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AFD - Canadian Preparedness - CMAJ: A Scathing Assessment of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness

sharon sanders

sharon sanders

Editor-in-Chief & President
CMAJ : A Scathing Assessment Of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness



# 2065



http://afludiary.blogspot.com/




In what can only be described as a scathing review of Canada's pandemic preparedness, an upcoming editorial in the Canadian Medical Association Journal calls Canada's epidemic surveillance and reporting systems a `national embarrassment.

And from there, the lead author's criticisms only grow more strident. Quoting from the article:

"It's literally true that if a bird flu crisis hits tomorrow, Ottawa is better prepared to defend the geese than it is to defend Canadians," Mr. Attaran says. "You'd rather be a Canadian goose than a Canadian person in a bird flu outbreak, it's embarrassing to say."
​

Well, the author is certainly not pulling any punches.

A Hat tip to Shiloh on Flutrackers for posting this article.

This excerpt is from a story carried by the National Post. Follow the link to read the entire article.






Epidemic response better for poultry than people: report


Sharon Kirkey, Canwest News Service
Published: Thursday, June 12, 2008

If a deadly epidemic were to hit tomorrow, poultry would be better protected than people under federal laws, Canada's top medical journal warns.

The Canadian Medical Association Journals calls it a "national embarrassment" that 12 of the 13 provinces and territories are under no obligation to share information with the federal government or the rest of Canada during a disease outbreak.

In an editorial released ahead of print Thursday, the journal says a massive epidemic or pandemic "could kill tens, or hundreds of thousands of Canadians within weeks or months."

Yet the federal government and provinces can't agree on how they would share crucial information, a situation the journal says has reached a "ridiculous, potentially tragic, level."

"If there is another epidemic of a SARS kind or an avian influenza kind, Canada is, among developed countries, probably the worst prepared," says Amir Attaran, Canada Research Chair in law, population health and global development policy at the University of Ottawa and lead author of the editorial.

"And it's for bureaucratic reasons. It's not that our scientists are incompetent, it's not that our doctors can't do great things or our hospitals are poorly equipped. It's simply for the fact that, in an emergency, time equals lives."
​
(continue reading . . . ))

posted by FLA_MEDIC @ 6:21 PM
 
Re: AFD - Canadian Preparedness - CMAJ: A Scathing Assessment of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness

Attaran makes the statement:

Under Canada?s constitution, Parliament has jurisdiction
to legislate for emergencies, such as epidemics.6 It also may
criminalize harmful conduct, such as concealing epidemiologic
information. Federal laws already require disclosure of
many types of public health information, such as the labelling
of medicines. Surely Parliament can legislate to make epidemic
information available too. Other countries, like the
United States and Australia, have already done so.

and provides a citation to his own work:

Attaran A, Wilson K. A legal and epidemiological justification for federal authority in public health emergencies. McGill Law J 2007;52:382-414.

This work is not available online from McGill Law Journal, nor from any other open source publication (as per Google).
 
Re: AFD - Canadian Preparedness - CMAJ: A Scathing Assessment of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness

Presumeably any data sharing arrangements between the federal and provincial governments, with input from the private sector, would be reviewable by the various entities charged with overseeing access to information and protection of personal privacy.

A search of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada's website reveals 4 hits on "pandemic", all of which turn up the following paragraph or something substantially similar to it:


"The Commissioner appeared before the House of Commons Subcommittee on the Public Safety Act and National Security on June 5, 2005, to comment on the ATA, and issued similar warnings. While many concerns related to oversight of the agencies which have special powers under the Anti-terrorism Act, the Office raised concerns throughout the year that PIPEDA was being eroded by government access to private sector databases containing personal information. We are gravely concerned that information gathered for private or commercial reasons is finding its way into government hands. This amounts to a blurring of the public and private sectors, leading to the potential use of private sector companies as agents of the state, often without the safeguards that are elemental in a democracy. We must stand on guard against state access to the databanks of the corporate world. Fears of terrorist attacks or impending pandemics provide superficially attractive justifications for intrusive powers, but the real need for these powers is often not apparent." [emphasis added)

http://www.privcom.gc.ca/information/ar/200506/2005_pipeda_e.pdf
 
Re: AFD - Canadian Preparedness - CMAJ: A Scathing Assessment of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness

A similar search of the Ontario Privacy Commissioner's website reveals a more informative view of access and privacy legislation and pitfalls, especially in this submission to the SARS Commission:

http://www.ipc.on.ca/images/Resources/up-Campbell.pdf

[Snip]

"To me, nothing is worse than using privacy as a shield to hide behind and I would like to point
out that PHIPA, like the B.C. legislation, allows for the sharing of health information by health
care providers in similar circumstances. The law states that health care providers may disclose
personal health information, if the provider believes that the disclosure is necessary for the
purpose of eliminating or reducing significant risk of serious bodily harm to a person or group of
persons. This ability to disclose to prevent or reduce significant risk of bodily harm is not
subject to veto by the individual to whom the personal health information relates.

....

- 3 -
In summary, it is our view that the appropriate sharing of personal information, including
personal health information, has been addressed in all of the above-noted legislation. Each of the
Acts not only provide its own rules for the sharing of information by government institutions and
health information custodians, but also permits sharing where it is permitted under another Act
of Canada or the Legislature. If there is a problem, it could very well be that it is more one of
perception than actual substance. For more information, please see our enclosed chart of
permitted collections, uses and disclosures.
Thank you again for including us in this process.
Sincerely yours,
Ann Cavoukian, Ph.D.
Commissioner"
 
Re: AFD - Canadian Preparedness - CMAJ: A Scathing Assessment of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness

cartski,


Thank you for all the value added information here. Particularly for the links to the original source material.

To paraphrase Omar Khayyam


The internet blogger writes and, having writ, Moves on:


Often though, the subject of these blogs deserves more attention, and a fleshing out of details. My thanks to you for doing so with this blog.



Mike
 
Re: AFD - Canadian Preparedness - CMAJ: A Scathing Assessment of Canadian Pandemic Preparedness

Welcome.

Note in the Wilson article, linked previously, this description of how the WHO may gather information when compliance, about epi info disclosure, with the International Health Regulations is lacking:

"The new regulations also allow WHO to consider unofficial 'reports from sources other than notifications or consultations'. This means that, if government officials in a member state delay reporting a potential public health emergency, WHO can use information for unofficial source that may be available by email or the Internet, for example, to assess the situation."

That would include FT.

J.
 
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