Pandemic politics, Margaret Wente, 23/11/07

For the past decade, United Nations scientist Peter Piot has been sounding the alarm about the growing scourge of AIDS. “The pandemic and its toll are outstripping the worst predictions,” he warned last year. “[It] is now one of the make-or-break forces of this century.” The Western world has responded, with AIDS funding that has swelled to $10-billion a year.

But this week brought some surprising news about the epidemic. It's shrinking. Annual new HIV infections have plunged by 40 per cent, to 2.5 million. And the total number of people infected with HIV has also fallen – down to 33 million from 40 million.

What happened? Are prevention programs finally working? Has someone found a cure?

Not exactly. What happened was that the UN's top AIDS scientists were finally forced to admit that their numbers had been wildly overstated. “They had clearly been using inflated numbers for some years,” charged Stephen Lewis, the former special UN envoy for HIV-AIDS in Africa. He even accused UNAIDS of being “irresponsible.”

Dr. James Chin of UC Berkeley has been tracking the disease since it first emerged. He is among the many epidemiologists who say the UN agency has cooked the numbers in order to get political and economic support. “I call them glorious lies and myths, because they're for a good cause,” he told me.

Both Mr. Lewis and Dr. Chin are quick to stress that AIDS is still a huge challenge and a monumental human tragedy. But the distortion of information has caused scarce public health resources to be wasted on programs aimed at people who simply aren't at risk. Meantime, the UN's relentless fear-mongering has spread abundant misconceptions about the disease. Here are a few of the more startling facts I learned from a conversation with Dr. Chin.

The AIDS epidemic is past its peak. Even UNAIDS has admitted that global HIV incidence had peaked by the late 1990s. This doesn't mean people will stop getting AIDS any time soon. But the infection rates are on the decline. The impact of prevention programs pales beside what's known as the saturation effect – meaning that people at the most risk have already been infected. Although prevention programs get the credit, one scientist has called this phenomenon “riding to glory on the down slope of the epidemic curve.”

AIDS is not a big problem outside Africa. (The continent still accounts for three-quarters of the world's AIDS deaths.) Despite widespread warnings that AIDS was about to explode across India, China and Southeast Asia, it hasn't. The UN has slashed its estimate of the HIV-infected population of India by almost two-thirds, back to 2.5 million. China has only a few hundred thousand infected people, not the millions that were predicted. Indonesia and the Philippines, where male circumcision is the norm, have escaped relatively unscathed, because circumcision is a major barrier to infection. The global infection rate outside of Africa is 0.2 per cent, says Dr. Chin. He thinks the UN numbers are still too high, and that the total number of infected might be as low as 22 million.

Outside Africa, people in the general population are unlikely to become infected. In the rest of the world, HIV is almost entirely confined to men who have sex with other men, intravenous drug users and female sex workers. That's an inconvenient truth for activists and fundraisers. “When you're trying to get the public and policy makers to take note, they're not going to be too keen on pouring money into men having sex with men and junkies and sex workers,” says Dr. Chin. He says a lot of effort and money have been wasted on programs directed at the general population.

The main driver of infection is not poverty, but high-risk sexual behaviour. In Africa, the richest countries have the highest infection rates, and richer people have much higher rates than poor ones. HIV hits hardest at Africa's teachers and professionals. In the West, where the biggest at-risk group is men who have sex with men, income isn't a factor either. “No matter how you look at it, poverty isn't driving it,” says Dr. Chin.

The riskiest behaviour is having multiple concurrent sexual partners. People with several overlapping sexual partners – a common practice in Africa – are at much higher risk. Westerners may have more sexual partners over a lifetime, but what matters is the pattern of behaviour. The single most effective way to reduce the spread of AIDS is partner reduction, or “mutual faithfulness.”

Even in sub-Saharan Africa, the news isn't all bad. The HIV infection rate has levelled off at about 3 per cent (Dr. Chin's estimate), which means that 97 per cent of the population is not infected. In Rwanda, for example, the infection rate is now thought to be 3 per cent, down from 14 per cent or even more. This is not to minimize the devastation: Africa has more than 11 million AIDS orphans, and in some countries, the death rates among the most educated and productive people are 20 or 30 per cent. In some places, the adult prevalence rate will be at least 5 to 10 per cent for decades to come. “On the ground, the situation in Africa is still appalling,” says Stephen Lewis.

AIDS is a terrible pandemic, but it's not the worst. Tuberculosis wiped out up to a billion people over the 18th and 19th centuries. Malaria kills a million people every year, mostly children under 5. Nor is AIDS a general killer. Unlike an influenza epidemic, which can infect up to half the population, it only hits selected subgroups.

And yet, a lot of people don't want to hear the (relatively) good news about AIDS. Dr. Chin and others who challenge the official line tend to be denounced for being callous and cold-hearted. After all, the global competition for dollars is fierce, and the stakes are huge. But Dr. Chin points out that in the end, fudging the facts doesn't help anyone – least of all the victims of this tragic, dreadful plague.

