The Dominion - Health

Hundreds Protest Block's Message

Tim McSorley — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 09:00:00 +0000

Saskatoon rallies in response to MP Kelly Block's newsletter boasting of cuts to health care for refugee claimants

SASKATOON—Hundreds of Saskatoonians gathered at Saskatoon-Rosetown-Biggar MP Kelly Block's office in the city on Saturday, protesting her latest newsletter about cuts to health care for refugee claimants. People have called the item anti-immigrant, xenophobic and racist.

Block's newsletter, entitled, "Ending Unfair Benefits for Refugee Claimants," states, "New arrivals to Canada have received dental and vision care paid by your tax dollars. They've had free prescriptions. Not Anymore."

Some see the message as an early attack on medicare and as an attempt to divide Canadians. Others see it as an attack on Canada's long history of generosity and caring for those coming to the country as refugees.

Dr Ryan Meili, Family Doctor at the WestSide Community Clinic, spoke of caring for refugees and recognizing their special needs as well as requirements for general health care. Meili called Block's publication a "divisive and inflammatory action" through which she was attempting to divide Canadians. He called on the federal Conservative Party to "stop abdicating its responsibilities for health care."

On June 30, 2012, the Conservative government implemented changes to the Interim Federal Health Program. The new directives mean that refugee claimants waiting on appeals, or from a list that the federal government deems safe, no longer have access to important medical services, ranging from insulin for diabetes to treatment after heart attacks.

While the government scaled back some of its proposed cuts on the eve of implementing the changes, advocates for the program have said that the services which continue to be covered account for only two per cent of the former budget.

Speaking at Saturday's rally, Meili also said the western provinces, other than Saskatchewan, have agreed to cover the costs of treating refugee claimants. He said Saskatchewan people should encourage their provincial government to take on the care of the refugee claimants as well.

Meili lives in Saskatoon's Riversdale neighbourhood, which is part of Block's constituency. He is running for the leadership of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party.

Meili's wife, Dr. Mahili Brindamour-Meili, also spoke. She is a pediatric resident studying at the University of Saskatchewan and working in the Saskatoon Health Region. She is also Co-Chair of the Immigrant and Refugee Health Committee at the University of Saskatchewan.

The committee organized a protest last week which drew doctors, nurses, other health care providers and students. It was called the "59 cent protest" because the money that it cost to provide care for refugee claimants is about 59 cents per taxpayer per year. She said refugee claimants, like all people, "need acceptance and compassion," particularly because of the violence many have experienced.

Brindamour-Meili told the story of a caller who attacked her for supporting the needs of refugees. She added that in the end, the caller told Brindamour-Meili she should go back to where she came from.

Mark Bigland-Pritchard, a member of a Mennonite congregation, spoke on behalf of his daughter, a university student in Winnipeg. Reading from her letter, Bigland-Pritchard called the statements contained in Block’s newsletter "unhelpful, dishonest and biased."

A psychologist with the Saskatoon Community Clinic, Dr. Nayyar Javed, described Block as "taking up where Jim Pankew left off." Pankew is a former Reform Party Member of Parliament. He is best remembered as having made a number of very racist remarks in conversation and writings. Javed went on to say that Block was "not elected to spread hatred."

Other speakers included representatives of the legal community and labour.

The event, which attracted approximately 500 people, took place under the watchful eye of Saskatoon Police. The crowd was so large that on several occassions it spilled onto the street in front of Block's office.

Rob is a retired career journalist based in Saskatoon. He has worked in both electronic and print news. This article was originally published on the Media Co-op.

We Disagree full file

Pinkwashing, Incorporated

Moira Peters — Wed, 30 May 2012 10:34:08 +0000

NFB film delves into depoliticization of breast cancer epidemic

LONDON—I remember the first time it really hit me. It was at the third World Conference on Breast Cancer held in Victoria, BC, in 2002. I walked out onto the balcony overlooking the exhibition hall and there it was, a sea of pink.

This conference wasn’t like the first World Conference on Breast Cancer in Kingston, Ontario in 1997. In Kingston, it was all about environmental and occupational causes of breast cancer, primary prevention and cutting edge science.

The speakers were iconic in their work on prevention, and the conference was attended by campaigners whose names were recognizable from the radical campaign material we in the UK eagerly received from Canada and the US.

The Kingston conference was initiated by Janet Collins, who features in the film Pink Ribbons, Inc., produced by Ravida Din and directed by Lea Pool for the National Film Board of Canada (2011).

“The whole pink ribbon culture drain[ed] and deflect[ed] the kind of militancy we had as women who were appalled to have a disease that is epidemic and yet that we don’t even know the cause of,” said Barbara Ehrenreich, author and activist, who is featured in the film.

“We found sisterhood from other women and [from] looking critically at what was going on with our health care," she said. "I mean, what a change; we used to march in the streets, now you’re supposed to run for a cure or walk for a cure...”

At the third world conference in Victoria, with its pharmaceutical funding sources, many of the previous speakers from the scientific community weren’t invited, and many campaigners stayed away.

Nevertheless, those of us committed to prevention and environmental exposure met together and drafted a resolution.

The resolution urged governments to ban proven and suspected carcinogens, and to take a precautionary approach to those chemicals and substances implicated in breast cancer causation. This would entail that even in the absence of scientific consensus, exposure should be eliminated until proof of no harm can be determined and agreed.

In other words, better safe than sorry.

Although initially hesitant, conference organizers used the resolution as a basis for the conference press release. But we were branded. It was the last time I was invited to speak at the World Conference on Breast Cancer, and I was dropped with no explanation from the international advisory group. I felt like a troublemaker.

But at least I was in good company.

On that balcony, looking at the festival of pink, I first imagined pink ribbons used like blindfolds to prevent women from seeing the harsh realities of the disease, and like gags to silence dissent about the the lack of acknowledgement that exposures in our homes, workplaces and in the wider environment could contribute to our breast cancers. But as Judy Brady, author and activist, points out in the film, “If it were a conspiracy then we could expose it and people would be aware; but it’s not, it’s business as usual”.

In less than a decade, women seem to have gone from challenging organizations like the Massachusetts Breast Cancer Coalition and the Women’s Community Cancer project, first shown in the film marching with banners reading "Draw The Line At 1 In 8," then as women running in pink feather boas and wearing t-shirts with pharmaceutical company logos on the back, embodying that infamous slogan: running for the cure, sponsored by the cause.

What the hell happened?

Samantha King, author of the book Pink Ribbons, Inc., suggests that the big players in the cancer establishment have boards of directors with representatives from the pharmaceutical, chemical and energy industries. It is thus almost impossible to separate the people who might be responsible for the perpetuation of this disease from those who are responsible for trying to find a way to cure or, even better, to prevent it.

It is obvious, then, that emotions like anger, dissent or disbelief and questions about exposures at work, home or in the wider environment don’t sit well with this festival of pink.

We could say that the pink ribbon industry has identified its audience well: the premise being that breast cancer only affects middle-class ultra-feminine white women, because this is the demographic industry wants to sell pink products to.

While millions of dollars have been spent studying the same populations—white, largely middle-class women—this research does not translate to the many African, Asian, African American and racially diverse women contracting the disease. We know their outcomes aren’t as good as those of their white counterparts. Yet so little is spent finding out why.

Is it because they are not the "right" demographic the pink ribbon industry wants to reach out to?

Along with the socio-economic considerations around breast cancer, the racial, cultural, environmental and occupational inequalities are at best not addressed; at worst, neglected, unfunded and largely ignored.

In the film, King reflects: “It wasn’t until Reagan came to power that we saw explicit policies designed to shift responsibility for health and welfare from the government towards private entities, philanthropic organizations, along with the encouragement specifically for corporations to participate in that.”

Or as Reagan himself said, “A buck for business if it helps to solve our social ills.”

The term pinkwashing is used to describe companies associating with a cause that people care about in order to increase their sales and to market pink products. Breast cancer is the poster child of cause marketing.

The irony is that many of the products sold, specifically cosmetics, perfumes, plastics and petrochemical-based products, contain ingredients linked to breast cancer.

“It is hypocrisy to use carcinogens in products and at the same time be advocating for a cure in another way,” says Jane Houlihan from the Environmental Working Group, speaking in the film.

When looked at skeptically, research requires investment and the end product has to be profitable and marketable. There is no profit in prevention or removing carcinogens from the environment, home or workplace.

One of the women attending the Plastics Automotive Industry focus group in Windsor, Ontario, led by Dr. Jim Brophy and Dr. Margaret Keith, said it was the first time she had ever heard that ingredients in plastics are mimicking the female hormone estrogen. She felt that this message needed to be publicly articulated, loud and clear.

Despite all the information out there on Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals (EDCs), that information is still not reaching those who need it most. Women who have been working in the plastics industry for decades were given no health and safety training and no safety data sheets.

“The evidence is overwhelming on the impact environmental and occupational exposures have on this disease,” says Brophy. “Very little of the resources are going to looking at pesticides, combustion products, plastics, petrochemicals and solvents, many of the things that millions of women are being exposed to every day, either in the general ambient environment or their workplaces.”

And yet “women die from breast cancer just because they are women,” Dr. Olufunmilayoi Olopade reminds the film’s viewers.

While Pink Ribbons, Inc. doesn’t seek to undermine those who gain hope, strength and a sense of community from pink ribbon fundraising, it does ask critical questions about the industry and the pink ribbon brand.

Helen Lynn has campaigned on cancer prevention since 1995 with Putting Breast Cancer on the Map and the No More Breast Cancer campaign. She is currently a freelance campaigner and facilitates the Alliance for Cancer Prevention in the UK. This review was originally published on Alliance for Cancer Prevention's website.

What can you do?

•Go and see the film.

•If you raise pink ribbon money, follow the money and ask questions about how it is spent.

•Follow the example of the Toxic Links Coalition in San Francisco, which each year in October organizes a toxic tour and visits the branches of the worst polluters in their financial district.

•Organize a workplace group to examine what you are exposed to at work.

•Pay attention to what is in the products you buy—to check out cosmetics ingredients visit Skin Deep, a project of the Environmental Working Group.

•Don’t accept the blame. If 50 per cent of breast cancer cases have no known cause then it ain’t your fault.

•Read the book Pink Ribbons, Inc. by Samantha King.

•Check out the Tools for Action on Pink Ribbon Blues Blog.

•Remember: we can’t shop our way out of this epidemic.

The Big See

No Abortion Services on Prince Edward Island

Miles — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:18:50 +0000

Island women fight for access in their own province

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND— Kandace Hagen expected her nomination for a youth social justice award to be slightly controversial. After all, if she won, she would be recognized for her work advocating for abortion access in Prince Edward Island. She didn’t, however, expect to face a campaign by anti-abortion activists trying to ensure she didn’t win.

The Atlantic Council for International Cooperation’s Active8! campaign highlights eight youth, and awards one, who have demonstrated outstanding leadership for social justice. The leading contestant, Tara Brinston, was entered into the campaign in recognition of her advocacy work for the rights of people with disabilities, but ended up alongside Hagen in the middle of an abortion access debate.

In a leaked email, a spokesperson of a local anti-abortion group sought to convince its supporters to pledge in favour of Brinston: “Please have all the youth you know sign in and vote for TARA BRINSTON [sic],” the email read. “We want to make sure that Kandice [sic] doesn’t win this award for youth leadership. The vote is close so please send this to all the youth and youth groups you know.”

