What's in the news: October 8 -- Insite updates, Aspirin and breast cancer, a chemical spill, and more

A round-up of Canadian health news, from coast to coast to coast and beyond, for Wednesday, October 8.

New research on Insite, the downtown eastside Vancouver safe-injection site, reveals that the number of lives saved is significantly greater than had previously been believed. A new study by researchers from the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, published online yesterday in the journal PLoS One, found that between two and 12 overdose deaths are averted every year because of Insite. [PLoS One] Those figures contradict the data cited frequently by Health Minister Tony Clement and other critics of Insite, who claim it saves just one life per year. "The figure of one is laughable," Dr Thomas Kerr told The Globe and Mail. "I don't think any experienced clinician working in the area... would think that only one person is saved." [Globe and Mail]

Another study by Dr Kerr and his Centre of Excellence colleagues, to be published in next month's issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence, shows that Insite improves drug users' ability to access primary care and the healthcare system in general. [Drug and Alcohol Dependence abstract]

Yet another recent study by the gang from the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, published online late last month in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, found that use of a safe-injection site improved the safety of drug users' sexual behaviour. [Sexually Transmitted Infections abstract]

The highest-profile critique of Insite was commissioned by the RCMP, according to documents obtained by the Pivot Legal Society through access-to-information requests. Pivot will ask Canada's auditor-general to investigate whether the RCMP payed for the research.* [Globe and Mail] Last fall, I wrote about allegations of bias in that study, by Colin Mangham.
*Update, 1:46 pm: BC-based independent news outfit The Tyee's Monte Paulsen has confirmed that the RCMP paid the researchers to produce their reports, and actively worked to ensure no references to the RCMP's payment were disclosed. “The RCMP used federal funds to finance politically motivated research,” Pivot Legal Society lawyer Douglas King said. Emails obtained by Mr King also reveal that an RCMP constable referred to the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS as the "Centre for Excrements," and asked one of the paid authors plus 16 others to call in to a radio show to counterbalance the "Pro Insite side." Also, a correction to the above: Mr King is asking the auditor-general to investigate whether the RCMP's payments were "outside the boundaries of their statutory mandate."

Over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs cut women's risk of developing breast cancer, report researchers from British Columbia and Spain in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Their giant meta-analysis shows that using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) reduces the risk of breast cancer by 12%. For acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin), that number was 13%, and for ibuprofen (Advil) it was 21%. [Journal of the National Cancer Institute abstract] What's the reason for the drugs' ability to prevent breast cancer? Two oncologists explain the general theory in an editorial in the same issue of the journal. [Journal of the National Cancer Institute] Research into the biological functions behind the drugs' effects is still ongoing, and the scientists aren't yet recommending that patients take NSAIDs regularly in order to prevent breast cancer. [UBC news release]

Luc Montagnier, the French scientist who won the Nobel Prize in medicine this month for identifying HIV, predicted in his acceptance speech that a therapeutic vaccine for AIDS will be available in three or four years. In an interview with Nobelprize.org editor Adam Smith, Dr Montagnier says he is now working on just such a vaccine. [Nobel Prize interview] [The Telegraph] Meanwhile, however, the Associated Press calls fellow Nobelist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, who shared half this year's prize with Dr Montagnier, "pessimistic" on the search for a vaccine. She called the search a "succession of failures." [Associated Press]

Part of Saskatoon's Royal University Hospital was evacuated yesterday after nearly 200 litres of 10% formaldehyde solution spilled in a laboratory. [Saskatoon StarPhoenix]

CanadianEMR now has a series of podcasts available for download, on subjects including selecting the right printers for your practice, how to deal with power outages, scanning documents, and more. [CanadianEMR]

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