Head Injuries

• The whole blood test on a portable instrument helps clinicians evaluate patients 18 years of age and older who present with suspected mild traumatic brain injury or mTBI, commonly known as concussion.
• Test results can help rule out the need for a CT scan of the head and assist in determining the best next steps for patient care.
• The i-STAT TBI cartridge with the i-STAT Alinity System requires a small venous blood sample, which is applied to the test cartridge.
• Now, we have a whole blood test that can help assess the brain right at the patient's bedside – expanding access to more health providers and therefore patients."

• CTE continues to be a serious risk associated with high impact sports, such as boxing, American football and rugby.
• The NFL has paid out almost a million pounds to former players suffering the effects of sport-induced brain trauma.
• Each additional year of playing impact sports raises the risk of CTE, by as much as 30% in American football.
• Academic evidence and medical professionals now agree that sport-induced brain trauma leads to degenerative brain disease.

Not suitable for under-18s

• We are not calling for adult versions of impact sports to be banned and our argument does not apply to sports or activities where brain trauma might occur by accident.
• For example, heading a football can result in immediate and measurable alterations to brain functioning and longer-term brain diseases, such as CTE.
• The risk of CTE is far higher in sports such as American football and rugby.

Staying healthy

• Teams sports can reduce isolation and help players to develop a range of social skills.
• There are no health benefits of tackling – and there are no health benefits of being struck in the head.
• Research has shown that incidents of contact during children’s rugby are the cause of cause of 87% of known injuries.

Inability to consent

• Children are unable to make informed decisions about the long-term risks of these activities.
• Our research draws on a number of legal positions that support our argument that neither children nor parents on their behalf can consent to sports that require brain trauma as a necessary component of the sport.
• Some commentators have agreed that while high-impact sports are dangerous, using the term child abuse is a step too far.
• Read more:
  Sport-induced traumatic brain injury: families reveal the 'hell' of living with the condition

Keith Parry is affiliated with the Concussion Legacy Foundation (UK). Eric Anderson and Gary Turner do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• “It’s encouraging that more than half of the 2024 midsize luxury SUVs we tested performed well in our updated moderate overlap front crash test,” IIHS President David Harkey said.
• Rather, the front seat has become safer because of improved airbags and advanced seat belts that are rarely available in back.
• IIHS researchers also developed new metrics that focus on the injuries most frequently seen in back seat passengers.
• All eight SUVs provided excellent protection in the front seat.

• Narges Mohammadi, the recipient of the 2023 Nobel peace prize for her long fight against the oppression of women in Iran, is reported to have started a hunger strike.
• Mohammadi is serving multiple sentences in Iran’s infamous Evin prison on charges that include spreading propaganda against the state.
• Her rights campaigns were characterised by the Nobel prize committee as a “brave struggle [that] has come with tremendous personal costs”.
• According to data gathered by non-profit organisation Iran Human Rights, five protesters and 13 women have been executed in 2023.

Women, life, freedom

• Social media – among women in Iran and worldwide – has been buzzing with the hashtag.
• Women were at the forefront of the mass protests that led to the downfall of the last shah of Iran.
• In 1983, four years after the revolution, the Islamic authorities passed a law making the wearing of the hijab compulsory.
• But those who stayed increasingly used newly developing digital tools such as social media to campaign and share stories of harassment and discrimination.

Hunger strike

• Narges Mohammadi has become a key figure in the women’s rights movement in Iran.
• Despite having trained as an engineer, she took up journalism and wrote regular criticisms of the treatment of women, as well as the the country’s poor human rights record in general.

• As an inmate in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, she has led women’s resistance in support of the woman, life, freedom campaign.
• According to a statement from her family released by the Free Narges Mohammadi campaign, she began her hunger strike in response to two issues: “The Islamic Republic’s policy of delaying and neglecting medical care for sick inmates, resulting in the loss of the health and lives of individuals.
• A 17-year-old girl, Armita Geravand, died in October after receiving a head wound while riding Tehran’s metro without a headscarf.
• In the fight against the global rise of authoritarianism, the key might lie in supporting women’s rights and grassroots feminist activism.

Hind Elhinnawy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.