahuasca and psilocybin all seem useful in various mental health conditions.

A single dose of ketamine can alleviate depressive symptoms for up to a week. The current study by MindMed is the first positive single-dose study, with no psychotherapy, of LSD for anxiety.

Richard Nixon’s war on drugs set psychedelics research back decades.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

It is incredible to think that the US war on drugs which started with Richard Nixon in 1970, and the consequent difficulties in scientifically examining these illicit drugs, has lasted this long.

Most of these drugs were outlawed and scheduled as having “no accepted medical use”. Five decades later, we are finally finding clinical uses for these drugs.

The data from the MindMed study has been sent to a top science journal for peer review, so we should not get carried away just yet. A phase 3 trial is still needed. However, if a single dose of LSD does work for 12 weeks, then this is truly remarkable. We could be on the verge of a new era of treatments for mental health problems. Läs mer…