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VANCOUVER — Newly released e-mails show the RCMP tried to discredit Vancouver's supervised-injection clinic and are part of a pattern of interference in science by the federal government, a renowned AIDS researcher says.
“Now we have documentation of what we sort of knew,” said Julio Montaner, the director of B.C.'s Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, referring to RCMP e-mails released this week by Vancouver's Pivot Legal Society.
One refers to the “Centre for Excrements” and another, in relation to an RCMP-commissioned report on Insite, notes that “as per our request, the report has no reference to the RCMP.”
That 2007 report by Colin Mangham concluded that Insite-related research was skewed and that the clinic was having little or no effect on drug-overdose deaths or public disorder.
Detractors have slammed Dr. Mangham's report as an opinion piece and noted his role as director with the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, which takes a hard line against use of illegal drugs.
Another e-mail encourages recipients to call an open-line radio show during an Insite-related segment in the hopes of outnumbering Insite supporters.
“None of the correspondence [Pivot] has circulated indicates the RCMP was doing this in good faith,” Dr. Montaner said, adding that the force was seeking reports critical of Insite at the same time as its representatives were regularly meeting him on drug-related issues.
“It's like spying on the enemy without the enemy knowing that they're the enemy,” said Dr. Montaner, who is also president of the International Aids Society.
The RCMP said this week it routinely commissions reviews of research on topics related to police work and denied it does so with particular conclusions in mind.
Established in 2003, Insite allows drug users to inject heroin or cocaine under medical supervision. The federal government has opposed the clinic, but it is backed by the Vancouver Police Department and the provincial government.
The RCMP's behind-the-scenes approach to Insite is part of a broader pattern of government interference with science, Dr. Montaner said.
In an open letter to political leaders Thursday, he and 84 other Canadian scientists called for an “end to the politicization of science” and cited what they described as blatant examples of science being undermined or disrupted for political reasons. Those examples include the firing of the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, to misrepresenting research related to Vancouver's supervised-injection site.
The RCMP commissioned a review of Insite-related research because findings didn't ring true with members of the force, said a retired constable whose name was on several of the e-mails Pivot released this week.
“It was obvious some of the things they were saying weren't so,” former RCMP constable Chuck Doucette said Wednesday, citing issues such as the number of people who seek treatment after using the clinic and a reduction of crime in the neighbourhood.
The people doing the research are the same people lobbying for Insite, said Mr. Doucette, who is now vice-president of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada.
Such positions infuriate Dr. Montaner, who traces the evolution of Insite back to the mid-1990s, when the profile of AIDS patients at his clinic began to shift from predominantly gay men from all walks of life to injection drug users from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.
Before long, the percentage of people living with HIV/AIDS in the Downtown Eastside was as high as in impoverished Botswana, and Dr. Montaner and his colleagues were desperately looking for ways to turn the tide.
Insite is not a cure-all but it is an important tool in protecting public health and preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases, Dr. Montaner maintains.
Pivot obtained the RCMP e-mails through freedom of information requests and released them this week.
