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AHRP's stated rationale for objecting to a policy mandating Merck's HPV vaccine in 11 year old girls [Link] is validated by an internationally recognized expert in the field who tested the vaccine in clinical trials.Dr. Diane M. Harper, a lead researcher in the development of the human papilloma virus vaccine, who says giving the drug to 11-year-old girls "is a great big public health experiment." Dr. Harper, a scientist, physician, professor and the director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire, said: "It is silly to mandate vaccination of 11- to 12-year-old girls There also is not enough evidence gathered on side effects to know that safety is not an issue." All of her trials have been with subjects ages 15 to 25. "This vaccine has not been tested in little girls for efficacy. At 11, these girls don't get cervical cancer - they won't know for 25 years if they will get cervical cancer."

She believes the ideal way of administering the new vaccine is to offer it to women ages 18 and up. At the time of their first inoculation, they should be tested for the presence of HPV in their system. If the test comes back negative, then schedule the follow-up series of the three-part shots.

But if it comes back positive? "Then we don't know squat, because medically we don't know how to respond to that," Harper said.

Shots In The Dark by Barbara Loe Fisher   The worldwide acceptance of mass vaccination to suppress infectious childhood diseases once fiercely resisted is one of the most successful public relations stories in the history of medicine. As a result, epidemics of smallpox, which once swept through 18th- and 19th-century port cities such as Halifax, New York, and Boston without warning and cut down entire families, are now dry facts relegated to medical books. Images of children struggling through whooping cough, walking down the street coughing spasmodically, and stopping at curbs to spit up sticky mucus are only fading memories for grandparents alive to talk about what their parents told them.  Baby boomers and their parents still remember lining up in school in 1955 for polio vaccinations, with the hope that this magic bullet would keep them out of the dreaded iron lung.  Mass vaccination has dramatically suppressed childhood diseases. In Canada, recorded diphtheria cases dropped from 9,000 in 1924 to two to five by 1994.  When measles vaccination began in the United States between 1963 and 1965, doctors reported more than 400,000 cases annually; by 1995, that number had dwindled to 309. Cases of tetanus are almost unheard of in North America and Europe.   Yet the universal use of vaccines as a worthy goal that prevents needless suffering and that benefits all mankind has begun to be challenged.   The voices of critics are heard in the living rooms of families whose children have been injured or have died from reactions to routine childhood vaccinations, and in courtrooms, where parents are suing vaccine makers and challenging mandatory vaccination laws. In the U.S. Congress, legislators who have heard them have set up a vaccine injury compensation program. At scientific conferences and in the pages of prestigious medical journals, researchers and physicians are risking their careers by discussing vaccine side effects.

Today, vaccinations are big business. In 1995, an international high-technology research firm, Frost & Sullivan, projected that the worldwide human vaccine market will increase from $2.9 billion to more than $7 billion by the year 2001.   Public health officials in every country assist the industry�s growth, often by force of laws that ensure citizens use about a dozen different viral and bacterial vaccines, including ones to suppress even generally mild childhood diseases such as chicken pox. Traditional public health measures, improving sanitation, nutrition, living conditions, health education, and access to affordable medical care, especially in underprivileged populations often take a backseat to achieving a 100 per cent vaccination rate.   Most medical doctors consider vaccines their single most important tool in protecting public health. Few would question the profound importance of vaccines to public health, wrote Richard B. Johnston, Jr., MD, medical director of the March of Dimes and chairman of the Institute of Medicine Vaccine Safety Committee, in a 1994 National Academy of Sciences report, 

Adverse Events Associated with Vaccines Not only have deaths from the most common childhood infections been almost eliminated, but also so have the devastating morbidities of diseases like measles, paralytic polio, and congenital rubella. This revolution has . . . led to major savings in medical costs and gains in work productivity, as well as to reductions in deaths and suffering.   An ancient philosophical dispute goes modern   The whole idea of man versus nature can be traced back to the origins of western medicine more than 2,000 years ago. In a four-volume book series Divided Legacy: A History of Schism in Medical Thought by medical historian Harris L. Coulter, PhD, the centuries-old war between empiricism and rationalism in medicine is revealed as a contest between two competing health philosophies. Is each individual governed by a vital force that, through unique reactions to external stimuli, is capable of participating in the healing process, as empiricists, including Hippocrates, have maintained?  Or are all human organisms simply a series of complex chemical reactions governed by the laws of physics, chemistry, and mechanics, as rationalists, including Louis Pasteur, have maintained?   Empiricists accept the existence of viruses and bacteria as part of nature and illness as part of the life process. They consider fevers, diarrhea, and runny noses good, not bad, and do not suppress them with chemically based drugs that might interfere with the body�s natural ability to harness the immune system to participate in the healing process. They stress that each individual is unique and that individualized therapeutic techniques can stimulate the body to restore health. Empiricists dislike the one-size-fits-all mass vaccination approach. 

