er

‘Premier’s homophobia’ led
to denial of funds for AZT

The Social Credit government refuses
to fully fund an expensive but valuable
drug for sufferers of acquired immune
deficiency syndrome because the premier
hates homosexuals, an AIDS patients
coalition has declared.

“Tt’s just plain old homophobia,” said

Bill Ives, a spokesman for Vancouver’s
People With AIDS coalition.
- Coalition members have been joined by
media commentators and other organiza-
tions in condemning the Socreds’ refusal
to include the drug AZT, which helps
AIDS victims live longer and less stressful
lives, under the provincial medical plan.

The move will make some AIDS suffer-
ers pay up to $2,000 per year for the drug.
Under the plan the patients are charged
the first $300 and 20 per cent of the cost,
estimated for AZT to be $10,000 annually.

The new charge raises the possibility
that some AZT users who are working will
be forced to go on social assistance to
qualify for full government funding.

But Ives said some others may do with-
out the drug, which is dispersed through
Vancouver’s St. Pauls hospital. The hospi-
tal runs the province’s best AIDS care
service through its infectious diseases
clinic.

Ives said the coalition considers the
province as partly responsible for funding
the drug, manufactured by the U.S. firm,
Burroughs- Wellcome.

He said the initial understanding was
the firm, the federal and provincial
governments, and the hospital were to
jointly share the costs: of: the program
under which the drug is dispersed. AZT
has been considered an experimental drug,
which means it is non-prescription and is
distributed only to certain qualifying per-
sons, said Ives. ;

Under the change, effective April 1, the
drug was taken off the- experimental list
and is subject to the conditions of the
provincial Pharmacare plan.

Health Minister Peter Dueck announced
that AZT and a drug for organ transplant
patients, cyclosporin, would no longer be
fully covered by the province late last
month, shortly after the release of the pro-

VANDER ZALM ... decision on AZT funding based on premier’s own moral
‘standpoint.

vincial budget. Since then the government
has changed its mind on cyclosporin after
Dueck admitted there was public pressure
to do so.

Dueck initially said the AZT question
might also come up for review, but later
said the government was sticking by its
decision.

Vander Zalm outraged many by declar-
ing on his April 3 radio show that the
policy was needed because otherwise B.C.
might be flooded by AIDS patients from
other provinces and American states seek-
ing free use of the drug. :

But critics, such as NDP health critic
Lois Boone, pointed out that no other
province charges for AZT.

The B.C. Medical Association, the B.C.
Civil Liberties Association and other
groups have hit the decision, and the pro-

vincial Ombudsman’s office is investigat-

ing why one drug is fully funded while
AZT is not.

Ives, who like many people with AIDS
is on social assistance, said AZT recipients

were initially billed retroactivetolast July, |).

but later this was changed to March 1S. St.
Pauls, which has borne the cost of the

" program, bills the patients.

He said to his knowledge no one has yet
paid a bill, and probably will not.
“You can’t get blood from a stone,” he

said. :

AIDS patients are fighting the decision
through letter writing and speaking out on
the issue, Ives said.

“The whole problem of dealing with the
provincial government is stymied by the
strong prejudice by the premier and
Dueck against homosexuals,” he stated.

Debate on reproductive technology urgent, says NAC

A coalition of women’s and medical
reform groups has been formed to convince
the federal governme nt to appoint a royal
commission on the social implications of
‘new reproductive technologies, including
surrogate motherhood.

“What we are seeing is nothing less than a
revolution in reproduction. But do we, as a
society, want this revolution to continue
without limits?” asks Dr. Margrit Eichler, a
sociologist with the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education.

“Tt is imperative to begin to explore the
social issues surrounding the new technolo-
gies and to initiate a public debate over what
limits to place on them”; says Eichler, writ-
ing in the March issue of the National
Action Committee on the Status of
Women’s newsletter, Feminist Action.

Eichler says the reproductive technology
field has been dominated by male physi-
cians and legal experts, while women have
been excluded from an issue which has tre-
mendous implications for them.