Globe Editorial, 24/08/07, Blown cover

In years past, it would have been dismissed as the sort of conspiracy theory that professional protesters are fond of. But this is the YouTube era. And courtesy of a video posted on that website this week, claims that police sent agents provocateurs into protests at the North American summit at Montebello, Que., turned out not to be so fanciful after all.

In the video, three young men are seen conversing with unionists in front of a police line. While most of the demonstrators are casually dressed, the three interlopers are clad as "Black Bloc" anarchists, complete with black bandanas serving as masks. One is carrying a rock.

When union leader Dave Coles implores them to drop the rock and take off their masks, they refuse; when accused of being police officers, they don't deny it. As the other demonstrators grow irate, the three men sheepishly amble into a police line and are handcuffed.

Curiously, there was no record of their arrests. No other protesters knew who they were. And the three men were wearing the same boots as the police officers.

Having initially brushed off questions about the incident, the Sûreté du Québec finally acknowledged yesterday evening that the three men were officers. But it denied they were there to provoke, insisting they had "the mandate to spot and identify violent demonstrators to avoid the situation from getting out of hand."

If the Sûreté is telling the truth, its ineptness was staggering. Sending agents posing as violent anarchists into a crowd of middle-aged unionists seems straight out of a film parody of police tactics.

But could the force really have been so comically inept? Or were the infiltrators there, as Mr. Coles has alleged, to stir up trouble so police could move in?

Neither scenario is appealing. But if it is the latter, this is a scandal on the level of the Mounties' pepper-spraying of protesters at the 1997 APEC summit. And given that the RCMP was working alongside the Sûreté at Montebello, it must also be asked whether it was complicit in this plan.

Whatever the strategy, the summit will be remembered for police behaving badly while demonstrators remained peaceful. Now, a full investigation is needed to determine just how bad this really was.

Story time in St. George's, Sabrina Skinner, 13/11/07

Our story starts with a group of students. Wide-eyed and eager to know what they are in store for, they take their seats; and in a moment rarely seen in a high school classroom, a hush falls over the room.

They're ready for their story.

Storytelling has long been recognized as an important way to preserve the culture and past of a place, and students got to learn first-hand what makes a good tale when a storytelling workshop was held at Appalachia High School in St. George's recently.

Newfoundland storytellers Mary Fearon and Marc Cormier spent the day workshopping storytelling with students and teachers at the school as part of Awakening the Dreamer: Opening the Door to Talk. The province-wide storytelling festival is sponsored by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council under their school touring program, and the provincial Department of Education.

Ms. Fearon, who hails from St. John's, says she became a storyteller some years ago after she joined a parent-child literacy group. She says she immediately saw the impact stories had on children's literacy skills. She says she became interested in Newfoundland stories through searching for new stories to tell in the program.

"They spoke to me in a different kind of way, and I became keen to really learn a lot of stories and tell them," she says. "I could see that the history of storytelling in Newfoundland was being lost, and that oral culture and tradition was being lost, so I decided that was going to be one of my missions - to tell Newfoundland stories in particular."

Mr. Cormier, who is from the Port au Port peninsula, says as a schoolteacher, he has been incorporating stories into his curriculum for years - to great results.

"If you give them a choice of watching a movie or playing a video game or listening to a story, they'll always take the story," he says. "Which surprised me actually, but that's what I've discovered over the years."

At Ms. Fearon's session with Level II and III students, she had the students participate in an exercise in which each member of the class added one line to a piece of paper circulating around the classroom.

"A story can be as simple as that," she told the students. "Adding one thought or line."

Both storytellers say students and teachers are often receptive when they hold workshops like the one at Appalachia High and they hope it will grow an interest in the craft.

Arielle Alexander, a Level II student at Appalachia, said she enjoyed her class's workshop, and that she was keen to learn more about storytelling.

"It was really, really interesting," she said.

Watchdog's conclusion comes as no surprise at all. Gary Mason, 30/11/07

THE IAN BUSH CASE

Watchdog's conclusion comes as no surprise at all. Gary Mason, 30/11/07

The likelihood that RCMP watchdog Paul Kennedy's review of the way the Mounties investigated the death of Ian Bush will ever be taken seriously is non-existent. Let me tell you why.

Because those carrying out Mr. Kennedy's review of the Mounties' conduct in the Bush shooting were Mounties themselves. And not just any old Mounties, but members from British Columbia, all of whom would have been intimately aware of criticisms directed at the RCMP in this case, and some of whom would have known officers involved in the initial investigation.

The investigation they were auditing.

Question: If Mr. Kennedy had to use the RCMP to investigate this matter, why didn't he at least use officers from another province? It would have created the appearance that he was trying, at least, to put some distance between those doing the review for him and those whose work and conduct was being reviewed.

So now we not only have the RCMP investigating itself, but also the RCMP investigating itself on behalf of the person who is supposed to provide independent civilian oversight of the force.

Is it any surprise that those carrying out the investigation for Mr. Kennedy did not talk to a single person who wasn't associated with the RCMP? Not one. Could it really come as a surprise that Mr. Kennedy ended up exonerating the RCMP, and Constable Paul Koester, in Mr. Bush's death?