Owens and author Diana Baumrind analyzed data gathered from 100 middle-class white families from 1968 to 1980. The children and parents were interviewed, tested and observed on three occasions by two teams of psychologists when the children were 4, 9 and 14. The study found the majority of families disciplined their preschool children by using mild to moderate spanking. The results showed no negative effects on cognitive, social or behavioral skills of those youngsters and found no difference between them and the 4 percent of children who were not physically disciplined. The study found that 4 percent to 7 percent of parents fell into the "red zone" by disciplining their children frequently and impulsively, by such means as verbal punishment, using a paddle, hitting their children in the face or torso or throwing and shaking them. Those children were found to be not as adjusted socially and more likely to have behavioral problems or experience anxiety or depression, Owens said. She acknowledged that the children studied were from an earlier generation and the results could be different if the same research were done on today's youngsters. A study released last August found that avoiding corporal punishment altogether increases the probability of the child being well-behaved and well-adjusted. Murray Straus, co-director of the University of New Hampshire Family Research Laboratory, said spanking could backfire and push a youngster into delinquency.

Protecting Data Privacy in Health Services Research

Why It’s Important to Monitor Vaccine Safety John Iskander, MD, MPH, acting director, Immunization Safety Office, and Robert T. Chen, MD, MA, blood safety specialist, Epidemiology Branch, NCHHSTP, wrote a chapter in the new book Infectious Disease Surveillance to explain why it is important to monitor vaccine safety. Rare Reactions. The most important reason is to detect rare reactions. Although vaccines are tested extensively before they are licensed for use in the United States, not enough people are included in the tests to detect reactions that happen only rarely. If serious reactions are found when the vaccine is in widespread use, the vaccine may be withdrawn. Higher Risk Groups. Vaccine safety monitoring also makes sure new vaccines are safe for groups such as the elderly, those with chronic medical conditions, and pregnant women. Vaccine trials may deliberately exclude members of these groups. Public Confidence in Vaccines. Monitoring vaccine safety also helps to maintain public confidence needed to keep enough people vaccinated to prevent disease outbreaks. How We Know If Vaccines Are Safe Vaccine safety cannot be measured directly. Instead, it is estimated by the number of "adverse events" reported. An adverse event is "... a medical incident that takes place after an immunization ... and is believed to be caused by the immunization."1 Adverse events include— True reactions to the vaccine. Events that would have occurred even if the person had not been vaccinated (unrelated coincidences). Reactions related to mistakes in vaccine preparation, handling, or administration. Events that cannot be related directly to the vaccine; their cause is unknown. A formal scientific study usually is required to distinguish between coincidences and true reactions. It is rarely possible to say for sure whether a vaccine caused a specific adverse event. Almost all national immunization programs have a system for reporting adverse events. The United States Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS)2 and the Canadian Adverse Events Following Immunization Surveillance System (CAEFISS)* are examples. People who report a vaccine reaction to VAERS or CAEFISS are asked if the reaction led to hospitalization, life-threatening illness, disability, or death. These events are classified as "serious," and are often subject to further study that yields important information. For example, reports to CAEFISS identified a common illness among people who received flu vaccines from one Canadian manufacturer in one season.3 Equally important, such systems have supported the safety of new vaccines such as the new meningococcal B and C vaccines in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Other monitoring programs include the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) project, the Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment (CISA) Network, and the Brighton Collaboration. The VSD project is a collaboration between CDC's Immunization Safety Office and eight large managed care organizations that allows for planned vaccine safety studies as well as quick investigation of possible issues. The CISA Network of six medical research centers conducts clinical research on vaccine-associated health risks, and the Brighton Collaboration develops standard case definitions for problems following immunization as well as guidelines for data collection, analysis, and presentation. Vaccine safety monitoring becomes more important with new vaccines, expanded vaccine recommendations, and new global immunization initiatives. Reporting systems like VAERS will continue to be used to monitor adverse events, so vaccines can continue to be held to very high standards of safety.

