2017
Is climate change making you sick?
November 2, 2017
Dr. Courtney Howard discusses her new report on how climate change is affecting Canadians' physical and mental health.Climate change is already making us sick
November 2, 2017
The Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change report warns that “the symptoms of climate change have been clear for a number of years, with the health impacts far worse than previously understood.” These include increasing illness, injury and death from more frequent and intense heat, storms, floods, drought and wildfires, as well as the health fallout from crop damage and food insecurity, air pollution, water contamination, mass displacement and migration, and changing patterns of infectious diseases from animals and insects. The diagnosis is grim, the symptoms are worsening and no one is immune, says Dr. Courtney Howard, lead author of an accompanying Canadian policy brief. Global temperatures are set to rise up to 4.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, a level which would be disastrous beyond our ability to adapt. “This is about our survival, flat out, our survival to 2100 and beyond,” Howard says.What's the defining health challenge of this century? A group of doctors says it's actually climate change
November 2, 2017
What's the defining health challenge of this century? Heart disease? Superbugs? A group of doctors says it's actually climate change.Telecommuting key to better health, environment: report
November 2, 2017
Researchers from around the world, including Canada, have begun reporting annually in The Lancet medical journal about the world's response to climate change and the effect on human health, and Trevor Hancock — a professor of public health at the University of Victoria — is in Ottawa for the release of the Canadian data and recommendations.Chu and Elliott: Why no needle and syringe program in our federal prisons, Mr. Trudeau?
November 1, 2017
Implementing prison-based needle and syringe programs has been recommended by the Correctional Investigator of Canada, Canadian Human Rights Commission, Canadian Public Health Association, Canadian Nurses Association, Canadian and Ontario Medical Associations, World Health Organization, UNAIDS and UN Office on Drugs and Crime.Ottawa beefs up public-awareness campaign on marijuana
November 1, 2017
Ian Culbert, the executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association, said Canadians must become at ease when they talk about cannabis and discuss potential negative effects with their children. "The prohibition model currently in place in Canada has severely hampered health promotion and harm-reduction efforts. The only message we had at our disposal was, 'Just say no,' and clearly that has failed," he told the committee in September. "It is our view that legal cannabis sales must therefore be preceded by comprehensive, non-judgmental, non-stigmatizing health-promotion campaigns across Canada that have a clear and consistent message."Marijuana impairment will be difficult to prove and prosecute
October 31, 2017
In 2006, The Canadian Public Health Association made 55,000 copies of this poster and sent them out to high schools across the country to warn students against toking and driving. "With a drug that’s ingested in gummies, cookies, inhaled in many different ways, and available in all manner of potencies, good luck giving users any sense of how much is too much or how long they need to wait before they are competent to get behind the wheel," writes Ian Cooper.Critics see fishy timing in Liberal plan to make top health officer 'independent'
October 19, 2017
"It's somewhat of an empty victory for the health of New Brunswickers," said Ian Culbert, the executive director of the Canadian Public Health Association, which has objected to the reorganization. "You're giving an officer of the legislature some responsibility, but they have no authority and no resources. So it's really creating an empty office at the end of the day."Top health bureaucrat calls overhaul of public health a 'straight resource issue'
October 13, 2017
In August, the province announced it was "enhancing" the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health by transferring several functions to other departments. The association's executive director, Ian Culbert, told CBC News that "it just doesn't make sense to us to break up a public health team." "We have serious concerns about what could happen to normal services for public health activities in the province, but also what could happen if there was an emergency."National public health group has 'serious concerns' about N.B. restructuring
October 13, 2017
A national public health organization says changes the New Brunswick government made to the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health don't make sense. The Canadian Public Health Association published an open letter to Health Minister Benoît Bourque outlining its concerns. "We are concerned that the announced changes to the organization of the Office of the Chief Medical Officer of Health may result in a reduction in the level and efficiency of services provided to the citizens of New Brunswick," says the letter published on the association's website.