Hagen, 24, has been part of a reinvigorated movement to get access to abortion services on PEI and to increase women’s access to information about their reproductive options. PEI is the only province in Canada with no abortion services offered within its borders.

This is despite the fact that since 1988 the Supreme Court has interpreted the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ guarantee of the “security of the person” as protecting women’s access to abortion services. This removed legal barriers to abortion for the majority of public hospitals across Canada.

Currently, a PEI woman seeking an abortion would have to travel out of the province. She could pay about $800 to the private Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton, NB, or access a PEI-funded abortion at the Halifax General Hospital after a referral from her doctor. Either way, she would pay for her own travel costs. If she were in her second trimester, she would have to travel to Ottawa or Montreal, covering medical and all other costs as well.

This hypothetical "she” could have been Hagen. When Hagen sought the procedure two years ago, her doctor only informed her of the private option in Fredericton. The clinic, in turn, advised her to wait two weeks out of uncertainty that she would be past the necessary eight-week mark.

“When I did arrive, I found out that I was within a week of missing my first trimester date,” says Hagen. “Had my physician acted in my best interest, I could have had an ultrasound and found out that it was indeed a timely issue and been referred to Halifax immediately. Instead, I was almost put in an even more difficult position.”

It was in large part due to this experience that Hagen helped launch the PEI Reproductive Rights Organization (PRRO). The group raises awareness on what options already exist for women on PEI, and how these compare to the rest of Canada. “A lot of people were very surprised. Some had no idea that there were no abortion services available on PEI. Others were equally surprised that there was any funding at all,” says Hagen.

Bronwyn Rodd, another founding member of PRRO, sees a particularly strong “culture of silence” on PEI surrounding abortions— a culture that extends well into the local medical community.

PRRO sent a survey to every doctor in the province with detailed information about current abortion service options. Though many doctors responded by stating that they are pro-choice, none were willing to take a public pro-choice stance.

So far, the group has found one doctor from off-island willing to provide abortions on PEI. “One doctor anonymously spoke to the media here, saying he would be in favour of providing the service, but he would be afraid of retribution by the pro-life people. They are very active. PEI is so small and confidentiality is a challenge,” says Rodd.

Anti-abortion activists on PEI refer to their province as Canada’s "life sanctuary." In other words, “the only place without any legal access to abortion,” says Rodd. “[PEI] is very high on the priority list for the national pro-life movement, because we are sort of their ‘in’ for regressing [abortion] laws in general.” She believes local anti-abortion groups receive substantial financial support from their counterparts across North America.

A spokesperson for one such group,the PEI Right to Life Association, urged people to intervene in the Active8! campaign. Similar activists turned up in equal numbers to counter-demonstrate at PRRO’s 300-person protest last fall, the first pro-choice rally in the province in 20 years.

The association also published in PEI’s main newspaper, The Guardian, in which the group purports to clarify “a number of errors that can be confusing and present a false basis upon which to view the abortion issue on PEI.” The highlighted “errors” paint a picture in which PEI is in fact enshrining the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, rather than transgressing it.

PEI Liberal Premier Robert Ghiz has so far stood against any reforms to current practice. He’s gone on record stating that as long as he’s Premier, he’s “going to stay with the status quo," which he insists is a “good compromise.”

PRRO intends to push for abortion accessibility as far as it can. Rodd understands the Premier’s stance as an implied threat to legislate a barrier, should doctors start offering services. “We don’t think he has the jurisdiction to say that. There is no legal barrier in place here. So, we think he would be acting illegally...And if things do progress that way, we would be looking at launching a lawsuit.”

The Active8! campaign ultimately declared Hagen and Brinston joint winners earlier this month. To Hagen, the PEI government is “simply waiting for us to shut up,” she says, “which we won’t do until women in PEI have the same access as women in the rest of Canada.”

Peter Driftmier is a producer and collective member of Redeye on Vancouver Co-operative Radio, and a community organizer. He spends his mornings trying to convince elementary students at a Downtown Eastside breakfast program of the virtues of tofu, wholegrain bread, fruit and veggies.

Kandace Hagen

Early Life's Long Reach Forward

stephlaw — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:19:18 +0000

Can a parenting co-op in Cape Breton save the economy?

HALIFAX—A report released in January by the Canadian Paediatrics Society (CPS) outlines a simple adjustment in family services that would lead to an economic revolution in Canada, and it’s all about facilitating early childhood development.

The society’s 2012 status report, Are We Doing Enough, showed that for every dollar spent in the early childhood years, the government could see $4 to $8 in return to society. It noted, in particular, the provincially funded early learning and childcare program in Quebec, which undoubtedly played a role in increasing the number of women in the workforce by four per cent, and in increasing the provincial GDP by $5.2 billion.

But the report said that the federal government isn’t doing enough to advance early learning and childcare programs across the country.

A group of young women in Inverness, an old coal-mining town in rural Nova Scotia, are not waiting around for the government to catch on. With the help of a municipal councillor, the women have decided to start the revolution in their town.

“There is a lack of honouring the role of the child and the woman in building a pluralistic, empathetic world,” says Jim Mustard, a councillor for the County of Inverness. There is little in the way of public services aimed at enriching the lives of people ages zero to five, he notes, even though these are the people who determine the health and vibrancy of a community.

In an effort to support the county's population of young families, Mustard, along with seven mothers, formed the Inverness Early Years Co-op.

Inverness, population 2,000, is a little different from nearby villages in that it enjoys a critical amount of built infrastructure: a hospital, an arena, a school, a food bank and low-income housing. “Families don’t need two cars to survive here,” says Mustard. “It’s a nest for people to land in and stay.”

Still, to an outsider, a small town in an economically depressed region of Nova Scotia may not seem like the place such an initiative might flourish, but for Diana MacLellan, a 25-year-old single mother originally from Inverness, and a member of the co-op’s board of directors, it makes perfect sense.

“I always had a baby on my hip,” she says. “I have a large extended family: 22 aunts and uncles, 52 cousins. You know, someone to turn to, everyone to answer to.” The supportive dynamic of a large, tight-knit family was common when she was growing up, but it has faded as families moved away from their rural roots in search of more economically viable livelihoods in urban centres and in oil-rich Alberta.

“We’re trying to bring that [family support] back,” she says.

The Inverness Early Years Co-op is not yet operational, but its board has been meeting since June 2010, and plans are underway to partner with the Inverness Cottage Workshop to build a space for the co-op’s services. The centre will be 11,000 square feet, and “a model of energy efficiency,” says Mustard, using local energy sources such as biomass pellets from naturally regenerating alders and solar power. The town of Inverness has already raised $700,000—one-third of the building's cost—and hopes to raise another third from the province. The board hopes the co-op will be open in eight months.

“We’re creating a platform to grow a community,” says Mustard.

Like many other towns and villages in rural Nova Scotia, Inverness suffers from a constant cutback in support services for families, Mustard says. The obstetrics unit in the Inverness hospital was cut eight years ago. Now, women in Inverness have to drive two hours to the nearest obstetrics unit, in Antigonish, to give birth.

In addition to rural hospitals losing their services for young families, Nova Scotia has also closed dozens of rural schools over the past 15 years. Last year, the federal government further cut five Service Canada offices out of rural Cape Breton.

Because a child's health begins with the mother's, the Inverness Early Years Co-op is geared towards relieving the woman’s financial stress by offering training for employment skills, while providing a place to share childcare. In-kind payments will be an option for low-income families.

“We want to have licensed childcare, an informal drop-in, with prenatal [services], breastfeeding, a playgroup, and a place for families to convene with a specialist,” says MacLellan. “The centre has to be accessible to absolutely everybody.”

The gap in services for the early years of a person's life—from in utero to age five—is a national trend. Canada ranks last among 25 wealthy Western nations in its support for early childhood development policies, according to a 2011 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UNICEF. Canada also comes second-last among 34 OECD nations in spending on childcare and pre-primary education.

This is ironic, given the firm Canadian roots of the interdisciplinary research that led to the groundbreaking 1999 Canadian Early Years Study: Reversing the Real Brain Drain, done by the late Dr. Fraser Mustard (father of Inverness's municipal councillor) and Margaret Norrie McCain. The study called on the federal government to establish parenting centres to support families, beginning at pregnancy. Dr. Mustard was a world-reknowned pioneer in recognizing the impact of early brain development on quality of life, and he co-authored two follow-up early years studies; the most recent was released a few days after his death in November 2011.

These early years studies stem from neuroplasticity research, which is based on the principle that your brain is “plastic.” It can learn new things through practice, but it could also lose learnt things when they aren’t practiced.

During the first few years of life, this brain development takes place at an incredible rate; it triples in size by the time a child reaches the age of three. Early years, therefore, present "great opportunities and great risks that set trajectories across a lifetime," according to the Council for Early Child Development (CECD), founded by Dr. Mustard and colleagues to continue the work initiated in the first Early Years Study. The CECD ceased operations in 2010 due to lack of funding.

Dr. Mustard and McCain's first study in 1999 argued that parenting centres would save billions of dollars down the road.

Not only do early developmental deficits, caused by poor health and environment, devastate the lives of the children in question, but they also cost Canada dearly through welfare, health care, prisons and remediation, and result in lower contributions to society, according to six economists writing for the Journal of Public Health in 2010.

"The country now tolerates an unnecessary brain drain that will dramatically deplete our future stock of human capital,” write the economists, of Canada’s lost opportunities for productivity by lack of investment in its citizens’ early years. Over a quarter of Canadian children enter kindergarten not fully prepared to learn, they report.

Early child development programs also significantly reduce the cost of mental illness, the second-leading cause of disability and premature death in Canada. Mental illness costs $51 billion per year in Canada due to costs in health care and loss of productivity.

Canada was on the road to becoming an international leader in early child development programs with a national childcare strategy, to which the federal government committed $5 billion over five years in 2004. Agreements were signed between the federal and provincial and territorial governments, which would receive transfer payments for establishing early learning and childcare plans.

But when Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to power in 2006, that plan was scrapped.

The 2004 vision for a national framework on early years development was crucial if Canada wanted return on its investment in early child development, according to Dr. Danielle Grenier and Dr. Denis Leduc from the Canadian Paediatric Society in a 2008 article.

"The belief that such a system can create itself in the absence of national leadership is simply flawed," they write. "At best, Canada's early childhood education and care 'system' is a patchwork of policies and programs—creating geographical and income inequities."

Nova Scotia, says Mustard, falls behind other provinces in its commitment to strategize around the link between maternal health and childhood development—it puts the least resources, out of any province, into early child development. In fact, in spite of CPS's recommendations to invest in early years education, the province's Department of Education announced on February 3 its "Kids and Learning First" plan, which would invest $6.7 million in initiatives such as a Discovering Opportunities for Grade 9, virtual courses and skilled trade courses geared to shipbuilding. But none of the funds will be dedicated to early development initiatives. The department did not respond to requests for an interview.

The Inverness initiative demonstrates an alternative angle on economics in the choice to form a co-op, distinct from a profit-driven enterprise.

“The co-op model is most responsive when trying to develop something as open as an early years centre,” says Mustard. “The model makes sense.”

“This is not about targeting families with problems,” says Councillor Mustard, “but building a centre in the community to support all parents, where all issues are put in a holistic perspective.”