Privacy Self Regulation: A Decade of Disappointment

Methods 277 young women (mean age 20·2 years [SD 1·7]) were randomly assigned to quadrivalent HPV (20 É g type 6, 40 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 20 É g type 18) L1 virus-like-particle (VLP) vaccine and 275 (mean age 20·0 years [1·7]) to one of two placebo preparations at day 1, month 2, and month 6. For 36 months, participants underwent regular gynaecological examinations, cervicovaginal sampling for HPV DNA, testing for serum antibodies to HPV, and Pap testing. The primary endpoint was the combined incidence of infection with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18, or cervical or external genital disease (ie, persistent HPV infection, HPV detection at the last recorded visit, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, cervical cancer, or external genital lesions caused by the HPV types in the vaccine). Main analyses were done per protocol. Findings Combined incidence of persistent infection or disease with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18 fell by 90% (95% CI 71-97, p<0·0001) in those assigned vaccine compared with those assigned placebo. Interpretation A vaccine targeting HPV types 6, 11, 16, 18 could substantially reduce the acquisition of infection and clinical disease caused by common HPV types. AUTHOR DISCUSSION We have shown that a multivalent vaccine is efficacious against HPV types that cause cancer and genital warts. Over 35 months’ follow-up, incidence of persistent infection associated with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18 decreased by 89% in women allocated active vaccine who had at least one dose (ie, the modified intention-to-treat population) compared with those allocated placebo. Vaccine efficacy was 90% in the per-protocol efficacy population, suggesting that the vaccine was protective even during the vaccination period. For example, during the course of vaccination (day 1 through month 7), three women assigned active vaccine and five women assigned placebo were detected with HPV 18 DNA. Of these, only one was verifiable persistent infection (in the placebo group). Thus, one woman allocated placebo and no women allocated active vaccine developed persistent HPV 18 infection during the vaccination period. Furthermore, efficacy with regard to clinical disease associated with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18 was 100%.

