We're not great in the media at reporting on health and science issues, with, as always, a few exceptions like The Globe and Mail's Andre Picard.
And we demonstrated the weakness this week with a story that produced headlines like "Safe injection site a failure, study finds.'
The study attacking Vancouver's safe-injection site contradicted all the serious research projects that had found improvements in health outcomes, community safety and other benefits.
The study involved no new research and came from an online journal that has published two issues and is funded by the U.S. Justice Department, which opposes harm reduction.
Read more at Pacific Gazette and CathieFromCanada.
So here we see a study from some US system opposed to the site in Vancouver. Never mind that just about everyone else says it works,by reducing Overdoses and does it's best to direct the users into rehab. Sounds like the old Republican expression" Just say no"
ReplyDeleteAddicts simply can't "Just say No" and unfortuatly their addiction leads not just to self damage, but the money has to come from some where. To get it, the addict will rob, steal, or sell themsleves.
Dirty tricks is the name of the game. dl
Meanwhile, Randy White was on CKNW spewing his vile bs how this was a great non-partisan study that was comprehensive in research. Never mind that good ole Randy couldn't deny that he was the primary source of the paper's "research."
ReplyDeleteThe Harper Conservatives said they wanted more studies done before they would commit to long term funding.
ReplyDeleteNow along comes is a very credible piece of work that will confirm to the Conservatives that they can scrap the program.
Thanks Paul--
ReplyDeleteFirst, I agree with you regarding the excellent work of Mr. Picard.
Second, most of the time I think the CP does good work. Certainly I would rate it the top of the wires here (you may wish to weigh in on that). However, this time I really think they blew it. The US DoJ connection is actually on the 'journal's' website.
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