Sam Killermann’s Genderbread Person

On April 29, B.C.’s Maple Ridge-Mission MLA voted against allowing people to change their gender designation on their birth certificate if they haven’t had gender reassignment surgery.

Bill 17 was first introduced March 10. Maple Ridge-Mission MLA Marc Dalton voted against Section 115, saying, “My concern is it might lead to more self-acceptance issues with young people.” In the past, Dalton has called homosexuality a moral issue, like pornography, adultery, gambling and abortion as well as promoting a church that aims to cure homosexuality in the legislature.

Perhaps Dalton should read GLAAD’s tips for allies of transgender people: “It wouldn’t be appropriate to ask a non-transgender person about the appearance or status of their genitalia, so it isn’t appropriate to ask a transgender person that question either.”

Gender and sex can be independent from each other. As the World Health Organization explains, “sex” refers to a person’s biological and physiological characteristics, where “gender” is about socially constructed roles; what a society sees as masculine or feminine behaviours. Things like sexual orientation are not dependent on an individual’s gender; a transgender person, for instance, is not automatically gay.

Dalton doesn’t get it, and probably never will. Gender, like sexual orientation, is not a choice. As teacher and staff liaison for the gay-straight alliance at Thomas Haney Secondary, Kathryn Ferguson, says: “Thank you, Mr. Dalton, for reminding me why we do need gay-straight alliance groups in the public school system.”

Yesterday Canadian economics blogger Mike Moffatt posted his thoughts about the costs of reducing the murder rate by 30 percent through water treatment. The post was based on a Big Think article that studied correlations between higher lithium amounts in public drinking water and drops in suicides and violent crime rates.

Lithium, a mood-booster, is used as psychotropic treatment against bipolar disorder. The theory, in a nutshell, is that giving the public a little bit of lithium makes us all a little more mentally stable.

The idea’s met some outcry. Aside from the ethical issues surrounding mental health, the Big Think author notes that lithium is known to be more powerful than fluoride, with greater chances of side effects.

But lithium isn’t the only substance that can be added to public drinking water. Thiamine has been proposed as a means of eradicating Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome among alcoholics. And the use of fluoride has repeatedly caused a stir.

After six decades of fluoride use in public water supplies, there is still little scientific consensus on the issue.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention listed fluoridation of drinking water among 10 great public health achievements of the last century. At a a price near one dollar per citizen each year, the U.S. surgeon general has lauded fluoridation for its cost-effectiveness. More than 65 percent of the population uses fluoridated water.

But WHO data shows little-to-no difference in oral hygiene between countries who chose whether to fluoridate public water. WHO only advocates fluoridation for countries with poor health infrastructure, and removal of fluoride from water sources with too much of the substance.

Most European countries, western and eastern, started fluoridating until the ’70s and ’90s, respectively. Some countries now fluoridate salt or even milk instead, and toothpaste with fluoride has been prevalent since the 1970’s.

This month, the U.S. government proposed lowering the amount of fluoride added to public water for the first time in almost 50 years over increasing rates of fluorosis among children.

Fluoridation gained prevalence in the Western world in the 1950s, decades after researches studied a lower rate of cavities in areas where water sources are naturally rich in fluoride. Under the red threat, paranoid Americans rallied against fluoridation, calling it a communist plot to undermine public health and brainwash the population. Some today even argue that fluoridation violates Nuremberg laws forbidding human experimentation.

Fluoridation has often been controversial in Canada. Anti-fluoridation activists often point to research claiming a correlation with everything from lower IQ scores to diminishing thyroid hormone levels. Communities across Canada debate fluoridation every few years, a trend that’s existed since fluoridaiton began in Canada.

In recent years, research on humans and rats has proposed a link between fluoride and childhood osteosarcoma in boys, a rare bone cancer that killed Terry Fox and often leads to amputations. The Canadian Cancer Society notes that these claims are heavily contested and require further study. Conflicting research suggests long-time exposure to fluoride may not increase the risk of osteosarcoma. When fluoride is ingested, half the substance is absorbed by the bones and accumulates over time.

In a November referendum in Waterloo, Ontario, 50.3 percent voted against continuing fluoridation. Last week, the Calgary Herald published an editorial calling for an end to fluoridation. The city is considering doing away with its aging fluoridation equipment, which would cost $6 million to replace.

A 2009 Health Canada report found that 43 percent of Canadians use fluoridated tap water. Water quality falls under provincial jursidiction and fluoride usage in Canada varies by region, with Ontario clocking in at almost 76 percent fluoridation, a number that drops to 6.4 percent in Quebec and 3.7 for British Columbians.

