spiked-central | Article

Drinks are on the firm

A judge in Canada has awarded $200,000 to a drunk driver who sued her employer for damages after she was injured in an accident following an office party in 1994. Linda Hunt had spent the afternoon drinking and, after visiting a bar on her way home, lost control of her car, side-swiped a pick-up truck and suffered pelvic, neck and brain injuries. She pleaded guilty to drink driving. The judge found Hunt largely responsible for the accident but laid 25 percent of the blame with her employer and awarded her $200,000 in damages. (Hunt had asked for $730,000.) According to the judge, Hunt's employer, a realtor, 'ought to have foreseen that by maintaining an open and unsupervised bar, he would be incapable of monitoring the alcohol consumption of his employee, which led her into the danger'. Similar cases have been brought in the USA. DN

It's good to talk

A Danish study of 420,000 mobile phone users over a period of 18 years found no link between mobile phone use and cancer. The study, by John Boice and Christoffer Johansen published in the US Journal of the National Cancer Institute, in fact found that marginally fewer mobile phone users developed cancer than the general population. Based on a comparison with the National Cancer Registry, 161 cellphone users were expected to suffer brain or nervous system cancer; only 154 did.

The study did not clear mobile phones of other health risks like migraines, so speculation about the dangers of mobiles will no doubt carry on. JA

Poor students

An all-party committee of MPs has called for elite universities to be paid a bribe (sorry, a subsidy) of �2000 a year to take students from social classes IV and V. Pity the 18-year old who turns up to his interview groomed and clutching Shakespeare. Without a few patches on his shirt, a hand-me-down from five older brothers, he won't get a look in. And think of all those class III/IV borderline cases, whose ability to tell guacamole from mushy peas means they are outclassed by their more unfortunate peers. JA

Mad cows and Canadians

Yesterday Brazil threatened to suspend all trade with Canada until they lift their ban on Brazilian beef. Canada imposed the ban last week, citing a 'theoretical risk' that Brazilian cows might be contaminated with mad cow disease. Mexico and the USA, free-trade partners who were obliged to follow Canada, are now reconsidering the ban, citing the fact that there are no documented cases of mad cow disease in Brazil. Brazilian politician Adao Candido is promising to deliver a Brazilian cow to the front lawn of the Canadian embassy; he says the cow is healthy, but mad at Canada. JA