News Release

Drug harm-reduction policy must be based on peer-reviewed science, not lobby group Web sites

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Lancet_DELETED

Politicians must be able to tell the difference between valid peer-reviewed science and essays posted on the websites of lobby groups before advancing evidence-based drug harm reduction and other public health policies. These are the conclusions of authors of a Reflection and Reaction comment in the March edition of The Lancet Infectious Diseases.

In the Reflection and Reaction, Drs Evan Wood, Julio Montaner, and Thomas Kerr, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St Paul’s Hospital, and Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, look at the advent of Institute on Global Drug Policy (IGDP) - an arm of the Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF) – which is presenting itself in the form of “an online open access journal”.

The authors say that despite the large and growing volume of evidence which shows the benefit of harm reduction programmes, eg, needle exchanges, groups such as IGDP remain invested in criminal-justice based approaches and have recently intensified their efforts in this area, including using their website for dissemination of “opinion essays”.

They say: “The DFAF seems to have had some recent success with this approach. In an apparent effort to persuade Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper that his government should withdraw support form North America’s first medically supervised injecting facility (SIF) in Vancouver, the website recently published a critique of the SIF….The website has also posted a range of articles against needle exchange and other evidence based harm reduction programmes. The conclusions of the needle exchange articles clearly contradict scientific consensus documents, such as a recent report by the US Institute of Medicine.”

Since the online publication of these IGDP articles, Canada’s new federal government has announced a new anti-drug strategy that redoubles law enforcement efforts while leaving the future of the Vancouver SIF in doubt. The authors say it is alarming that Canada’s federal health minister has recently alluded to the IGDP report and says there is “growing debate” about SIF, despite all studies in conventional scientific publications showing a range of benefits to SIF – and none have demonstrated any negative effects.

The authors conclude: “It remains to be seen whether what has been described as the Canadian federal government’s new ‘ideological’ opposition to harm reduction will win them votes. Unlike in the USA, where surveys suggest the public supports the country’s ‘war on drugs’, recent surveys in Canada suggest that the Canadian public is catching up to science when is comes to support for harm reduction programmes. Although the Canadian public may be gaining wisdom, advancing evidence-based public health will now require that politicians are able to tell the difference between valid peer-reviewed science and essays posted on the websites of lobby groups.”

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For Drs Evan Wood, Julio Montaner, and Thomas Kerr, British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, St Paul’s Hospital, and Department of Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, please contact Stephen Burega T) +1(604) 623-3007 ext. 228 / +1 (604) 506-3734 E) Stephen.Burega@karyo-edelman.com

http://www.eurekalert.org/jrnls/lance/TLIDdrug.pdf


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