“The coalition wants women to play a
major role in a royal commission. Women
should be the majority of the commission,
and it should be headed by a woman
“whose expertise and sensitivities lie with

the social rather than the legal or medical
implications of these new technologies.”
The “test-tube baby” — the name given
to the process of in vitro fertilization wher-
eby an egg is fertilized outside the body and

. then implanted in the uterus — has only

been around for 10 years. But already the
field of reproductive technology has moved
at astonishing speed, and with it important
social, legal and medical implications.

The issue grabbed public attention last

& Science is moving faster than
our ability to grapple with the
social implications these new

technologies present.9

year in the “Baby M” case, when Mary Beth
Whitehead lost custody of her child, con-
ceived by artificial insemination under a
“surrogate mother” contract.

“A child conceived through a variety of
artificial technologies can have as many as
five different ‘parents’,” Eichler notes. “The
sperm donor, the egg donor, the gestational
mother and the parents who rear the child.”

In the coming year scientists will begin
the first human trials involving gene ther-

apy.

“Tt is clear that science is moving faster
than our ability to grapple with the social
implications these new technologies pres-
ent,” she adds.

The coalition proposes a set of principles
around which future policies and legislation
could be enacted:

® Each reproductive technology needs to
be evaluated separately with respect to its
overall social desirability.

© The safest, simplest techniques should

- be employed before others are tried.

@ The individual has the sole right to
accept or refuse treatment affecting repro-
duction.

© Criteria as to what constitutes informed
consent and decision-making must be deve-
loped and enforced.

@ Profit-making in reproductive arran-
gements should be outlawed.

© Semen, eggs and embryos should only
be used with the explicit informed consent
of the donors.

e@ Compulsory, short and long-term
follow-up of reproductive technologies
should be carried out.

@ Everybody has the right to an envir-
onment free of agents which cause infertil-
ity.

NAC wants defence
paper withdrawn

- OTTAWA — Canada’s largest wom-
en’s organization has called on the fed-
eral government to withdraw the
Department of Defence White Paper
issued last fall. A letter sent to Prime
Minister Brian Mulroney by Louise
Delude, president of the National Action
Committee on the Status of Women,
called the paper inappropriate “‘in light
of the new spirit of co-operation between
the USSR and the U.S.”

NAC took particular issue with the
deployment of nuclear-powered subma-
rines. ““We believe (they) endanger the
fragile ecosystem and violate the spirit, if
not the letter of the Non-Proliferation
Treaty. The cost of one submarine could
‘radically improve life for the one million
Canadian children who live below the
poverty line.

“We do not believe that more wea-
pons make us more secure,” the letter
said. ““We prefer non-provocative defence
and nuclear-free areas, particularly a
nuclear-free Arctic verified by all the
Arctic nations.”

Railways abandon
Atlantic Canada

MONCTON — The federal govern-
ment’s attempted buy-off of redundant

| workers at the CN rail shop here came

under fire in the House of Commons last
week. A total of 1,200 jobs will be lost in
‘Moncton and‘a’ further 600° will disap-
pear when the Newfoundland Railway
closes.

Closing the shops and paying out $225
million in pensions and severance pay to
long-term employees at the Moncton
yards has been called ‘‘gross misman-
agement at CN and gross mismanage-
ment by the government of the national
interest” by St. John’s East MP Jack —
Harris.

In the House, Harris called on the
government to “prevent CN from
downgrading service to the point that the
only course of action is to auction off the
Atlantic Region to the private sector ...
He demanded that Ottawa force CN to
spend the $250 million it will pay out to
idle workers on the creation of jobs, not
their destruction.”

Planned Parenthood
goes on offensive

TORONTO — As bible belt back-
benchers wave petitions and rise in the
House demanding new laws to outlaw
abortion, the Planned Parenthood Fed-
eration went on the offensive last week-
end with a full page ad in the Globe and
Mail. The best way to reduce unwanted

_pregnancies and abortion is to provide
better education and clinical services, the
ad said.

The federal government recently cut
funding to the organization under pres-
sure from the anti-choice lobby. Kam-
loops MP Nelson Riis rose in the —
Commons to demand the government
meet its financial commitments to the
group.

Riis was proceeded by Bow River MP
Gordon Taylor who challenged MPs to
be “courageous enough to base a new
(abortion) law on biblical teaching. If

that is contrary to the Charter of Rights, —
then change the Charter of Rights,” he

added.

Pacific Tribune, April 13, 1988 « 5