Methods Study design A phase II randomised, multicentre, double-blind placebo-controlled study of a quadrivalent HPV (type 6, 11, 16, and 18) L1 VLP vaccine was done in two parts. Part A was a sequential dose-escalation safety assessment, in which participants, investigators, and staff were blinded as to assignment of vaccine or placebo, but not to assignment of doses in the active-treatment group. Part B was a fully blinded dose-ranging assessment of immunogenicity and efficacy. Study procedures for individuals in part A and part B were identical. The results presented in this article are from part B. 1158 women aged 16-23 years were recruited in Brazil, Europe, and the USA. The study enrolled healthy women, who were not pregnant, had no previous abnormal Pap smears, and reported a lifetime history of four or fewer male sex partners. Enrolment of virgins was restricted to women who were 18 years or older and who were seeking contraception. This study did not exclude women with previous HPV infection. Participants were required to use effective contraception during the trial. The active quadrivalent vaccine was a mixture of four recombinant HPV type-specific VLPs (Merck Research Laboratories, West Point, PA, USA) consisting of the L1 major capsid proteins of HPV 6, 11, 16, and 18 synthesised in Saccharomyces cerevisiae.10,14,16 The four VLP types were purified and adsorbed onto amorphous aluminium hydroxyphosphate sulfate adjuvant. The placebo consisted of the same adjuvant and was visually indistinguishable from vaccine. Three preparations of a quadrivalent HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18 L1 VLP were used. The three preparations were : 20 É g type 6, 40 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 20 É g type 18, with 225 É g aluminium adjuvant ; 40 É g type 6, 40 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 40 É g type 18, with 225 É g aluminium adjuvant ; and 80 É g type 6, 80 É g type 11, 40 É g type 16, and 80 É g type 18, with 395 É g aluminium adjuvant. The study had two placebo groups with adjuvant doses of 225 É g or 450 É g for appropriate safety comparisons. 0·5 mL vaccine or placebo was given by intramuscular injection at day 1, month 2, and month 6. After vaccination, participants were observed for 30 min. Temperatures were also recorded orally every day in the evening for 5 days after vaccination, and the participant noted adverse events by standard diary card for 14 days after vaccination. Gynaecological examination was done at day 1 and at months 7, 12, 24, and 36. A ThinPrep™ Pap test (Cytyc, Boxborough, MA, USA) and external genital, lateral vaginal, and cervical swabs for PCR analysis of HPV were obtained from all participants at day 1 and at months 7, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36. Biopsy samples of external genital lesions identified during the study were taken, and serum samples were obtained at day 1 and months 2, 3, 6, 7, 12, 18, 24, 30, and 36. This study was done in accordance with national or local requirements for ethics-committee review, informed consent, and other statutes or regulations regarding the protection of the rights and welfare of those participating in biomedical research. All individuals, or their parents or legal guardians, gave written informed consent after review of the protocol procedures. The aim of the study was to assess a quadrivalent HPV L1 VLP vaccine in terms of the composite primary endpoint of persistent infection associated with HPV 6, 11, 16, or 18, or cervical or external genital disease compared with placebo. Women with persistent infection were defined as those who had the same vaccine-HPV-type DNA in cervicovaginal samples obtained 7 months after vaccination as those obtained from two or more consecutive visits (required to be 4 months or longer apart unless at least one tissue sample was diagnosed as cervical disease by a panel of pathologists), or as those who had vaccine-HPV-type DNA detected in a sample recorded during the last visit before being lost to follow-up. HPV-associated disease was defined as a tissue sample diagnosed as CIN by a panel of pathologists 7 months after vaccination ; vulval intraepithelial neoplasia ; vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia ; external genital warts ; or cervical, vulval, or vaginal cancer with vaccine-HPV-type DNA detected in tissue from, or in a swab of, the same lesion and in cervicovaginal samples obtained at the visit before the biopsy visit.

Health Information Chat now or call 1-888-644-6226 Monday – Friday 8:30 – 5:00 ET ASK your patients. TELL your providers. TALK about CAM. Most Popular Health Topics Acupuncture Arthritis Black Cohosh Cancer Chelation Chiropractic Dietary Supplements Depression Echinacea Ephedra Ginkgo Ginseng Glucosamine Homeopathy Herbs at a Glance Meditation Menopause St. John's Wort All diseases and conditions All treatments and therapies Información de salud en español More at Other Organizations MEDLINEplus: Alternative Medicine (National Library of Medicine) MEDLINEplus: Herbs and Supplements (National Library of Medicine) DIRLINE — directory of health organizations and research resources (National Library of Medicine) NIH Office of Dietary Supplements NCI Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine All links to other government agencies Understanding CAM What Is CAM? Biologically Based Practices Energy Medicine Manipulative and Body-Based Practices Mind-Body Medicine Whole Medical Systems Statistics on CAM Use Understanding Dietary and Herbal Supplements Be an Informed Consumer Are You Considering Using CAM? Selecting a CAM Practitioner CAM Use and Children Paying for CAM Treatment 10 Things To Know About Evaluating Medical Resources on the Web Time to Talk — Tell your doctor about your use of CAM

Vaccine Safety Concerns Most parents today have never seen a case of diphtheria, measles, or other once-common diseases now preventable by vaccines. As a result, some parents wonder why their children must receive shots for diseases that do not seem to exist. Myths and misinformation about vaccine safety abound and can confuse parents who are trying to make sound decisions about their children's healthcare. Vaccination is a common, memorable event, and association of events in time often signals cause and effect. While some of the sickness or reactions that follow vaccination may be caused by the vaccine, many are unrelated events that occur by coincidence after vaccination. Therefore, the scientific research that attempts to distinguish true vaccine side effects from unrelated, chance occurrences is important. Recent Health Concerns Entertainment as a Source of Health Information Questions About Vaccine Recalls Kawasaki Syndrome and RotaTeq Vaccine Measles, Mumps, and Rubella (MMR) Vaccine and Autism Guillain Barré Syndrome and Menactra® Meningococcal Vaccine fact sheet and frequently asked questions Mercury and Vaccines (Thimerosal) Frequently Asked Questions about Thimerosal Frequently Asked Questions about Thimerosal-free Vaccines Frequently Asked Questions about Mercury and Thimerosal Timeline: Thimerosal in Vaccines (1999–2008) Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Archived Health Concerns Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) (updated March 2004) Cancer, Simian Virus 40, and the Polio Vaccine (updated April 2004) fact sheet and frequently asked questions Chronic Diseases Diabetes (updated May 2004) Febrile Seizures After MMR and DTP Vaccinations Hair Loss Inflammatory Bowel Disease and the Measles Vaccine Multiple Vaccinations and the Immune System (updated May 2004) Multiple Sclerosis and the Hepatitis B Vaccine (updated September 2004) Additives in Vaccines Intussusception and Rotavirus Vaccine Page last reviewed: February 29, 2008 Page last updated: February 29, 2008 Content source: Immunization Safety Office, Office of the Chief Science Officer