Twenty-five-year-old single mother Diana MacLellan agrees with Mustard and believes the co-op model will work to improve her child’s development and health.

“The community has to have ownership in the centre, and be able to make changes and decisions,” says MacLellan.

With this co-op in place, MacLellan says women might be able to regain the community network that once existed in Inverness.

“If anything ever happened, I could walk into any house for help and support,” she says. “It's about feeling safe.”

Moira grew up near Inverness, and now lives and bikes in Halifax.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Baby co-op

A Very Calm Revolution

Moira Peters — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:18:57 +0000

Community acupuncture in Canada

VANCOUVER—If you step into a certain storefront on East Broadway in Vancouver, and walk around the black tissue paper screen, you see six, maybe eight, people sleeping in recliners under blankets, their heads and exposed limbs studded with tiny silver needles. You don't feel alarmed, though; the sense of tranquility takes over, relaxing your forehead. This is a typical scene at Poke Community Acupuncture.

“In today’s world, it is so difficult to stay connected to one’s self,” says Darcy Carroll, owner of Poke, who argues that the shared stillness is perhaps as significant as the needles.

“There are numerous distractions—email, cell phones, television,” she says. “Having time to sit with oneself is so valuable. Likely more valuable than much of what I may have to say to a patient.”

Acupuncture is the millennia-old practice of inserting fine needles at specific points in the body to cultivate health and treat disease. It is effective in treating a myriad of physical and mental illnesses and every conceivable type of pain. It can cost almost nothing and, aside from relaxation and mood elevation, it is generally understood that acupuncture has no side effects.

In Canada, most acupuncturists charge $65-175 per hour-long session, making it inaccessible for most people. A small but growing number of community acupuncturists—affectionately referred to as "acupunks"—are working to change this.

Carroll opened Poke Community Acupuncture in 2009 on a busy street in Vancouver. Poke offers treatments on a sliding scale of $20-40. Patients are told, “You pay what you can afford,” no questions asked. Poke is open seven days per week, employing three acupuncturists and one part-time office manager, with 150-170 patient visits each week. (Carroll does not advertise; Poke's patients take care of that, grabbing fistfuls of business cards on their way out the door.) At Poke, patients are booked six per hour and are treated, fully clothed, in recliner chairs, in a group setting.

This is the way acupuncture is traditionally practiced in Asia: many patients per hour and very little talking. Community acupuncture practitioners say that a collective energy field (known as “community qi”) generated by several people having treatments at once enhances the effects of individual treatments. Up to eight people share the treatment room at a time, relaxing under blankets to the sound of soothing music (and steady traffic on Broadway). It is common to slumber among strangers for two hours at a stretch. A busy day in Poke is very, very calm.

Patients at Poke are encouraged to stay as long as they like (“We do encourage napping,” Carroll smiles), letting the acupuncturist know with a look or a soft “ah-hem” when they’ve decided they are ready to go. For many patients this is new: their own bodies will know what’s best for them.

Community acupuncture is a potent form of nonverbal community building, says Carroll. Healing in a group interrupts the isolation that often accompanies depression, illness and chronic pain. People from all backgrounds sleep deeply in recliners at Poke.

“Community acupuncture as practiced at Poke breaks down class barriers, challenges the idea of value being attached to a price,” Carroll says. Effective pain relief without drugs or side effects leads to a more critical view of pharmaceutical drugs. "The group setting also disputes the concept of health as something that you consume, privately, if you can afford it. Instead, health is something you share with your community."

Community acupuncture is growing in Canada. In Vancouver, Poke Community Acupuncture, Fir Street Community Acupuncture, and 5Shen offer sliding-scale acupuncture treatments. In Victoria, Hemma Community Acupuncture and Heart & Hands Health Centre are options for affordable acupuncture. A community clinic has sprung up in Nelson, BC, as have a handful in Ontario.

Acupuncture is a therapy, and works best with regular treatments—a course of a dozen treatments, given at least once a week, is often necessary for lasting effects. People of average incomes generally stop after one or two treatments, not because they are apathetic about their health, but because they can’t afford the expense of multiple visits to the acupuncturist. Instead of achieving success by marketing their services to the wealthy, the community acupuncture model provides practitioners a stable income from many small sources.

Carroll recommends Lisa Rohleder's manifesto, Acupuncture is Like Noodles: The Little (Red) Cookbook of Working-Class Acupuncture for any acupuncturist interested in exploring community acupuncture. The community acupuncture network offers a worldwide directory of community acupuncture clinics, as well as online camaraderie, inspiration and advice. In April 2011 the first-ever Community Acupuncture Network Conference will take place in Portland, Oregon. At the time of writing, at least four Canadian acupuncturists are planning on attending the conference.

"I think we have enough practitioners out there who cater to folks with lots of money, or juicy medical plans," says Laurel Irons. Irons operates 5Shen, an accessible mobile community acupuncture clinic providing individual and group acupuncture throughout Vancouver. The five shen are the five psycho-emotional aspects of our selves, corresponding with the five elements in traditional oriental medicine.

5Shen promotes harm reduction and peer-led, client-centred services. Irons focuses on increasing accessibility to acupuncture and holistic therapies, especially among marginalized people who often don't have access to such forms of health. Locations include women’s recovery houses, BC's Queer Resource Centre and Positive Living BC (formerly BCPWA). Irons bills through Medical Services Plan, which covers 10 acupuncture visits per year for those on premium assistance (100 per cent subsidized health care for low-income British Columbians).

"Folks living in poverty are in serious need of greater options around health and wellness, and we need more practitioners who can find a way to get involved,” she says.

Last summer, for instance, Irons and a colleague offered free acupuncture aftercare to people returning from anti-G20 protests in Toronto, using the five-needle auricular protocol developed by the National Acupuncture Detox Association. The five points in each ear ease cravings and the emotional roller coasters of addiction and withdrawal, and also provide potent treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. The five-needle protocol treats sleep disturbances, depression and anxiety, often achieving instant results.

In a free drop-in clinic in East Vancouver last summer, three times per week for over a month, two acupunks treated several dozen people dealing with the emotional, psychological and physical consequences of violence and incarceration as a result of police brutality at the G20. People who arrived stressed out, anxious and in pain received acupuncture (many for the first time) and experienced deep relaxation sitting on couches and folding chairs arranged in a loose circle.

The effects of unresolved trauma can fracture families and friendships as well as movements. When a group is calm and quiet together, hope and resilience rise powerfully. More than one participant from the post-G20 clinic commented that after an acupuncture treatment, “That was the most relaxed I’ve ever been.”

Worldwide resource depletion, austerity measures and increasing state repression are creating the need for simple, creative and unconventional ways of taking care of each other. Community acupuncture and other alternative healing methods are a growing part of radical liberation movements as the focus increases on not only dismantling repressive structures but also on actively building a more just and gentle world.

Acupuncturists were on hand in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, in Haiti after the earthquake and in New York after the 9/11 attacks. Community acupuncture was also available after Vancouver’s Transgendered Day of Remembrance in 2010, and at an event in connection to the Womens’ Memorial March in February 2011. It was offered with the understanding that these memorial events, while important for the healing of the community, are potentially re-traumatizing.

“The acupuncture helps us to hold on, helps us to let go,” says Irons. “I love being involved with radical, inspiring, revolutionary folks in a nurturing capacity—this is how I choose to support the movements I am a part of and I am honoured to be accepted into these kinds of spaces.”

Lisa Baird is a spoken word poet and acupunk in Vancouver BC.

acupunk

Sex at School

Nat Gray — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:45:42 +0000

Sex education in Quebec

MONTREAL—When Josee Anctil received a phone call in the spring of 2003 from a distraught councilor of a youth home in Sherbrooke, she knew something had to be done about the state of sex education in Quebec. Five young teenagers, three boys and two girls, had knocked on the door of the youth home confused, anxious and troubled. They had been home alone the night before doing research on the internet, and had stumbled upon a pornography website. They decided to recreate what they were seeing, and at the age of 14, they had their first sexual experience as a group, and were having a difficult time processing what had happened.

“We were abandoning our children in a jungle of misinformation,” says Anctil, “I was shaken, and made it my personal and professional goal to do something about it.”

On December 8, 2010, Quebec Education Minister Line Beauchamp announced that new reforms would reintroduce sex education into primary and secondary schools in the province. This announcement came after years of grassroots efforts to fill the sex education gap in the school system, including a petition signed by 7,000 people, demanding the reinstatement of sex education.

“Even sex educators no longer know how to deal with dilemmas faced by children and teenagers—the easier it is to access the internet and porn sites, the more complex the issue of sex education becomes,” said Anctil before Quebec’s National Assembly on November 29, 2011. Anctil and Marjorie Roireau, both members of CALACS in Estrie, a non-profit organization that provides support for victims of sexual assault, had initiated a petition to shed light on the shortcomings of sex education in the province, and calling on the provincial government to reinstate sex education in primary and secondary schools.

A 2001 education reform in Quebec prioritized core subjects such as math, history and literature at the expense of courses such as Personal and Social Development that incorporated sex education. When the reform was finalized in 2005, Quebec became the only province in Canada without mandatory sex education in public schools. The government’s objective was to take a multi-disciplinary and transversal approach to sex education by encouraging teachers of every subject to talk about sex.

According to Francine Duquet, a professor at UQAM who oversaw the government handbook for teachers to address sexuality in their classes, “the formula is different. We want everyone, from the supervisor to the math teacher, to be able to intervene if they hear a sexual joke for example.”

Opposition groups were quick to point out the new program’s shortcomings. There was no method of evaluating whether or not students were receiving adequate sexual education, and often teachers were neither qualified nor comfortable talking about sex with their students. Jerome Ramcharitar, a student at Montreal’s Westmount High School, said that since the reforms were implemented, his teachers have never addressed sex. “I had [sex ed] in grade seven and eight, but then I didn’t have it at all,” Ramcharitar said.

A variety of groups that focus on preventing sexual assault, sexually transmitted diseases and promoting gender equality stepped in to fill the vacuum. AIDS Community Care Montreal designed a toolkit for teachers to incorporate sexuality into their curriculum. According to Anthony Buccitelli, Co-ordinator of Education and Prevention at ACCM, “Quebec has the highest increase in STIs and STDs of any other provinces and the lowest condom use when it comes to youth, so it’s really important for kids to be equipped with tools and knowledge to make informed decisions.”

Head and Hands, an organization that provides medical, legal and social services to Montreal young people, took a different approach with the Sense project, a peer-based sex education program that facilitates workshops on sexual consent and debunking myths related to sexuality in high schools. “We have a good reputation and an empowering model,” says Juniper Belshaw, who oversees fundraising and development at Head and Hands. “We’re happy to do the job, but it’s hard to keep it up when everyone is scrambling to keep it together.” She adds that public health work should primarily be the government’s responsibility.

Despite their work, the situation remains problematic. Provincial STI and STD rates have steadily increased since 2005, and 15-to-25-year-olds are the most vulnerable group. “Children and teenagers will always have questions related to sex, whether or not we provide them with sex education classes,” says Marjorie Roireau. “In an increasingly hypersexual culture, children and teenagers lacking resources at school or at home turn to pornography and the internet for information.”

