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 Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 5:10 pm Post subject: Fort Chipewyan rejects Alberta Cancer Board study |
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http://www.cbc.ca/canada/edmonton/story/2008/11/10/fort-chip-study.html
Fort Chipewyan rejects Alberta Cancer Board study
Monday, November 10, 2008
A study by the Alberta Cancer Board into cancer rates in Fort Chipewyan
will not be the comprehensive probe promised, area health officials and
community leaders say.
Officials in the northern Alberta community publicly rejected the study>s
findings Monday before they have even been released. The results are
expected to be made public sometime this fall.
"We said from the start with the original study two years ago that not
only did the community need to be engaged throughout but that the
methodology originally employed needed to change," Fred Fraser, president
of the Fort Chipewyan Métis local association, said in a news release.
"There was no consideration to look at methods that would be consistent
with the health board>s wishes."
"We are extremely disappointed with the cancer board. It>s our opinion
that the current draft study is an identical product of the original one,
which we also rejected for a number of reasons, including the fact that it
was incomplete," Mikisew Cree Chief Roxanne Marcel said in the same
release.
"This is further commentary that Fort Chipewyan shouldn>t trust government
on providing accurate information on anything related to tarsands
development and its impacts downstream."
The cancer board promised to involve the community in the study, which was
launched in May 2008 to investigate long-standing concerns that cancer
rates in the area appear to be higher than average.
"They just didn>t include us. Bottom line, I haven>t seen the team come up
here. They haven>t come to the community to actually meet with the elders
or to get some feedback from the community," Steve Courtoreille, chairman
of the Nunee Health Region, which is in charge of health care in the
region, said last week.
Courtoreille said cancer board officials only visited Fort Chipewyan to
announce the start of the study, and returned only when it was complete.
A community of about 1,200 located 300 kilometres north of Fort McMurray,
Fort Chipewyan is downstream from many oilsands projects, and residents
believe something in their drinking water is causing cancer.
Dr. Michel Sauve, president of the Fort McMurray Medical Association,
whose members treat people in Fort Chipewyan, said the researchers may
have missed part of the picture.
By examining only cases that are in the Alberta Cancer Board>s registry,
the study misses many cases in Fort Chipewyan because, he said, people who
die at home in a community that is only accessible by air most of the year
aren>t included in the registry.
"It could be missing as much as half of the cases of cancer.… The study
design needs to consider all cases of cancers," he said.
Sauve said the doctor who flies into the community is the only person who
was contacted by researchers, and that individual is relatively new to the
community. No other members of his association were contacted, he said.
The doctor who first raised concerns about Fort Chipewyan cancer rates,
the area>s former physician and medical examiner, Dr. John O>Connor,
wasn>t consulted either.
Sauve wonders what purpose the study is actually serving.
"Is this going to be a story of PR and somewhat falsely reassuring people
or is this going to be solid scientific evidence?" he said.
CBC News has learned that Lee Elliott, the director of communications for
the Alberta Cancer Board, is listed as co-investigator on the study. There
is one principal investigator and six co-investigators, according to a
document obtained by CBC News.
But on CBC Radio>s Wildrose Country on Monday, Dr. Tony Fields,
vice-president of medical affairs and community oncology for the Alberta
Cancer Board, said Elliott was never an investigator on the study.
"She was invited to be an investigator by Dr. [Yiqun] Chen, the lead
investigator," Fields said. "Dr. Chen had gone as far as to list her as
such on the submission for ethics review before she had heard from Lee
[Elliott] and Lee had declined."
"[Elliott] is our communications point person, and she is a member of the
working group that was the oversight committee on the study, but she was
never an investigator," he said.
Fields said the results of the study will be subject to peer review. The
draft report of the study has been sent to six experts from four countries
to get feedback.
Fields said the investigators will analyze the commetns, and incorporate
any suggestions they make.
"We have taken this study very, very seriously, and we want to do as good
and thorough a scientific study as possible," he said.
Study the latest in a decade-long battle for Fort Chipewyan
People in Fort Chipewyan have demanded a study into their concerns for
nearly a decade.
In March 2006, a study by O>Connor led him to believe the community>s
cancer rates were disproportionately high.
A followup report by Alberta Health found that while the numbers were
high, they did not match those stated by O>Connor and were not high enough
to cause concern.
O>Connor said that report was inadequate. It was completed over the course
of a few weeks and researchers said they were missing some key data.
O>Connor also noted that neither he nor any members of the community were
involved in the analysis.
The doctor>s report and a formal complaint Health Canada filed against him
for allegedly causing undue alarm garnered media attention around the
world, including from Al Jazeera and the New York Times.
Environmental groups have also used the community>s high disease rates to
fuel their arguments for halting oil development.
The federal and provincial governments said the fears were unfounded and
there was no need for a study.
But two years later, officials decided a thorough review was needed. |
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