Health Canada recommends 0.7 parts per million fluoride to water, the same level now being proposed in the U.S. Toronto’s fluoride level was reduced from 1.2 p.p.m. to 0.8 p.p.m. In 1999, then to 0.6 p.p.m. in 2005.

[Creative Commons Water photograph by Flickr user visualpanic]

Safe, affordable midwives are in demand, but a lack of education and funding forces healthy mothers into hospitals. Creative Commons Photo by Dave Haygarth.

It wasn’t until the early 1900s that it became “normal” to have a baby under the watch of an obstetrician in a hospital. But over the last few decades, childbirth has become an increasingly complicated, medicalized affair, with more inductions, surgeries, and drugs than ever before. The advancements have saved many otherwise dangerous deliveries, but it can also traumatize healthy mothers who would otherwise be fine on their own. Cesarean sections are increasingly common, for instance: Canada’s current C-section rate is 28 percent. The World Health Organization says it should be closer to 15.

Modern hospital-based childbirth, says Tonia Occhionero, Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Midwives, could result in a “cascade of interventions.” Sometimes there’s a temptation to use every tool available, even if that’s not always the best option. An unnecessary induction of labour, for example, can produce a snowball effect, with medical interventions accumulating, quickly complicating low-risk births into higher-risk ones.

According to the Canadian Association of Midwives, 70 to 80 percent of women could deliver on their own without complications and would therefore benefit from midwife supervised delivery at home, in a special birthing centre (only in Quebec) or even at a hospital. But health-care providers have been slow on the uptake.

“There are a lot of misconceptions about what a midwife is,” says Occhionero. “But how can we expect the general public to understand when midwifery still manages to be left out of Health Canada’s literature?”

But even without promotion of midwifery, more women are rejecting the assembly-line hospital birth—demand for midwives far outruns supply. There are only 850 midwives across Canada, 435 of whom are in Ontario, the first province where the profession was regulated in 1994. Ten percent of Ontario births are attended by midwife—but 40 percent of women who request a midwife cannot get one. With only six university programs offering certification, the shortage persists.

Occhionero says that situation will continue this way until schools add midwife training, which despite its earth-mother reputation is a highly professionalized four-year baccalaureate degree.

“It’s very regulated,” says Occhionero. “Not just anybody goes around catching babies.”

Microscopic image of Asbestos. Despite being banned here, Canada remains the West's biggest exporter of the deadly mineral.

Over the past two decades, Canada has spent millions stripping asbestos from the walls and ceilings of schools, the Parliament Buildings, and hospitals. The national outcry against asbestos has led to some government restrictions on its use and production, causing many Canadians to believe its heyday is over. Yet while the government has put effort into stamping out asbestos use at home, it’s put even more into boosting its use abroad.

In recent years, Canada has become the biggest western supporter of the asbestos trade. Kathleen Ruff, founder and coordinator of Right On Canada’s anti-asbestos campaign, says she believes the government’s success hinges on its ability to use Canada’s credibility as a marketing tool: “We use our reputation of helping others to oppose an international ban on asbestos and to fight the knowledge that asbestos is hazardous.”

For many, however, it’s no secret asbestos is dangerous. To date, asbestos is recognized as a carcinogen and is banned in all 27 European Union member countries, Australia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Chile, and Japan. Not so in Canada, where politicians have repeatedly defied calls for a global asbestos ban from the World Health Organization, the Canadian Cancer Society, and the International Labour Organization.

Indeed, between 1999 and 2001, Canada’s government spent about $575,000 appealing France’s 1997 asbestos ban, only to have the World Trade Organization uphold it. Undeterred, in 2004 Canada successfully spearheaded a coalition of naysayers—Indonesia, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Russia, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe—to block the addition of asbestos to the Rotterdam Convention, a chemical watchdog list.

Certainly, the Canadian government has a vested interest in keeping the asbestos trade alive. More than 240,000 tonnes of asbestos is mined each year in Quebec, 95 percent of which is shipped outside the country, making Canada the fourth largest exporter of asbestos in the world. The main destinations for Canadian asbestos are countries such as India and Pakistan, where safety regulations surrounding asbestos handling and use are either sparse or non-existent.

For Ruff, exporting asbestos is akin to exporting landmines: both continue to kill for decades. “Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent to remove asbestos from buildings, schools, and hospitals around Canada,” she says. “There are huge costs associated with getting rid of asbestos once it’s in place and developing countries have none of that—they have no means of getting rid of it safely.”