For CALACS, the most effective way to fight the hypersexualization of society was by developing an awareness and critical spirit among young people, as early as possible. “We’re not trying to moralize teenagers or tell them what to think, we want to sensitize them to issues surrounding sexuality,” clarifies Josee Anctil. CALACS's holistic approach to sex education went beyond concerns about STI and STD rates. “It’s about respecting equality between men and women, fighting homophobia, and providing an alternative to our hypersexual culture,” says Roireau. “We knew we couldn’t sit around and dwell on the issue anymore, it was time to knock on the door of decision-makers.”

The 2010 World March for Women on October 17, 2010, in Rimouski presented a timely opportunity for CALACS to voice its concerns. Two petitions were circulated demanding the reintroduction of sex education classes. “It’s a very formal process,” says Yenisse Albarez, Director of CALACS in Estrie. “Although the government was receptive, it still has to figure out how to go about the matter.”

According to Esther Chouinard, Director of Communications at the Education Ministry, a diverse group of education experts, sexologists and government officials is working on the new program. The group has to decide what will be taught and how. She confirms that sex education classes will be reintegrated into primary and secondary schools, “but we’re not sure whether it will be in September 2011 or 2012, in the form of a class of its own or integrated into the existing classes.”

Although Quebec groups celebrate the fact that the government is taking a step in the right direction, concerns remain. “We don’t know exactly what they’re doing, we’re still left in the shadow,” says Anthony Buccitelli. “There are rumors they might consult us and use some of our information, but we have no official news on whether or not they want to collaborate.”

“All we can do is continue to sensitize the population and develop their critical spirit,” says Roireau, who hopes a more aware population will hold the government accountable when the new program is announced.

“When sex education was in schools there were shortcomings, so the fact that it might be back may not be sufficient,” says Juniper Belshaw. “We need to ask ourselves how sex education can be super-empowering and productive.”

Charly Feldman is a journalist and videographer with a background in political science and international development studies. Born in Montreal, she spent 14 years in Vietnam. For the past four years she has enjoyed getting reacquainted with and writing about her city of birth and its intricate policies.

Sex Ed In Quebec

Saskatchewan Uranium, Fallujah's Children

Moira Peters — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 05:26:37 +0000

Report on birth defects and cancers in Iraq points to Canadian uranium

REGINA—Radioactive armaments used by the US army in Iraq have been highlighted in a recent study as a probable cause for the region's increase in birth defects, infant deaths and cancer. Unavoidably, some of the uranium that made these weapons radioactive came from Saskatchewan.

"Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005-2009," a report in the July 2010 issue of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, compared data gathered in Fallujah to data from the Middle East Cancer Registry. The infant death rate in Fallujah during the period of study (2005-2009) was found to be four times the rate in Egypt and Jordan and nine times the rate in Kuwait. Furthermore, the death rate in Fallujah has increased in recent years; and “the results for cancer show some alarming rates in the five-year period. Relative risk based on the Egypt and Jordan cancer rates are significantly higher for all malignancy, leukaemia lymphoma, brain tumours and female breast cancer.”

The early appearance of cancer in Fallujah is mentioned in the report to be similar to an Italian Ministry of Defence report noting the early appearance of lymphoma in Italian peacekeepers from Bosnia and Kosovo who were exposed to depleted uranium (DU) weapon contamination and the reported increase in cancer risks in Northern Sweden after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster.

The authors of the report, though cautious in identifying the cause of the high rates of defects, deaths and cancers, concluded by drawing attention to the use of DU in armaments used by invading US forces. The report states their study does not identify the agent(s) causing the increased levels of illness, but they wish to draw attention to presence of DU as one potentially relevant agent.

The largest single source of uranium for the US military is Saskatchewan, according to a 2008 article by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

In fact, Saskatchewan produces more uranium than any other region or country in the world. The Athabasca Basin region of Northern Saskatchewan (with a small area of Alberta) is the world's leading source of high grade uranium.

Uranium mining in Saskatchewan grew in the 1970s as a major government enterprise when the NDP government of Allan Blakeney proclaimed the Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation Act (SMDC-1977). Although the title of the act suggested that mining as a government Crown Corporation would include many minerals, "The major, if not the sole, interest of the government was the exploitation of uranium resources,” according to Bill Harding in "The Two Faces of Public Ownership: From the Regina Manifesto to Uranium Mining," a chapter in Jim Harding's book, Social Policy and Social Justice: The NDP Government in Saskatchewan during the Blakeney Years.

Bolstered by Saskatchewan Uranium Development in the Global Context, a government report that argued uranium energy was essential to the fate of poor countries, along with government minister Jack Messner’s pledge that there would be no uranium development until each operation was assessed as completely safe to health and the environment exploitation of the resource became a focus of the Blakeney government.

Indications during the 1970s for massive growth in the number of nuclear reactors worldwide—which would providing a bonanza for uranium mining—never materialized. The price of uranium dropped from $53 per pound in 1977 to $17.50 in 1982. Under the Progressive Conservative provincial government of Grant Devine in the 1980s and early '90s, uranium mining in Saskatchewan was privatized. The SMDC was combined with federal Crown Corporation Eldorado Nuclear Limited, and renamed Cameco.

Cameco is the world’s largest publically traded uranium company and is headquartered in the city of Saskatoon. Cameco’s McArthur River mine in Saskatchewan produces 15 per cent of the world’s uranium.

For mined uranium to be used as a fuel, it needs to undergo enrichment to separate uranium 235u from uranium 238u—the desired product: depleted uranium (DU). Depleted uranium has a useful property: it is 1.7 times more dense than lead.

Enter the arms industry.

Due to its high density DU is used in armour. Depleted uranium also ignites on impact if the temperature exceeds 600 degrees Celsius—a useful property if one wishes to destroy tanks, guns or buildings.

Depleted uranium is also radioactive. The United Nations World Health Organization has made several recommendations for when DU is used in military conflict, including monitoring food and water where DU might have entered the food chain, clean-up operations in impact zones where such projectiles remain in the ground, monitoring the activities of children because "their typical hand-to-mouth activity could lead to high DU ingestion from contaminated soil," and disposal of DU in accordance with international recommendations.

Not only was the US using Saskatchewan uranium for DU munitions during its occupation of Iraq, but as late as 1990 Canada was itself processing DU which was then being sent to a US weapons manufacturer. A section of the 1970 Treaty in the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) prohibits the sale of Canadian uranium for use in weaponry.

According to the CCPA article, “The uranium that’s going into the US for enriching becomes part of the depleted uranium stockpile, and that’s accessible for weapons."

The CCPA article further highlights that in 1993, the Inter-Church Uranium Committee released copies of a license from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission that followed uranium from the Key Lake mine in Saskatchewan (run by Cameco) to the US, back to the Port Hope uranium conversion plant in Ontario (run by Cameco), and finally to Aerojet in the US. Aerojet advertises itself on its webpage as a world leader in the defence and armament markets.

Cameco, like many players in the nuclear industry, has aligned itself as a partner in the health care industry. The Royal University Hospital (RUH) in Saskatoon recently named its main walkway the "Cameco Skywalk," “named in recognition of Cameco’s $1.5 million donation in 2003 to the RUH Foundation’s Royal Care Campaign to create the Cameco Chair in Aboriginal Health,” according to the hospital's press release. The company’s website boasts involvement in the Northumberland Hills Hospital, the St. Mary Wellness and Education Centre and the travelling Diabetes Resource Program in Northern Saskatchewan. The city’s acute care Saskatoon City Hospital houses the "Cameco MS [multiple sclerosis] Neuroscience Research Centre.” During her 2007 visit to Saskatchewan, physician, Nobel Peace Prize nominee and renowned proponent of a nuclear-free world, Dr. Helen Caldicott chastised the Saskatchewan medical profession for partnering with what she called the “cancer industry.”

Middle East journalist Robert Fisk presents a sickening tale of depleted uranium armaments left lying around southern Iraq after the Gulf war of 1991 and the cancers occurring among the population in his book The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. Fisk also identifies the problem of connecting depleted uranium to cancer: “Unlike bomb fragments with their tell-tale computerized codes, DU munitions—while easy to identify because they left a penetrator ‘head’ in or near their target—could not be physically linked to the leukaemia’s afflicting thousands of Iraqis, other than by a careful analysis of the location of these cancer ‘explosions’ and interviews with dozens of patients.”

Overlooked by most Canadian media, the medical study from Fallujah adds to mounting evidence for a global ban on the production of DU munitions, and to considering their use a war crime.

In fact, last Wednesday, Irish parliament passed the Prohibition of Depleted Uranium Weapons Bill through its fifth reading. The DU bill, which drew praise from Senators and had none speak against it, is the second private member's bill ever to pass through Irish Senate.

Garson Hunter is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Regina and the sponsor of Dr. Caldicott’s speaking tour of Saskatchewan. Sarah Pedersen is a social activist in Regina.

Saskatchewan Yellow Cake

Universal Access?

hillarybain — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:33:25 +0000

Barriers to accessing health care persist for transgender people in Nova Scotia

HALIFAX—For Chris,* going to see a doctor can be a frightening experience.

Chris, who lives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, first came out as a trans person two and a half years ago. Even though he was assigned female at birth, he identifies as trans and presents as a male. Going for a check-up, getting a prescription, or even trying to fill out a general intake form can turn into a huge production, often without any sympathy from hospital or clinical staff.

"I’m always scared. There’s always an element of fear going to visit a health professional. I can’t help thinking ‘am I going to have a bad experience?’” he says.

For Chris and other transgender people, it is difficult to access health care services that many of us take for granted.

Last year, Chris had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and the paramedics didn’t know what pronoun to use to refer to him. He was almost forced to go for a psychological evaluation because he was identified as not “gender normative.” More recently, he decided against getting jaw surgery because of concerns of how he will be treated.

“There’s no place for a preferred name on forms,” says Chris. Hospital and clinic staff, he explains, often refer to you by your legal name, and by the pronoun associated with your sex, regardless of your gender presentation.

Dr. Suzanne Zinck, a childhood psychiatrist who is part of the two-person Transgender Health Team at the IWK Hospital in Halifax, agrees that there continue to be challenges to accessing care for transgender people. But she says she remains optimistic: that with education and training, these can be overcome.

Zinck notes that many transgender people might struggle with dealing with the health risks associated with the sex they were born in. For example, trans men who do not get hysterectomies are still required to get pap smears.

The Sherbourne Health Centre in Toronto, which administers hormone therapy for transgender people, recently launched a public health campaign to promote transgender men getting pap smears.

Zinck says these types of campaigns do more than provide public health information to transgender people.

"Making it into a public health campaign shows that this is as valid a part of the community as anything else," she says.

The IWK Transgender Health Team, which includes Zinck and a social worker, was formed four years ago, when the IWK identified a need for more specialized care for transgender youth. The team is mostly responsible for clinical work related to gender-questioning and transgender youth, but is also involved in educational programming on trans issues, and in consulting with doctors in different disciplines related to specific cases involving transgender or gender-questioning youth.

According to Zinck, the Capital District Health Authority has also been doing advocacy and policy work with Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) and the Nova Scotia Rainbow Action Program (NSRAP) to better serve transgender patients.

“There are many barriers that have come down in the past four years, not only due to our work, but due to all the educational work being done,” says Zinck.

However, she adds, there is still significant room for improvement.

