Pubdate: Fri, 09 Sep 2011 Source: Province, The (CN BC) Copyright: 2011 Postmedia Network Inc. Contact: http://www2.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html Website: http://www.theprovince.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476 Author: Jon Ferry Cited: Drug Prevention Network of Canada: http://dpnoc.ca/ Cited: Real Women of Canada: http://www.realwomenca.com/ LINES GET BLURRY ON IDEOLOGICAL DIVIDE Watchdog Group Blasts Research on Insite An influential recent study by local medical researchers bolstering Vancouver's safe-injection site has been blasted by an anti-drug watchdog group for greatly overstating Insite's impact in reducing nearby overdose deaths. The watchdog team, including B.C. drug-prevention expert Colin Mangham and three Australian doctors, alleges the local study -- published in The Lancet shortly before the Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments about retaining Insite -- made "inexcusable" research errors. The analysis was done for the Drug Prevention Network of Canada and Real Women of Canada, staunch opponents of supervised injection sites and other "harm-reduction" methods of dealing with illegal drug use. The analysis said the study's claim of heavily reduced OD death rates near Insite after it opened in September 2003 was possible only because the researchers chose 2001 -- a year when Vancouver was awash with heroin -- as their starting point. A study period starting from 2002, it said, would have actually shown an increasing trend of overdose deaths. The watchdog group said The Lancet researchers failed to mention that, since April of 2003, extra police were specifically assigned to the city blocks surrounding Insite -- and omitted to account for the fact that a substantial proportion of the overdose deaths in question were "non-injection-related." When The Lancet article was published in April, co-author Dr. Thomas Kerr, of St. Paul's Hospital, said the Tories could no longer go around saying the evidence was unclear "because the evidence is clear, Insite saves lives." It was a claim carried widely in the mainstream media. However, Drug Network of Canada board member Al Arsenault, a former Downtown Eastside beat cop, said Thursday the analysis by Mangham and his team showed the evidence was anything but clear. "It's clear to all those who agree with him in his peer-review circle," he said, "but not to outsiders who don't have a vested interest in the outcome." Dr. Evan Wood, an internal medicine specialist at St. Paul's Hospital and coauthor of The Lancet study, agreed Thursday that a public debate about drug policy was badly needed. But he insisted it was the analysis itself that was seriously flawed, which was why it hadn't been published in a medical journal. "Many of the queries, questions and concerns are inaccurate," Wood told me, adding that the analysis didn't properly account for population increases or the location of deaths identified in The Lancet article. Judging by how deeply divisive the issue has been so far, you can be sure the arguments and counter-arguments will continue at least as long as the legal battle between Victoria and Ottawa over Insite's future. Ideologically speaking, I'm inclined to side with Mangham and Co., since I favour getting people off drugs rather than keeping them on them. What really concerns me, though, is the blurring of the lines between political activism and scientific research taking place on both sides of this ideological divide. But then I'm still naive enough to believe that truth should be science's main goal, not its first casualty. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.