ACTIVISTS CLAIM POLITICAL INTERFERENCE SUPPRESSED INJECTION STUDY RESULTS

A group of advocates acting on behalf of narcotics users said
Thursday that political interference has led to the suppression of
results of a study that would have made significant improvements in
the addicts' lives.

Pivot Legal Society campaign director David Eby said his group has
video footage showing a North American Opiate Medication Initiative
(NAOMI) researcher presenting some of the trial's findings -- many of
which showed the beneficial effects of supervised heroin and dilaudid
injections -- at a conference in Switzerland last month.

"We want Providence Health Care to tell us why these results were
released in Switzerland and not domestically," Eby said.

Advocates from the Pivot Legal Society, the Vancouver Area Network of
Drug Users (VANDU) and the Life Is Not Enough Society announced they
will file a complaint with Providence Health Care on the ethics of
what they said is the suppression of the findings of the NAOMI trial.
But researchers from NAOMI trials denied politics are involved. NAOMI
drug trial spokeswoman Julie Schneiderman said the study's findings
were neither suppressed nor released, because they're not ready.

A statement for NAOMI researchers stated: "We expect to finalize and
deliver this report to Health Canada next week and have planned to
release the results publicly on October 17."

Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research, NAOMI researchers
began enrolling participants in February 2005 and completed
recruitment for its clinical research in April 2007. The study was
completed in June and the primary findings of the trials will be
released next Friday.

Those results were supposed to be released in Canada Sept. 17, but
were suppressed until after the federal election, Eby said.

"The concern was that the research was done in the Downtown Eastside,
and the money came from the Canadian government. The findings are not
something that are consistent with the platforms that are currently
being put forward by the federal government."

The $8-million study was conducted with the participation of 190
addicts in Vancouver to examine the impact that prescription
narcotics would have on their lives. Forty-five per cent of the
participants were prescribed methadone orally; 45 per cent were
prescribed injectable heroin. In a double-blind study, 10 per cent
were prescribed hydromorphone (dilaudid). Sixty-six people in
Montreal also participated in the research.

According to documents from the Pivot Legal Society released
Thursday, the trial found that people on heroin, dilaudid or
methadone therapy showed significant health improvements. Those on
heroin and dilaudid were twice as likely as double-blind subjects to
stay in treatment, refrain from criminal behaviour and gradually move
off the drug altogether.

Since one of researchers who contributed to the project is based at
St. Paul's Hospital, it was examined through Providence Health Care's
ethics review board, and the activists' complaint is not directed at
Providence Health Care, said Providence Health Care spokesman Shaf Hussain.