GARDASIL AND HPV INFECTION — GET THE FACTS NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER National Vaccine Information Center (Debold V, Downey C, Fisher B). (2007). NVIC Analysis of Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Reports: Part III, Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine Safety, Analysis of Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Reports: Part III (August 15, 2007 http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HPV_Vaccine_Safety_ Report__Part_III_(081507_revised)[1].pdf NVIC Analysis Shows Greater Risk of GBS Reports When HPV Vaccine Is Given with Other Vaccines, August 15, 2007, NVIC Press Release NVIC Letter to ACIP Chairman regarding HPV VAERS reports, August 14, 2007 Making An Informed Decision: WUSA-9, Washington DC, November 28, 2007 Listen to Parents! Not Merck, March 8, 2007, Rally in Washington DC Statement at DC Rally by Barbara Loe Fisher, March 8, 2007 Vaccine Safety Group Releases GARDASIL Reaction Report, February 21, 2007, NVIC Press Release -FDA and CDC Should Warn  Doctors National Vaccine Information Center (Debold V, Fisher B). (2007). Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine Safety, Analysis of Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Reports: Part II (February 21, 2007). http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HPVRPT2.htm HPV Infection Facts  National Vaccine Information Center (Debold V, Fisher B). (2007). Human Papilloma Virus Vaccine Safety, Analysis of Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System Reports: Adverse Reactions, Concerns and Implications (undated). http://www.nvic.org/Diseases/HPV/HPVrpt.htm HPV Vaccine Mandates Risky and Expensive, February 1, 2007, NVIC Press Release and Citations Survey of GARDASIL Costs — Private Pediatricians Offices, January 2007 Merck's GARDASIL Not Proven Safe for Little Girls, June 27, 2006, NVIC Press Release on GARDASIL aluminum content and clinical trials with reference citations  TODAY SHOW - FEBRUARY 13, 2007 - Should HPV Vaccine Be Mandatory?  Barbara Loe Fisher, NVIC President and Co-founder, http://tinyurl.com/2kfkb4 HPV Video - 7 Minutes, Grindley Productions made for NVIC WNYC Radio (NPR) The Brian Lehrer Show February 22, 2007 Healthy & Wise: "Strange Bedfellows" "At least 20 states are considering mandatory vaccination of young girls against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer. But the backlash has been fast and furious--and has led to some unlikely alliances. Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the National Vaccine Information Center, and Moira Gaul, director of women's and reproductive health at the Family Research Council, talk about their opposition to mandatory vaccination. Sheila Krumholz, executive director, Center for Responsive Politics, talks about the lobbying efforts and legislative influence of the pharmaceutical industry." VAERS REPORTS — GARDASIL ADVERSE EVENT REPORTS VAERS REPORT — GARDASIL ADVERSE EVENTS REPORTS National Vaccine Information Center. VAERS reports related to HPV4 vaccine http://www.medalerts.

The war on drugs is an expensive battle, as a great deal of resources go into catching those who buy or sell illegal drugs on the black market, prosecuting them in court, and housing them in jail. These costs seem particularly exorbitant when dealing with the drug marijuana, as it is widely used, and is likely no more harmful than currently legal drugs such as tobacco and alcohol. There's another cost to the war on drugs, however, which is the revenue lost by governments who cannot collect taxes on illegal drugs. In a recent study for the Fraser Institute, Economist Stephen T. Easton attempted to calculate how much tax revenue the Canadian government could gain by legalizing marijuana.

