WestEnder
March 31, 2010
Despite the federal government’s continued opposition to Insite, the Downtown Eastside facility that offers a medically supervised injection environment for drug users, one of its founding principal investigators has received a top honour from the prestigious British Medical Journal (BMJ) for his work.
The BMJ gave 36-year-old Dr. Evan Wood, a Vancouverite, its inaugural Junior Doctor of the Year award for his groundbreaking work related to HIV, public health, drug policy, and addiction. The physician and epidemiologist has been involved with the scientific evaluation of Insite, which is the only safe-injection facility in North America, since it opened in 2003. His work has focused on HIV treatment strategies and health-care issues facing the Downtown Eastside.
Dr. Wood authored more than 200 scientific publications before the age of 30, including articles in medical journals such as BMJ, the Lancet, and the New England Journal of Medicine. He is now the co-director of Vancouver’s Urban Health Research Initiative, part of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, where he also works as a researcher. Dr. Wood has been widely noted in the international medical community for key research demonstrating Insite’s effectiveness in reducing overdose deaths, lowering HIV transmission rates, and increasing uptake into addiction treatment.
Despite these accomplishments, however, Dr. Wood’s work continues to meet barriers from the federal government.
“It’s just remarkable, the extent that the Conservatives have gone to try and cloud the science [of Insite’s strategies]... particularly when [Tony] Clement was the health minister, to try and shut the [Insite] program,” Dr. Wood told WE.
Despite a large body of research demonstrating Insite’s effectiveness, Clement announced in May 2008 that the federal government would oppose Insite’s move to appeal a court ruling that would allow it to stay open. In February 2010, the federal government served papers to Insite indicating it would try to overturn the B.C. Court of Appeals’ January 2010 ruling to keep the facility running.
Dr. Wood says the ongoing Insite controversy is just one example of scientists being stifled by government trying to muzzle their work. “I think researchers across research disciplines in Canada right now are feeling that their work is being done in a very hostile environment,” he says. Last month, for example, the Montreal Gazette reported on a leaked Environment Canada document that suggests new communications policies by the Harper government have severely limited media access to climate-change researchers. Scientists have claimed the intent of the policy is to prevent them from speaking to the press. Such tactics, Dr. Wood says, extend to other disciplines as well. “Whether it’s scientists feeling gagged and not being able to talk about climate-change research, or funding cuts being faced in various scientific disciplines, all of the controversy around stem-cell research and reproductive technologies, the closing of the National Science Advisor’s office — it goes on and on.
“The Conservatives are very interested in research if it serves their ideological agenda, but if it doesn’t fit their plan, then there’s something wrong with that science,” Dr. Wood continues. “We know that the war on drugs has failed and that we need alternatives, but you get politicians who capitalize on the gap between scientific evidence and understanding among the public, to the detriment of our communities and vulnerable populations.”
PHOTO: Dr. Evan Wood. By Martin Dee, UBC.
