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.TOP NEWS
'Untested evidence': Sexual assault survivors struggle to access rape kits in Canada
CTV News
By the early 80s, when rape kits first became available to police, they were praised as an important breakthrough. The New York Times said, “it could be a powerful new weapon in the conviction of rapists” and The Baltimore Sun heralded the kit as a tool “important in standardizing the evidence that can lead to successful prosecutions.” The press presented the rape kit as a magic bullet that was much-needed in a “he said-she said” era.
But now, years later, She Matters, an advocacy group for sexual assault survivors, has found that the kits are not as accessible as they need to be. A team of volunteers called over 700 hospitals across Canada to look for information on sexual assault evidence kits. What they found startled them: 41 percent of hospitals in Canada do not have these kits on site. In Ontario, almost 40 percent; in Alberta, 45 percent; and in Manitoba, 52 percent of hospitals have no kits on site.
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.FORENSIC NURSES UPDATES
Are You Planning to Sit for the SANE-A or SANE-P Exam in 2021?
Join us for a self-paced, online Certification Prep Course! This 22-hour course offers contact hours upon completion and includes online modules and supplementary readings to prepare you for the SANE-A and SANE-P certification exams. Space is limited, Register today!
The International Association of Forensic Nurses is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.
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.INDUSTRY NEWS
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Helping survivors of violence seek justice through forensic science in the West Bank
Inter Press Service
Violence, especially against women and girls, is a worldwide systematic human rights violation that has only increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Globally, 243 million women and girls aged 15 to 49 have suffered sexual and/or physical violence by an intimate partner in the last year.
In the West Bank and Gaza Strip, one in three women experienced violence by their husbands, and 44 percent of girls aged 12 to 17 years old have been subjected to physical violence, according to a study by the Central Bureau of Statistics.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime through the HAYA Joint Programme is seeking to change these statistics through forensic science.
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Researchers discover promising biomarkers to diagnose mild traumatic brain injury
University of Eastern Finland via EurekAlert!
Certain plasma microRNAs could serve as diagnostic biomarkers in mild traumatic brain injury, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. The biomarkers were discovered in an animal model and they were successfully used also to diagnose mild traumatic brain injury in a subgroup of patients. The study was published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
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Indian Health Service launches hotline for reporting sexual abuse
Indian Health Service
The Indian Health Service has implemented extensive measures to promote and enhance patient safety and accountability. IHS has established, publicized, and will monitor a hotline dedicated solely to reporting of suspected child/sexual abuse. This hotline is separate and apart from the IHS “fraud, waste, and abuse” hotline.
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Study broadens the definition of self-injury mortality to encompass most drug overdose deaths
News-Medical
Classifying a death as suicide may be easiest for medical examiners and coroners in the western United States, which reports the highest suicide rates officially. Suicide by firearm is the leading method there, and usually clear in terms of evidence.
By contrast, suicides by drug overdose, spurred primarily by the opioid epidemic in the remainder of the country, are less obvious to investigators.
But a new West Virginia University-led injury mortality study combines most drug overdose deaths with all suicides into an expanded self-injury category. Exposing a mental health crisis that has unraveled across the United States over the past two decades, study data have direct implications for suicide prevention efforts.
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A day on the job with Kabul's crime scene investigators
Al-Jazeera
Ghullam Faroq bustles through the narrow hallways at the old Ministry of Interior building in the heart of Kabul, a stack of folders tucked in the crook of his arm and a phone pressed to his ear. He climbs the stairs to the second floor and is buzzed through a series of doors with metal bars and touch keypads.
It is just after 7:30 a.m. on a day in late 2019 and the end of a 24-hour shift leading a team of 11. Before he heads home, Faroq has a debriefing with the director of investigations. Faroq, 54, is from Logar, a restive province roughly 80 kilometers south of Afghanistan’s capital. His crime investigation career spans more than 30 years – the past 11 years of those spent here at Kabul’s crime scene investigation department.
“It’s a busy morning. It’s always a busy morning,” Faroq says, settling into a seat in the director’s office.
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SIU research shows promise for vaccine against chlamydia in women
Southern Illinois University
A researcher at Southern Illinois University Carbondale has made key progress in creating a vaccine that could protect against the common sexually transmitted disease chlamydia and possibly other STDs. Vjollca Konjufca, associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences, recently published the results of a study that showed introducing a vaccine through the mouth and into the gut results in an immune response in the female reproductive tract.
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