While hormone treatments are fully covered by Nova Scotia health insurance, access is limited because the endocrinology clinic that administers the hormones is in Halifax. This can make it difficult and costly for patients who have to travel into the city for treatment. The clinic also will only see people who are 18 and over, meaning youth who wish to transition earlier have difficulty accessing hormones.

Other services remain “completely off the radar for most people,” says Zinck. For example, there is no coverage for trans women who need to access voice training. For trans women such training can be essential to their ability to present as female.

The opinion of medical professionals on covering these services “run the gamut,” but for Zinck these are essential services.

“If someone looks gender ambiguous or mismatched in terms of who they present as and what they look like, that can lead to lifelong problems of discrimination, not to mention mental health and self-esteem issues,” says Zinck. She adds that transgender people continue to be underemployed based on their education levels and have lower educational attainment than their non-transgender peers. This, for Zinck, is closely tied to “whether or not a person can pass [for the gender they present as].”

Sex reassignment surgery (SRS), which is the largest cost related to transitioning is not covered by public health insurance in any of the Maritime province. SRS was also recently de-listed by the Alberta government as a service covered by provincial health insurance. Last year, Manitoba rejected a proposal that would fully cover SRS surgeries.

Many provinces require people who are interested in having SRS to travel to the Canadian Association of Mental Health Gender Clinic in Toronto in order for it to be covered by health insurance. Most provinces, however, do not cover the associated travel costs.

In December 2009, Chris traveled to Ontario get chest surgery related to his transitioning. While he received some help from friends, he covered the bulk of the cost out of his own pocket. This experience is not uncommon.

Two years ago, Sandra Bornemann helped start the TransAction Society of Nova Scotia, after organising a fundraiser to raise money for chest surgery of a friend. It was the first fundraiser of its kind in Nova Scotia, and raised about one third of the surgery’s $6300 price-tag.

After that first fundraiser, Bornemann says TransAction re-evaluated its priorities, realizing they could make more of an impact helping with the everyday costs transgender people face for things like chest bindings; gaffs, which help trans women hide their genitals; breast forms; and packers, penis forms sometimes worn by trans men.

The decision not to raise money for surgery was also a political one, says Bornemann.

“We believe surgery should be covered [by provincial health insurance], so we’re not going to give the government an out by paying for that service,” says Bornemann. She says that the members of the society also realize that many transgender people don’t want to have sex reassignment surgery.

Over the past two years, the TransAction Society has provided chest bindings and gaffs free of charge to dozens of people in Nova Scotia. They are hoping that through additional fundraising, they will also be able to provide breast forms and packers in the near future.

“It’s little things,” says Bornemann, “but they are expensive.”

For Chris, social and structural changes are necessary if access to health services are going to improve. He says there needs to be more education, better training for health professionals on transgender issues, and more visibly trans-positive spaces to access care.

Until then, small improvements, like better access to hormones and more accessible information forms, could go a long way.

“I’m really frustrated by the lack of people able to administer hormones. It’s possible to get [better access to hormones], but its not happening.”

Bornemann says she hears the same thing from transgender people—that small improvements make a big difference.

“We’ve had so much support. People have come to us and say they are supporting of the fact that we’re filling these everyday needs,” she says.

*Name has been changed.

Kaley Kennedy is a feminist activist living in Halifax. She is a member of the Halifax Media Co-op, where this article was originally published.

Universal Access?

No Man Left Behind

Kyle Hodnett — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 05:30:06 +0000

Canadian veterans failed by 2006 Veterans Charter

MONTREAL—Military training prepares you for many things.

Here are a few it doesn’t: Being utterly isolated in crowded rooms because of the nature of your experiences. Facing a lifetime of stunted potential and awkward glances because of a maimed body. The teeth-grinding rage that drives away all those closest to you. Going to funeral after funeral of once bright and strong but now unrecognizable young men and women who have died with needles in their arms in filthy alleys.

The military teaches its soldiers to never leave a man behind on the battlefield. And yet, through a lack of reintegration support and a privatized compensation program, a new generation of young Canadian veterans are being systematically left behind by their government and, by extension, their society.

The new Veterans Charter was released in 2006, promising veterans a new era of reintegration and support. One of the motives for the change was that under the old system, governed by the Veteran’s Act of 1939, even a small pension of $1,000 a month for an expected lifetime of a 27-year-old could cost the treasury $4.5 million.

“We were spending a lot of money [prior to 2006],” explained Raymond Lalonde, head of Veterans Affairs Canada’s (VAC) national centre for operational stress injuries.

The 2006 Veterans Charter uses a lump sum model. Lalonde explained that the workers compensation programs of Australia, Germany and the Nordic countries were studied in the creation of the new charter.

Robert Oliphant, Liberal critic for veterans affairs, stated in an interview that these lump sums are an inadequate way to deal with the payment system because the Government of Canada should have a lifetime relationship with veterans. Under the new system, the burden of support is passed off to Service Income Support Insurance Plan, what some allege is simply a thin veil for Manulife Financial, the multinational insurance giant. The most a veteran can expect today is a one-time lump sum of $276,079.70.

"My instincts tell me the last thing you want to do when a young soldier comes back from overseas, perhaps with an operational stress injury, or with a dependency on alcohol or drugs, is give him $250,000 to self-medicate," said Veterans Ombudsman Col (Retired) Pat Stogran, a veteran of Afghanistan and missions in the former Yugoslavia, in an interview with the Ottawa Sun.

Many of the soldiers and their families are not receiving the social and psychological support they need. Private Frederick Couture lost his foot to a land mine. He attempted suicide several times. Despite this obvious indicator, the Canadian Forces (of which he was still a member) left him at home in the care of his mother, in whose arms he died after shooting himself.

Dawson Bayliss, wounded in an improvised explosive device strike in 2006, spent years fighting for treatment while displaying classic symptoms of a closed head wound. He was handed a lump sum of $30,000 and disappeared into haze of alcohol and drugs. He died in his sleep at 24 beside his pregnant wife. She receives no support.

Warrant Officer Fielsamier, a veteran of Yugoslavia, Haiti and repeated Afghan tours, killed himself after asking for help at the base clinic for symptoms of Post Tramatic Stress Disorder and being sent home with pills.

This is not an exhaustive list. The Forces recorded 16 suicides by serving members of the military this year, its highest level since tracking began in 1994. (And, according to Janice Summersby, chief public relations officer of VAC, suicides of released veterans have still not been tracked accurately.)

Veterans groups have called for sweeping changes to the Veterans Charter. Denis Manogue, a veteran who returned his medals to the Governor General because of dissatisfaction with his treatment under the new system, put it most eloquently:

“The government needs to do the right thing now. The issue some say is complex is not really a complex issue at all. It is about fundamental fairness and doing the right thing on behalf of those of us souls who were willing to sign a blank cheque made out to the people of Canada for an amount up to and including our lives."

Canadian men and women are fighting a war they didn’t start and the history of the Afghan state indicates they cannot win. They return to a society that is largely indifferent to their experiences, and to their future. This is no small problem: to date, more than 130,000 Canadians have rotated through Afghanistan, and Canada is now paying the price of their neglect through social violence and lost potential.

William Ray is a writer living in Montreal and 10-year veteran of the Armed Forces.

Past Due

A Pharm Reduction Approach

Maya Rolbin-Ghanie — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 05:38:25 +0000

Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime barely workable

MONTREAL—The city of Montreal is set to be centre-stage in the coming months as a battle is waged between brand-name pharmaceutical companies, MPs, and a host of civil society organizations.

At stake is Bill C-393 (or drugs for international humanitarian purposes), a bill supporters say will help make Canada’s Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR) more workable.

Passed in 2004, CAMR was intended to facilitate the export of life-saving, generic medicines to “developing” countries.

Under CAMR, if patent-holders will not grant a voluntary license to the generic manufacturer, the company can approach the Canadian Commissioner of Patents and request a compulsory license be issued. This would give the manufacturer the right to by-pass patent holder's rights and produce a given medication, and in theory, allow generic medicines to be produced for export in public health emergencies.

But some organizations, including the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and Canadian Grandmothers for Africa, say the legislation is unnecessarily bureaucratic and must be reformed; thus far, a single order of medications has left the country.

C-393 has passed its second reading in the House of Commons but is expected to continue to face opposition from several Montreal MPs including Liberal Science and Technology critic Marc Garneau and Liberal MP Stephane Dion. Dion’s riding, Saint Laurent-Cartierville, is home to such brand-name, research-based pharmaceutical companies as Abbott Laboratories, AstraZeneca and Glaxo Smith Kline. Russell Williams, President of Rx&D, the association that advocates on behalf of Canada’s research-based pharmaceutical companies, has repeatedly stated that CAMR does not need to be reformed.

Bureaucracy bars access

Shortly after CAMR was passed in 2004, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) approached Canadian generic manufacturer Apotex Inc. and urged them to produce a much-needed generic AIDS medication.

As Rachel Kiddell-Munroe, then Coordinator of MSF’s Access to Essential Medicines Campaign describes, Apotex had to overcome a daunting series of hurdles to make use of CAMR. These included applying to have the drug added to a list of medications eligible for use under CAMR, getting it tested by Health Canada despite the fact that it was pre-qualified by the World Health Organization and attempting to negotiate a voluntary license with Canadian patent-holders, a license none of the brand-name pharmaceutical companies was willing to grant in terms Apotex found acceptable.

“CAMR is extremely complex. These processes took over two years,” says Kiddell-Munroe of the back-and-forth she witnessed between Apotex, Health Canada and the Canadian patent-holders.

Even after going through these steps, the long journey was not over. MSF and Apotex still had to wait for a country to request the medication.

In 2007, Rwanda became the first and only country to ask for Canada’s help when it told the World Trade Organization (WTO) that it wanted to buy 260,000 packages of a triple-drug antiretroviral therapy—enough to treat 21,000 HIV-positive people for one year.

It wasn’t until September 2007, three years after CAMR was first passed, that Apotex was granted a compulsory license—the main aim of CAMR—and could finally begin production of the life-saving medication to send to Rwanda.

Kiddell-Munroe says these delays are unacceptable.

“Ten million people die each year from diseases that have available cures. Nearly a third of the world’s population does not have regular access to essential medicines, and in the least developed countries of Africa and Asia, this figure is more than fifty per cent,” she says.

Barking up the wrong tree

As Richard Elliott, Executive Director of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network explains, CAMR is made much more complicated than it needs be. The generic manufacturer is required to apply for a separate compulsory license for each country to which it wants to export, and for each quantity it wants to export. Elliott is an advocate for the “one-license solution” proposed in Bill C-393, explaining how it would work.

“You instead give the generic manufacturer a license that’s not limited to supplying one country but is actually authorization to supply multiple countries already named in the legislation; and you don’t fix the quantity ahead of time, because obviously you need to actually discuss with those countries what their needs are and those needs will change over time,” says Elliott.

Critics of reform, including Montreal-area Liberal MP Bernard Patry, argue that changes proposed in Bill C-393 would stifle innovation and remove incentives for research and development in Canada.

“Recognizing intellectual property rights is crucial for the future discovery of drugs that will save lives,” said Patry in the House of Commons in November 2009, during the bill’s second reading.

“If we do not protect intellectual property rights, we will deprive ourselves of key research, not only in the pharmaceutical sector but in all sectors driven by research,” he said.