The study estimates that the average price of 0.5 grams (a unit) of marijuana sold for $8.60 on the street, while its cost of production was only $1.70. In a free market, a $6.90 profit for a unit of marijuana would not last for long. Entrepreneurs noticing the great profits to be made in the marijuana market would start their own grow operations, increasing the supply of marijuana on the street, which would cause the street price of the drug to fall to a level much closer to the cost of production. Of course, this doesn't happen because the product is illegal; the prospect of jail time deters many entrepreneurs and the occasional drug bust ensures that the supply stays relatively low. We can consider much of this $6.90 per unit of marijuana profit a risk-premium for participating in the underground economy. Unfortunately, this risk premium is making a lot of criminals, many of whom have ties to organized crime, very wealthy. Stephen T. Easton argues that if marijuana was legalized, we could transfer these excess profits caused by the risk-premium from these grow operations to the government: If we substitute a tax on marijuana cigarettes equal to the difference between the local production cost and the street price people currently pay--that is, transfer the revenue from the current producers and marketers (many of whom work with organized crime) to the government, leaving all other marketing and transportation issues aside we would have revenue of (say) $7 per [unit]. If you could collect on every cigarette and ignore the transportation, marketing, and advertising costs, this comes to over $2 billion on Canadian sales and substantially more from an export tax, and you forego the costs of enforcement and deploy your policing assets elsewhere. One interesting thing to note from such a scheme is that the street price of marijuana stays exactly the same, so the quantity demanded should remain the same as the price is unchanged. However, it's quite likely that the demand for marijuana would change from legalization. We saw that there was a risk in selling marijuana, but since drug laws often target both the buyer and the seller, there is also a risk (albeit smaller) to the consumer interested in buying marijuana. Legalization would eliminate this risk, causing the demand to rise. This is a mixed bag from a public policy standpoint: Increased marijuana use can have ill effects on the health of the population but the increased sales bring in more revenue for the government. However, if legalized, governments can control how much marijuana is consumed by increasing or decreasing the taxes on the product. There is a limit to this, however, as setting taxes too high will cause marijuana growers to sell on the black market to avoid excessive taxation. When considering legalizing marijuana, there are many economic, health, and social issues we must analyze. One economic study will not be the basis of Canada's public policy decisions, but Easton's research does conclusively show that there are economic benefits in the legalization of marijuana. With governments scrambling to find new sources of revenue to pay for important social objectives such as health care and education expect to see the idea raised in Parliament sooner rather than later.

Health insurance is in the midst of a design shift toward greater financial risk for patients. Where medical cost exposure is high relative to income, the shift will increase the numbers of underinsured people. This study estimates that nearly sixteen million people ages 19-64 were underinsured in 2003. Underinsured adults were more likely to forgo needed care than those with more adequate coverage and had rates of financial stress similar to those of the uninsured. Including adults uninsured during the year, 35 percent (sixty-one million) were under- or uninsured. These findings highlight the need for policy attention to insurance design that considers the adequacy of coverage.

Uninsured or Medicaid-insured patients are far more likely to be diagnosed with an advanced stage cancer than those with private insurance, according to a new American Cancer Society study of 3.5 million cancer patients with 12 of the most common cancer types.

Is Your Printer Spying On You?

This survey, by EPIC and Privacy International, reviews the state of privacy in over fifty countries around the world. The survey examines a wide range of privacy issues including, data protection, telephone tapping, genetic databases, ID systems and freedom of information laws. The report finds that there is a worldwide regocnition of privacy as a fundamental human right. Many countries around the world are enacting comprehenisve data protection law to safeguard individual privacy increase. However at the same time, privacy is increasingly being undermined by technical advances and the demands of intelligence and law enforcement agencies for increase surveillance powers. There is a strong need for improved oversight and stricter enforcement of current laws to ensure that legal protections are not ignored as threats to personal privacy increase.

The 31 organizations are voicing their concerns about Google’s plan to scan the text of all incoming messages for the purposes of ad placement, noting that the scanning of confidential email for inserting third party ad content violates the implicit trust of an email service provider. The scanning creates lower expectations of privacy in the email medium and may establish dangerous precedents.