Category: Advocacy, Policy, Public Health

Substance Use News: April

BC’s Public Health Crisis at One Year: The Overdose Epidemic The provincial government has released a report following up on Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall’s announcement of a public health crisis on April 14, 2016. BC’s Opioid Overdose Response: One-Year Update (April 13, 2017)  summarizes efforts in seven key areas: Immediate response to an… Read more »

Pacific Hepatitis C Network is very happy to learn that effective March 21, an extensive list of hepatitis C treatments will be available through BC PharmaCare – at far better prices than they previously had been. The high cost of hepatitis C treatment has effectively restricted the numbers of people living with hepatitis C who… Read more »

Community Action Initiative – 2017 MHSU Survey

Community Action Initiative is inviting all community organizations in BC that provide some form of mental health and / or substance use services to participate in our new 2017 Community Mental Health and Substance Use Sector Survey. We need your help to build upon results from the 2016 survey (results are available here). Findings from… Read more »

Jennifer Evin Jones (Evin) joined Pacific AIDS Network as the Executive Director (ED) in 2008. Evin has been working in the community-based response to HIV since January of 1996, after obtaining a Bachelor’s degree in History in Women’s Studies at Queens University and the Juris Doctor (or Doctor of Law) degree at University of British… Read more »

Beginning this September, British Columbia will become the latest province to provide the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination to boys, as part of B.C.’s publicly funded immunization program, Health Minister Terry Lake announced on January 6, 2017. “We need to do everything we can to help girls and boys grow up to be healthy adults,” said… Read more »

December 01, 2016 (Ottawa, ON) – Department of Justice Canada The Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, today issued the following statement: World AIDS Day is a time to reflect on the impact that HIV/AIDS has had on Canadians, and to give thanks to the many dedicated people who work… Read more »

On October 20 and 21, people living with HIV, community workers, lawyers and academics from across the country met in Toronto to officially launch the new Canadian Coalition to Reform HIV Criminalization. The Coalition was founded by a group of Canadians and representatives of Canadian organizations who met at the HIV Is Not A Crime… Read more »

HepCBC – Link to Final Edition of HepC.Bull – Summer 2016

Hope you will enjoy HepCBC’s SUMMER, 2016 hepc.bull newsletter. This is our LAST NEWSLETTER to you in this format as we are transitioning to sending all of our news out via our website, Facebook site, and You Tube Channel. It’s been over 20 years, and we are so proud of what our bulletin has accomplished and the many lives it has touched,… Read more »

The victims of Canada’s tainted blood scandal, those involved in the 1986-1990 Hepatitis C Settlement Agreement, have won their court case against the Attorney General of Canada. The settlement claimants will now share the $207 million remaining compensation fund surplus. Instead of being returned to the government, most of the remaining surplus will now go… Read more »

While media headlines focus on individuals prosecuted for alleged HIV non-disclosure, we know that the impacts of criminalizing HIV non-disclosure go far beyond those who are formally charged. I was therefore delighted to learn in April that our 3-year community-based research (CBR) proposal to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research had been approved. Titled “Women… Read more »