As Elliott explains, generic medications manufactured under CAMR can only be exported to a limited list of low-income countries, pre-determined by the WTO.

“CAMR excludes export to all of the countries that account for the vast majority of the profits made by the brand-name pharmaceutical industry,” says Elliott.

“In doing this [reforming CAMR], there is nothing that would in any way undermine the ongoing presence of the brand-name pharmaceutical industry in Canada, in Quebec, so he’s barking up the wrong tree.”

Garneau has repeatedly voiced concerns that reforming CAMR will do little to actually improve access to medicines.

“The reasons why CAMR does not work as we had hoped have to do with real problems in the field, in the countries that need these medicines,” he said in the House of Commons during debate on C-393.

“They have to do with access to properly trained medical staff. ... In short, they have to do with poverty.”

Elliott says that alleviating poverty and reforming CAMR are not mutually exclusive.

“We know from experience that having compulsory licensing regimes that work, and the competition by generics that they enable, is what brings the prices of medicines down for developing countries. ... If you can actually make the medicines affordable, then whatever resources you mobilize to actually buy the medicines will go that much further,” he says.

Kiddell-Munroe agrees. “You cannot have doctors and nurses in beautifully pristine clinics in the middle of Africa and they’ve got no drugs in their pharmacy,” she says. “It’s not one or the other. It's both.”

Garneau’s office did not respond to The Dominion’s request for a comment.

Nikki Bozinoff is a Montreal-based writer, agitator and health-enthusiast.

Fenced In Pharmaceuticals

Students calling for CAMR reform outside MP Marc Garneau's office

Reproductive Justice in Nova Scotia

hillarybain — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 06:30:22 +0000

Conference organizers take pro-active approach to fighting anti-abortion climate on campuses

HALIFAX—“We are women whose ultimate goal is the liberation of women in society,” echoes the chorus of Jane: Abortion and the Underground, a play that retells the story of an underground abortion service in Chicago. “One important way we are working towards that goal is by helping any woman who wants an abortion to get one as safely and as cheaply as possible under current conditions,” the chorus continues, reading lines from the service’s first flier.

The flier is from 1968.

Move forward to 2010 and an audience of about 200 is sitting in the MacNally Theatre at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax watching the story’s retelling and reflecting on what has changed and what has not.

The performance was a fundraiser for the conference Trust Women: A conference on reproductive justice. The need for such a conference was, for many, a surprising reminder of the work that still needs to be done.

“Because we’ve won the legal battle [on abortions] people think that the struggle is over,” says Jane Gavin-Hebert, organizer of the Trust Women conference. “But it's not."

Indeed, January 28th—the day of the conference—marked twenty-one years since the complete decriminalization of abortion.

There’s no denying that she’s right.

According to a 2007 study by Canadians for Choice entitled Reality Check, women across the country continue to face barriers in accessing abortion services. The report found that between 2003 and 2006, the number of hospitals providing abortions declined. Currently only 16 per cent of Canadian hospitals perform the simple procedure, and the majority of hospitals are in urban areas within 150 kilometers from the border.

Access in the Maritime Provinces was identified as especially poor. There are no abortion providers in Prince Edward Island, meaning women have to travel to Nova Scotia or New Brunswick for the procedure and often have to pay out of pocket.

In New Brunswick, only one hospital openly provides abortions, and the province refuses to fund abortion services at the Morgentaler Clinic in Fredericton. Women in New Brunswick are required to obtain referrals from two doctors in order to access a publicly-funded abortion.

While abortion services in Nova Scotia are more accessible than New Brunswick and PEI, there continues to be several barriers.

“There are definite gaps in therapeutic abortion services,” says Angus Campbell, the Executive Director of the Halifax Sexual Health Centre. “There are a very limited number of sites that will perform [Therapeutic Abortions] in Nova Scotia. The waiting time can be up to four weeks.”

In Nova Scotia, women are required to go through a three-step process to obtain an abortion. First, they must go to a clinic or family doctor and receive a referral, then the clinic or doctor will arrange for blood work and an ultrasound, and finally, the appointment will be scheduled. Average waiting times, says Campbell, is two to three weeks.

While about 50 per cent of abortions in Canada are performed at clinics, there are no abortion clinics in Nova Scotia.

“In Ontario all free standing clinics are covered under health care. This permits a woman to make her own appointment where she will get ultrasound, blood work and procedure, usually in one day but sometimes two days,” says Campbell. “The fact that women in Nova Scotia have to attend multiple medical appointments prior to the procedure is a barrier to accessing services.”

The abortion procedures in Nova Scotia are covered by provincial medical insurance, but despite the fact that the majority of women have to travel to Halifax for the procedure, there is no money available for travel or childcare costs. Also, women who have out of province health cards face fees anywhere from $230 to $700 for the procedure.

There is no master list available of where a woman can receive an abortion in the province, says Valerie Bellafonte, the communication director of the Nova Scotia Department of Health. The majority of therapeutic abortions in Nova Scotia are performed at the Termination of Pregnancy Unit (TPU) at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax

In Reality Check, the study’s researcher had to make five separate phone calls to Victoria General and needed to leave a voicemail in order to speak with someone in the right department. The report explains that voicemail messages may create barriers for some women.

"Some women do not have a phone or do not have a place where they may privately talk about their unwanted pregnancy. Other women have concerns about a lack of confidentiality," says the report.

For Gavin-Hebert, who is also a mother and a Masters student in gender and women’s studies at Saint Mary’s University, in order to bring about real change in reproductive justice, the struggle has to be about more than access to abortion, it also has to be about educating the public.

Last winter, the Saint Mary's chaplaincy office sponsored a presentation by the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform entitled "Echoes of the Holocaust." This presentation is an extension of the centre's Genocide Awareness Project.

“The Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) is a visual display composed of 4’x8’ (or 6’x13’) billboards which graphically compare the victims of abortion to victims of other atrocities, such as Jews in the Holocaust,” reads the website of the Canadian Centre for Bioethical Reform.

GAP debuted on campuses in 1999 at the University of British Columbia.

Joyce Arthur, coordinator of the Abortion Rights Coalition of Canada and one of the speakers at the Trust Women conference, says that the presentations are not only unfair, but that at almost every campus that GAP has visited, students or the university, and often both, have put up a fight.

“GAP is deliberately provocative,” she says.

Many campuses have restricted or forbade GAP presentations from happening on campus.

Last February, the University of Calgary charged students with the group Campus Pro-Life with trespassing after they refused to adhere to the university’s restrictions regarding a GAP display the students organized in November 2008.

“This is not an issue about Freedom of Speech,” reads a statement from the university regarding the incident. “The paramount issues for the University are the needs to uphold its legal right to manage activities on campus, and to ensure the safety and security for the thousands of students, staff, faculty and community members on campus each day.”

In October, the Students’ Society of McGill University publicly censured an “Echoes of the Holocaust” presentation being held at McGill. The university allowed the presentation to go forward, and two students were arrested while protesting the event.

“We feel that McGill University has…failed to protect students' rights,” explains an open letter from the student union to McGill University.

“This event created a hostile environment and should not have been permitted. It is possibly most disappointing that when students' peacefully engaged in a public response to this hostile environment, they were removed through a police intervention,” the letter continues.

When it became apparent that Saint Mary’s University would be hosting one of these presentations, members of the feminist community, and other communities – such as the Atlantic Jewish Council – expressed their concerns regarding the risk of such a presentation on the health and safety of students, particularly women and Jewish students.

Ultimately, according to Gavin-Hebert, the university determined it to be a low-risk event, and the presentation went forward.

Afterward, Gavin-Hebert and another student initiated a complaint process with the university and provided some possible solutions – one of which was holding a feminist community education session.

The result was Trust Women: A conference on reproductive justice held at Saint Mary’s University on January 28.

“On campus, in this context of an anti-abortion climate, we needed to put forward a feminist analysis,” says Gavin-Hebert. “We wanted to do something that would be empowering.”

The conference included a full day of workshops for community organizers, students, and faculty, and an evening of keynote speakers .

In addition to Joyce Arthur, the evening event included presentations by Loretta Ross, a veteran feminist activist and national coordinator of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Health Collective, and Jessica Yee, founder of the Native Youth Sexual Health Network.

It was important for the organizers that the conference focus on the broader topic of reproductive justice.

“We wanted to focus on abortion rights, but we know we need to go beyond that,” says Gavin-Hebert. “We need to fight for a rape free culture, for birth control, for child support and childcare, for sex worker rights. All of these things are connected.”

Kaley Kennedy is a student activist in Halifax. She has been working in the struggle for reproductive freedom since she was a teenager.

This article was produced by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Abortion

Bitter Sweet or Toxic?

hillarybain — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:37:27 +0000

Indigenous people, diabetes and the burden of pollution

WINNIPEG—Diabetes is now widely regarded as the 21st century epidemic. With some 284 million people currently diagnosed with the disease, it’s certainly no exaggeration—least of all for Indigenous people.

According to the State of the World's Indigenous Peoples Report by the United Nations, more than 50 per cent of Indigenous adults over the age of 35 have Type 2 Diabetes, “and these numbers are predicted to rise.”

Diabetes is referred to as a "lifestyle disease," its rampant spread believed to be caused by obesity due to our increased reliance on the western diet (also known as the "meat-sweet" diet) and our avoidance of regular exercise.

While these may certainly be contributing factors, there is growing evidence that diabetes is closely linked with our environment. More than a dozen studies have been published that show a connection between Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs); carcinogenic hydrocarbons known as Dioxins; and the "violently deadly" synthetic pesticide, DDT and higher rates of the disease.

“If it is the POPs, not the obesity that causes diabetes, this is really striking if true,” says Dr. David O. Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany.

One out of four Indigenous adults living on reserves in Canada have been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, the most common form of diabetes. The prevalence of the disease appears to be so great that the number of new cases being diagnosed in Canada may exceed the growth of the Indigenous population. It’s no longer uncommon to find children as young as three with the disease. According to government statistics, 27 per cent of all Indigenous people in Canada will have Type 2 Diabetes in the next ten years.

Sandy Lake First Nation, in the Sioux Lookout Zone of northern Ontario, has all but met the mark. A March 2009 study co-authored by Dr. Stewart Harris found that 26 per cent of the community has the disease, the highest recorded rate of diabetes in Canada. With a population of 2,500, the northern Cree community was recently described as an “epicentre” of the epidemic.

There has been little research on the levels of persistent organic pollutants in Sandy Lake; however, according to the First Nations Environmental Health Innovation Network, several neighboring communities who also have high rates of diabetes, like Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug First Nation, are known to have elevated levels of PCBs in their blood.

The Mohawk community of Akwesasne has its own conflict with diabetes and exposure to POPs. Located across the New York-Ontario-Quebec borders along the St. Lawrence River, three aluminum foundries upriver from the reserve dumped PCBs into the river for decades, contaminating the water, soil, and vegetation.

For many years, Dr. Carpenter has been involved in the study of Adult Mohawks at Akwesasne. Most recently, in 2007, he took part in a study to examine the diabetes/pollution link in the community. “Our study of adult Mohawks showed a striking elevation in rates of diabetes in relation to blood levels of three persistent organic pollutants, DDE, the metabolite of DDT, hexachlorobenzene and PCBs,” Dr. Carpenter explains. “Our results are quite compatible with those of Lee et al.”