That was a foregone conclusion.

We'll likely never know what really happened in the Houston RCMP detachment the night of Oct. 29, 2005. The only person who knows that is Constable Koester, the lone officer who was with Mr. Bush when he was shot. Like many others, I don't believe his version of events. I just don't see how he could have hit Mr. Bush three times in the back of the head with the tip of his gun and then shot him, all the while being face down on a couch and with Mr. Bush lying on top of him.

The fact that Constable Koester refused on the advice of his lawyer to be part of a re-enactment at the inquest into the shooting only confirmed my doubts. Personally, I believe Constable Koester was on top of Mr. Bush, hit him three times in the back of the head with the tip of his gun and then hit him a fourth time when his gun accidentally went off.

I do not believe Constable Koester intended to kill Mr. Bush, or that his memory of the event is clear.

Of course, had the video machine in the interview room been turned on that night, we likely would know what happened, or at least have a much better idea. This is why Mr. Kennedy's recommendation that video recording machines be placed in all RCMP detachments in Canada - and be turned on when dealing with a prisoner - makes good sense.

The jurors in the inquest into Mr. Bush's death made the same suggestion.

Which is why it was more than dismaying to read in Mr. Kennedy's report that the new head of the RCMP, William Elliott, disagrees.

The new commissioner, according to Mr. Kennedy, thinks having cameras in all lockups and interview rooms might be desirable, but not absolutely necessary. In part, this appears to be a budgetary concern.

I don't understand this.

Why would the commissioner disagree with this recommendation, fully aware of concerns held by the public about police investigating themselves? Wouldn't a video record of any and all interactions between police and a suspect help eliminate many of those concerns? How much would this recommendation cost to carry out? Does he not think Canadians would support spending the money on such an initiative, especially given the current climate of distrust that exists around the RCMP?

The only difference between Ian Bush and Robert Dziekanski, in my opinion, is video evidence of what happened. That's it. None of the million and one reviews and probes stemming from the Dziekanski tasering would be happening if not for Paul Pritchard's video.

Mr. Kennedy also announced yesterday that he was going to review a raft of other cases in which RCMP investigated itself stemming from in-custody deaths. The complaints czar said he was doing this to address public misapprehension about the whole notion of police investigating police.

That's fine. But firstly someone should take a look at the independence of Mr. Kennedy's office. Can he really call himself an independent civilian oversight commissioner when there appears to be nothing arm's length about the relationship between his investigators and the people he's investigating?

Mr. Kennedy needs to have his own team of investigators conducting reviews of RCMP investigations such as the one held into the Bush shooting.

Having the RCMP investigating an RCMP investigation on behalf of this country's RCMP civilian oversight commissioner is wrong.

Globe Editorial, 30/11/07, Empathy for the constable

Globe Editorial, RCMP REPORT, Empathy for the constable, November 30, 2007

A country accustomed to kicking the RCMP for its many recent sins should also be prepared to accept a credible defence of Mountie behaviour. This is what RCMP complaints commissioner Paul Kennedy provided with his detailed report yesterday on the bizarre death of 22-year-old Ian Bush at the hands of a rookie officer in Houston, B.C., and on the investigation that followed.

Constable Paul Koester deserves the empathy of Canadians. The young officer was doing his job with integrity when he arrested Mr. Bush on a minor charge, and suddenly found himself being choked from behind, and expecting to die. Other officers and ambulance workers who saw Constable Koester shortly after he shot Mr. Bush in the head in self-defence say he was devastated, sobbing, an emotional wreck. All this Mr. Kennedy sets out persuasively, explaining what the evidence was and why he gave some pieces of evidence more weight than others.

Mr. Kennedy had access to the complete RCMP investigative file, and he is persuasive in explaining that the RCMP's probe of the killing was impartial, even exemplary, in spite of some early errors. (For instance, one officer who collected some evidence from the scene also let Constable Koester sleep at his home the night of the killing.) He is less persuasive when he too easily accepts that, by and large, the investigation had the necessary appearance of impartiality. But he offers well-earned criticism of the police for staying mum during the investigation of such an extraordinary case.

Of concern is that William Elliott, the new head of the RCMP, appears reluctant to accept the need for a modern approach to addressing the public through the media. Mr. Kennedy urges the Mounties to make publicly available, in cases of police shootings, an outline of the investigative steps to be taken and the expected timeline for each step. In his written response to Mr. Kennedy's report, Mr. Elliott chose not to specifically address this recommendation.

The media did not create the cloud over the head of Constable Koester, or the larger cloud over the RCMP. It was the RCMP's own clumsy response ("the public doesn't have a right to know anything," as the Mountie spokesman put it) that did that. Incredibly, the Mounties gave the officer a promotion long before the investigation into the shooting was complete. RCMP arrogance causes the public distrust to grow.

But a country that gives the Mounties their well-deserved licks should also have empathy for the officers who risk their lives when they don the crimson uniform. On the evidence of Mr. Kennedy's report, Constable Koester is entitled to respect, and a fresh start.