Release Date
Geography
Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
This commentary discusses the report commissioned by the Alberta government in 2019 to review the socioeconomic impacts of seven supervised consumption services in the province. The report’s findings have been used to justify decisions that jeopardize the health and well-being of people who use drugs both in Canada and internationally.
Findings/Key points
This provincial report is fundamentally methodologically flawed, with a high risk of biases that critically undermine its authors’ assessment of the scientific evidence. Although touted as a rigorous review of SCS across the province, the panel’s 2020 report fits the following criteria associated with pseudoscience: (a) outcome reporting bias; (b) measurement bias; (c) confirmation bias; and (d) lack of independent peer review.
Governments must ensure that future assessments of public health measures to address drug toxicity deaths are scientifically sound and methodologically rigorous. Health policy must be based on the best available evidence, protect the right of structurally vulnerable populations to access healthcare, and not be contingent on favourable public opinion or prevailing political ideology.