In 2006, Dr. Dae-Hee Lee and her colleagues showed that people with the highest rate of exposure to POPs were roughly 38 times more likely to have diabetes than those with the lowest rate of exposure. Further, “they showed that people who were obese but did not have high levels of POPs were not at increased risk of developing diabetes,” continues Dr. Carpenter. “Probably the reason most people get obese is that they eat too many animal fats, and this is where the POPs are.”

The dietary source of POPs was confirmed by the US Environmental Protection Agency in their Draft 1994 Dioxin Reassessment, which has never been formally released to the public. According to the Draft Reassessment, 93 per cent of our exposure to Dioxin comes from the consumption of beef, dairy, milk, chicken, pork, fish, and eggs; in other words, the western diet.

A May 2001 study published in the Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health drew similar conclusions to the EPA Reassessment. In addition, the study found that “nursing infants have a far higher intake of dioxins relative to body weight than do all older age groups,” and that human breast milk was twice as toxic as dairy milk. It also found that vegans had the overall lowest rate of POPs in their bodies.

According to an October 2009 paper by the Research Centre for Environmental Chemistry and Ecotoxicology at Masaryk University, another major source of POPs, specifically DDT, is the world’s oceans. The paper also found that despite restrictions placed on the use of DDT more than 30 years ago, concentrations of the toxin are on the rise.

Indigenous people carry an unequally high proportion of this global toxic burden. For instance, according to Environment Canada’s National Pollutant Release Inventory (NPRI) there are 212 Indigenous communities in Canada living near or downstream from pulp mills and other facilities that produce dioxins and furans. One striking example is the old Dryden pulp mill near Grassy Narrows which, according to the Grassy Narrows and Islington Bands Mercury Disability Board, dumped tonnes of dioxin-laced mercury wastewater into the English-Wabigoon River system from 1962-70.

Forty years later, the poisonous waste continues to pose a “serious health threat” to Grassy Narrows and the Wabaseemoong First Nations, says the Disability Board. No formal steps have been taken toward remediation by federal or provincial governments.

The Tohono O’odham Nation's experience bears a close resemblance to Grassy Narrows: the world’s highest rate of diabetes can be found in southwest Arizona nation. According to Tribal health officials, nearly 70 per cent of the population of 28,000 has been diagnosed with the illness. The O’odham People make up the second largest Indigenous Nation in the United States.

Lori Riddle is a member of Aquimel O’odham Community and founder of the Gila River Alliance for a Clean Environment (GRACE).

GRACE was instrumental in the 10 year struggle against a hazardous waste recycling plant that operated without full permits on O’odham land for decades. Owned by Romic Environmental Technologies Corporation, the plant continuously spewed effluents into the air until it was finally shut down in 2007.

The Romic plant was not the first contributor to the O’odham’s toxic burden, explained Riddle. Looking back to her childhood, she recalled: “For nearly a year, [when] a plane would go over our heads, you could see the mist. We never thought to cover our water. The chemicals just took over and they became a part of us.”

From the early 1950s until the late 60s, cotton farmers in the Gila River watershed routinely sprayed DDT onto their crops to protect them from bollworms. According to the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), each and every year the farmers used roughly twenty-three pounds of DDT per acre.

In 1969, the State of Arizona banned the use of DDT; by this time the river was gravely contaminated. According to the ATSDR, farmers then switched to Toxaphene, a substitute for DDT—until it was banned by the US government in 1990.

Because of these chemicals, Riddle explains, the O’odham were forced to abandon their traditional foods and adopt a western diet. Farms also went into a recession, forcing many families to leave their communities. Companies, such as Romic, began moving on to their territory, exasperating the situation. “It’s taken a toll on our quality of life,” she says. “I’ve cried myself to sleep.”

The O’odham are dealing with what Riddle terms “cluster symptoms,” including miscarriages, arthritis in the spine, breathing problems, unexplainable skin rashes and problems regenerating blood cells. This is in addition to diabetes, which frequently leads to renal failure, blindness, heart disease, and amputations.

More and more studies are showing the link between diabetes and persistent organic pollutants like DDT—stemming from the landmark Ranch Hand study. In 1998, the study found a 166 per cent increase in diabetes (requiring insulin control) in US Air Force personnel who were sprayed with the herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. The study also found that as dioxin levels increased so did the presence and severity of Type 2 Diabetes, and the time to onset declined following a similar trend.

However, Dr. Carpenter notes that because of the widely-endorsed belief that diabetes is a life-style disease related to diet and exercise, the link is gaining little attention by governments, news agencies, or by any of the hundreds of non-profit diabetes foundations around the world. “[It] hasn’t even made it into the medical community at this point,” Dr. Carpenter adds. “It takes a long time to change both medical and public opinion.”

“Clearly one thing everyone can do is to eat less animal fats,” suggests Dr. Carpenter. Several Indigenous communities in northern Manitoba and British Columbia have begun to do this, planting their own gardens and building greenhouses; returning, in a traditional sense, to some of the foods that sustained them for millennia. Others are turning to exercise, which plays a vital role not just in the prevention of diabetes, but in their overall health.

"Also, we must find ways of getting the POPs out of the animals that we eat. That is not going to be easy, given how contaminated we have made the world,” adds Dr. Carpenter. For this, Lori Riddle, who is herself a diabetic, points to the Tribal Council and the Federal Government.

John Schertow is an Indigenous rights advocate and author of the blog Intercontinental Cry.

POPs

Sprayed Kedgwick Women Fight Back

hillarybain — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:20:03 +0000

Herbicide use set to increase in New Brunswick

On September 4, people working in the woods of northern New Brunswick, including more than 50 women planting trees, were doused with chemicals from a helicopter spraying the public forest to kill the hardwoods for a softwood plantation.

Betty St. Pierre, a spokeswoman for the group of people who say they were sprayed, says people were told to evacuate the area in Kedgwick because of imminent spraying, but the spraying began before they had the chance to leave. According to St. Pierre, tree planters experienced runny eyes, sore throats and nausea after being sprayed by the herbicide.

Many of the women and men are afraid to speak publicly about the event for fear of losing their jobs. St. Pierre, who scales trees for a living, says someone has to speak up.

“We have had enough. They are scaring people by telling them there will be no work. Meanwhile, they are using us as guinea pigs.” She says that since the incident many people have relayed stories of getting sprayed while fishing or working in the woods.

The frustration is apparent in St. Pierre's voice as she describes the community and surrounding forest.

“A man reported fish kills along a stream here after the last spraying. It is not normal to do that to the forest. We can't prove we are sick because of the spraying but cancer and pesticides have been linked. People are starting to question why do so many people in our community, in northern New Brunswick, have cancer, and rare cancers,” she says.

A new high-tech wind tunnel was unveiled at the Acadia Research Forest near Fredericton on the same day that the news broke across the province that women sprayed in Kedgwick were calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. The HJ Irving-JJC Picot Wind Tunnel will be used to determine the exact location where spraying planes should fly depending on weather and wind.

St. Pierre says her message for the provincial government is to ban all pesticides. St. Pierre and a group of women have held community demonstrations and have collected 5,000 signatures on a petition calling for a ban on aerial forest spraying. They plan to present the petition to New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham when the NB Legislature reopens on November 17.

On its website, the New Brunswick Department of Natural Resources (DNR) admits it has tried alternatives to spraying herbicides on New Brunswick's public forest but continues to use herbicides because they are cheaper and involve less labour. “Natural Resources has tried clearing the brush using hand tools and brush saws. Cut stems re-sprout the following year, causing severe competition; therefore, these treatments must be repeated often. This raises the cost to over 10 times that of a single application of herbicide.” According to DNR, herbicides are sprayed on approximately 25 per cent of the softwood land cut over each year in the province.

In late January, the province of New Brunswick announced a new plan for the forest that would allow the area of plantations on public lands to increase to 28 per cent. Plantations currently represent 10 per cent of the public forest.

More plantations will mean an increase in herbicide spraying. The increase in plantation area concerns scientists working with the Greater Fundy Ecosystem Research Group. They recommend that plantations not exceed more than 15 per cent of the forest area in order to preserve biodiversity.

St. Pierre points to other regions in Canada that have banned spraying. No herbicides have been sprayed on Quebec's public forest since 2001. Carol Hughes and Glen Thibeault, two NDP MPs in Northern Ontario, are expressing concerns with aerial forest spraying. Hughes is calling for an investigation on the impacts of aerial spraying of glyphosate over forests in northern Ontario.

Over half of the forest in New Brunswick is designated Crown land (public land). This land has never been ceded by its Indigenous people.

Tracy Glynn is the Forest Campaigner at the Conservation Council of New Brunswick and a director on the board of the Dominion Newspaper Cooperative.

Aerial Spraying

Kedgwick - Foresticide cropped

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back?

Moira Peters — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:02:30 +0000

New midwifery legislation is causing some women to delay pregnancy in Nova Scotia

HALIFAX—In March of this year, Nova Scotia became the first Atlantic province to legislate and regulate the profession of midwifery. While this move was celebrated by many as a step forward for women and families, activists with close ties to the midwifery movement feel their work is far from complete.

“All birthing women need a choice of where they birth and who their caregiver is—I think good midwife and family-led legislation could provide that," remarks Halifax doula Lindsay Miller. "Yet here we are so tangled up in bureaucracy and old school policy that the potential benefits of legislation are not being seen by the people it is meant to serve.”

For many women in Nova Scotia, access to care based on the Canadian midwifery model—a model based on tenets of continuity of care and choice of birth place—has actually become more difficult since the introduction of legislation, rather than less.

Early in 2008, three District Health Authorities—the IWK Health Centre, Guysborough/Antigonish/Strait (GASHA) and the south shore—were chosen as model sites where midwifery services would be integrated into the existing health system, and one or more midwives were hired to work in each.

As promising as this milestone seemed, it was quickly overshadowed by some glaring flaws in the process of midwifery integration that left many women questioning whether the province is any further ahead in terms of maternity care.

At the IWK model site, homebirth, or rather its lack of availability, has garnered most of the attention.

Under the care of a midwife in the Canadian model of midwifery, women are allowed to choose the birthplace based on the principles of informed consent. Women choose to give birth at home for a variety of reasons, including the comfort of being in familiar surroundings, fewer pressures to proceed at a predetermined pace and having family members—including children—present and involved.

Having a maternity care provider who respects this choice and offers this service is a high priority for Marlo Shinyei, a mother living within HRM. She states that the lack of availability of homebirth, coupled with a number of other issues with the IWK program, is affecting her and her partner’s decision to have more children in the near future. “The hospital—a great big institution with a lot of policies and power—is not the place for me to be. I was utterly disempowered by my previous experience; it left me feeling violated and ashamed. Two years later I continue to grieve over that experience. And that is why I would rather raise an only child than have a baby without a midwife."

Kelley Morrisey of the IWK speaks to the delay in the approval of the homebirth policy, stating that “it is imperative that proper policies and procedures are developed to ensure the safety and well-being of our patients and families.”

Christine Saulnier, co-chair of the Midwifery Coalition of Nova Scotia (MCNS), points out, though, that the safety of homebirth has been proven in numerous research contexts: as recently as late August, a large-scale research project out of the University of British Columbia found homebirth with a regulated midwife to be as safe as a hospital birth.

