HeartlandVille
Earlier this week Frances Bula had an important, non-Olympic Village boondoggle, piece in the Globe and Mail essentially detailing how British Columbia's regional health officers are open to the idea of having safe injection sites coming to their towns in an effort to reduce harm:
Battling both the federal government and drug problems in their communities, B.C.'s medical health officers have quietly passed a resolution asking all health authorities to develop supervised injection sites where needed.
The resolution, passed at the officers' biannual council meeting in Prince Rupert and posted publicly last week, recommends that supervised injection sites should "now evolve from a current single research project into being integrated into community primary-care settings, addictions services, hospitals and other health care services" everywhere in the province.....
{snip}Medical health officers say they passed their resolution partly to make it clear where they stand in the federal appeal case, and partly because they are grappling with a skyrocketing rate of injection-drug use and infections in some B.C. communities, especially in the north.
"I don't understand why the federal government is appealing this decision, but we just wanted to say that many of us have looked at the science and it does have benefits," said Roland Guasparini, the chief medical officer for the Fraser Health Authority. "We don't want the public to be confused."......
{snip}David Bowering, the chief medical health officer for the Northern Health Authority that geographically covers 63 per cent of B.C., said there is no immediate recommendation for an injection site, but it is something Prince George and other northern communities might have to consider.
Dr. Bowering said there has been a steep increase in HIV and hepatitis C infections in Prince George in the past five years, especially among the native population. That city's needle exchange now gives out 100,000 needles a year.
"We're seeing a pattern in Prince George that's reminiscent of what happened in the Downtown Eastside in the '90s," Dr. Bowering said. The Downtown Eastside's infection rate was so high then that it exceeded that of some Third World countries and was labelled an epidemic. It has since dropped and levelled off......
Now, unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your point of view) Frances couldn't get a member of the 'Harm Reduction Haters' Club' on the record before her piece went to press.
However, she did receive a late response from Dr. Colin Mangham (Ph.D. variety). In the past Dr. Mangham has championed abstinence programs, published a heavily press-cited but rarely science-cited opinion piece denouncing the harm reduction approach, and even went to Ottawa to specifically slag Vancouver's InSite*.
Interestingly, however, one of Dr. Mangham's current talking points does not directly attack data published in peer-reviewed journals. Instead, he now chooses to argue that building up the harm reduction pillar is destroying the other pillars of drug prevention, treatment and enforcement. Here is that argument, as quoted on Ms. Bula's blog:
The Provincial Health Officer has long advocated for outright legalization - the necessary partner to harm reduction. He is on record as being so and the MHOC, a separate group of which he is part, also advocates for harm reduction/legalization. Many others more involved with INSITE including some of the researchers, the city drug czar, Centres for Excellence, VCH civil servants dealing with the DTES, are also strong believers in harm reduction ideology and have spoken out for it on many occasions. While having such views and bias is perfectly fine, remember these are also the people responsible for drug policy and public drug program dollars. Their bias has become reality at our expense. Along with this bias, we have seen treatment dwindle terribly, no primary prevention programs for schools or communities, and for want of a better word, mockery of police and enforcement....
Now, of course, Dr. Mangham has every right to voice his opinion, even if it is so rarely peer-reviewed.
The thing is, these opinions are also so rarely based on fact that it is hard to take them seriously.
Unfortunately, however, the pro-media often do take them seriously, especially when they go looking for the back end during he said/she said reportage (see this, by way of example).
Which, in my opinion, makes them downright dangerous.
Dr. Mangham's 'opinions' I mean.
OK?
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*I have written about the activities of the good Dr. Mangham previously, here.
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