In Guysborough/Antigonish/Straight District Health Authority women are facing an entirely different set of challenges. The one midwife that has been hired by GASHA is currently working in a shared care model, meaning that she shares her professional responsibilities with other health care professionals on a rotational basis. For pregnant women, this means that they won’t know who will be attending them in labour as that will be based solely on who is on shift. For those who know midwifery, they know that this model of care is not it.

According to the midwifery model, a woman under the care of a midwife will have developed a trusting relationship with her based on a mutual understanding of the birthing woman’s wishes. In a health system characterized by minimal interaction between patients and primary caregivers, high rates of medical intervention and little knowledge of normal physiological birth, the midwifery model offers and delivers something unique and empowering to expectant mothers.

Outside of the three midwifery model sites many women and families are facing perhaps an even more painful situation as they deal with the total loss of midwifery services in their communities. Without the financial backing of the Department of Health, those DHAs that were not chosen as model sites are unable to hire midwives. Technically, midwives are allowed to register privately; however, the costs of malpractice insurance and the burden of individually negotiating hospital privileges make the option of private practice unrealistic. Remaining in the old system, in which midwives practiced without insurance and held no hospital privileges, is not an option for midwives outside of the model sites either, as new regulations governing the practice of midwifery demand that midwives meet these criteria, or not practice midwifery.

For women in the Annapolis Valley, a region of Nova Scotia with a long-standing tradition of midwifery, the loss of services is a particularly difficult pill to swallow. Dawn Hare is a mother of two children birthed under the care of a midwife, and member of Valley Families for Midwifery, a group dedicated to reinstating midwifery services in the Valley. She says she is “extremely disappointed that midwifery services are no longer available to me based solely on where I live in the province.” The repercussions of this are vast for Dawn and her family as it forces her and her partner into the vulnerable position of re-evaluating their decision to have more children. As part of her work with Valley Families for Midwifery, Dawn is in touch with several women who are currently pregnant in the Valley and says that she “feels deeply for them, for those who have lost their right to safely choose how and where they want to birth their babies.”

Despite the glaring flaws in how regulated and funded midwifery is being introduced and provided in Nova Scotia, there are still highlights that should be considered and celebrated for what they offer to birthing women. Women on the south shore have access to full midwifery services, including homebirth. Women in the three model sites who qualify and are accepted into midwifery care don’t have to pay a dime: their care is fully funded by the health system. The IWK Community Midwives are able to reserve a couple of spaces each month in their practice for African Nova Scotians, Aboriginal women and teen moms. And lastly, people are talking about midwifery. They may be talking about the problems, but in doing so, midwifery is moving out of the fringes and into the mainstream.

When asked if midwifery care in Nova Scotia has gone one step forward and two steps back, Jan Catano, co-founder of MCNS, remains hopeful. The midwifery model is an integrated part of seven Canadian provincial and one territory’s health systems, and Catano believes that the better outcomes associated with midwifery care in the rest of Canada can be reproduced here. However, Catano cautions that the issues emerging in Nova Scotia stem from “an essential misunderstanding of the nature of midwifery care”—a misunderstanding that risks the future of the profession in the province. In order to see the same positive outcomes associated with midwifery in the rest of the country, women and communities must advocate for midwifery that is in line with the Canadian model, one that respects continuity of care and choice of birth place as the rights of all women, she says.

As for the women of Nova Scotia and whether they think we have gone one step forward and two steps back? Well, that will probably depend on who you ask and where they live.

Officials in the Department of Health, the department overseeing midwifery implementation in the province, were not available for comment for this story, despite several requests for an interview.

Erin Hemmens is a mom, a writer and an activist in the women’s health movement. She is currently volunteer co-chair of the Midwifery Coalition of Nova Scotia.

Midwifery Mom and Babe

A Watchdog with No Teeth?

dawn — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 10:33:04 +0000

Mining company involvement in Sudbury Soils Study contaminates findings

SUDBURY–Mounting concern about heavy metal contamination in Sudbury, a city whose landscape is so choked by slag and smoke that it was once used by NASA as a training site for their astronauts for moon landings, led to the creation of the Sudbury Soils Study. But some community members feel that instead of providing accurate data on pollution, the results of the study whitewashed the degree of soil contamination in the region.

For the last 122 years, nickel mines have been operating in the region now known as Sudbury. The companies involved in the extraction were among the world's biggest and most powerful players in the mining industry: the International Nickel Corporation and Falconbridge, among others. Today, the Sudbury basin sources a large portion of the world's nickel, for which the extraction process involves roasting and reduction, producing waste products in the form of slag, tailings and air emissions, all of which contain significant amounts of waste metals.

Before a smokestack was built in 1987 to carry the airborne byproducts further away, the blanket of waste on the ground choked life and prevented new vegetation from growing, thus giving Sudbury its infamous moonscape appearance.

"I don't trust what's in my vegetables. I don't know how much lead, copper, nickel is in the soil," says Tanya Ball, a community organizer and mother who used to garden in Greater Sudbury community of Wanup.

In May of 2008, the first part of the Sudbury Soils Study, the Human Health Risk Assessment, was finally released. The study concluded that there exists "little risk of health effects on Sudbury area residents associated with metals in the environment."

"The SARA [Sudbury Area Research Association] group announced that 'there is no unacceptable risk', despite the fact that there are levels of toxins that are found to be high in Falconbridge, Copper Cliff, Gatchel, West End, Central Sudbury and Garson. Together, these six geographical areas comprise a large percentage of the city's population," says Ball, who now lives in Central Sudbury.

"It doesn't take a genius to see the prevalence of chronic illnesses in Sudbury," she says.

Many in the community, like Ball, remain unconvinced by the results of the Soils Study. The participation of mining heavyweights in the process may explain why.

The Technical Advisory Committee (TC) of the Sudbury Soils Study was formed in 2002 in order to direct a research project that would determine human and environmental risk arising from soil contamination in the Sudbury region.

The TC hired a scientific research partner and set the research parameters for the study, but some, like Homer Seguin, a local health and safety advocate and former president and staff rep with Steelworkers Local 6500, feel the study was compromised from the beginning because of the the role that mining companies play on the TC.

Vale Inco contributed $7 million and Falconbridge contributed $3 million to the study. Of the six Committee seats on the TC, two are held by the two locally-operating mining companies, with the other four being made up of government and health organizations.

The Ministry of the Environment decided that the companies should pay for the study, but instead of having the companies give the money to the Ministry, the companies themselves took part in overseeing the study.

"They caused the pollution, they should pay. But my view of them paying is that they should be giving the money to the Ministry of the Environment, who's responsible for the environment, and the Ministry should oversee the study," says Seguin.

Despite holding a minority of seats on the TC, the mining companies gained a great deal of control when TC members agreed to make decisions according to consensus. As a result, any decision could be vetoed by any one member of the committee, including either of the mining companies.

The community was kept out of the process from the outset, and neither media nor public observers were allowed to witness the committee's process. In a gesture towards the community, the TC established a Public Advisory Committee (PAC) soon after the scientific studies commenced in 2003. Vale Inco and Falconbridge representatives participated actively in the public meetings.

During one of the public meetings of the TC, Seguin made a presentation on the health of mine workers.

"The first meeting where I had made a presentation to the PAC, one of the members actually attacked me, verbally attacked me and the union, saying that the union could have done some more. As if it was the unions' responsibility" he recalls.

"In my opinion, they set up this PAC as an attempt to fool the public that somebody was a watchdog over them so [the public] did not have to worry."

Franco Mariotti is the independent process observer for the Soils Study. He refutes the notion that mining-company representatives bullied participants at the PAC or TC meetings.

But the weight of mining companies in the process may explain why some of the testing procedures were, by federal and provincial standards, mild.

SARA, which was hired by the TC to conduct the study, was instructed to only make note of lead concentrations in Sudbury soil that were upwards of 400 parts per million (ppm), well above the federal standard of 140ppm, or the Ontario provincial standard for post-industrial cleanup sites of 200ppm. Lead is a known probable carcinogen with no known threshold. Even the recommended maximum levels of exposure may increase cancer risks.

When the SARA group announced their conclusions, community activists, academics, labour organizers and other community members, including Seguin and Ball, countered the "little risk" findings by forming the Community Committee on the Soils Study (CCSS).

Joan Kuyek, chair of the CCSS, explains that the goal of the Committee is to involve the public as much as possible in decisions that affect them with regards to the Soils Study. Currently, the Committee is calling for the Ontario government to provide further testing and analysis such as blood and hair testing, and more extensive testing of gardens. This is data that the community has requested and that the Study is not providing, Kuyek says. The CCSS is also expanding and holding public events in order to involve more people in the Committee's analysis and response to the Soils Study.

In addition, the CCSS is seeking an independent review for the Soil Study's next portion - the Environmental Assessment - which is expected to be released in early 2009.

"The reason why I am present [in the Community Committee] is because I want to keep this from happening to my son," Ball says in regards to living with heavy metal contamination in the Sudbury area. "I can't leave this mess for another generation to clean up."

In the fall of 2008, a union-sponsored report prepared by Environmental Defense Canada poked holes in the methodology used in the Sudbury Soils Study.

Environmental Defense's report, Human Health Risk Assessment, outlines key concerns for people living in the Sudbury area. It states that SARA's own conclusions are that lead, nickel and arsenic are above recommended exposure rates in a number of communities in the Sudbury region. Further, it reveals that the Soils Study does not take into account the compounded effect of multiple routes of exposure, nor does it consider how the environmental contaminants might interact with one another in the human body.

The report points out, for instance, that the levels of nickel found in the air are higher than recommended exposure limits for non-cancer and cancer effects in three communities. SARA dismissed the risk, stating that it was within acceptable range because it fell within a "margin of safety," when in fact margins of safety are intended to protect people who are more sensitive to contaminants, as well as provide a buffer for uncertainties in the data. They are not intended to discount the risk associated with higher levels of toxins.

Nickel has serious implications for health; in large enough quantities it increases chances of development of lung cancer, nose cancer, larynx cancer and prostate cancer, respiratory failure, birth defects, asthma and other conditions.

"In Sudbury, we have cancers that are 11 per cent higher than the national average. We have chronic obstructive lung disesases at 85 per cent higher, all this stuff that would be caused by these extra [contaminants]," says Seguin.

Another lingering topic of concern is the fact that the study's model subject in the calculation of health risks is a baby female born in Sudbury in 2005. While this model can be used to explore the health impacts on a vulnerable population, it also excludes anyone born prior to 2005, as well as workers who have been exposed to higher concentrations of metals and toxins in the smelters and mines.

Unions have been advocating a change in this approach since the formation of the TC was announced. The only reply from the TC has been that health risks that affect workers are the domain of the Ministry of Labour, not the Ministry of the Environment, and that they will therefore not touch the issue.

Seguin himself suffers from chronic obstructive lung disease resulting from his work as a labourer at Inco. The fact that many people in community have not responded to the soils study process affects him deeply. "When I get on this topic, I get very emotional about it. I take it to heart. I find it a hard thing to understand, how Sudburians would allow that to happen," he says, coughing and clearing his throat.

Currently, Vale Inco is applying for legal exception from new provincial legislation that requires that they reduce their nickel emissions, pushing for an alternate standard for nickel emission levels until 2015.

Shailagh Keaney is from Sudbury, in occupied Atikameksheng Anishnawbek territory.

Homer Seguin

Copper Cliff, Sudbury