Friday, January 18, 2008

The Fabrication of a Crisis

More Notes From Underground caught this fascinating interview on As It Happens last night. Seems they got an email from Dr. Tom Perry, a doctor and former B.C. cabinet minister, who is calling into question Gary Lunn's assertion that "lives were at stake" because of a shortage of isotopes. The interview is about 13 minutes into Part One of the program.

He points out that doctors can generally get the same information from CAT scans and other diagnostic tests as one can from those using radio isotopes, and that most hospitals have some sort of contingency plan. He also suggests that parliament actually examine the "numerous letters" Lunn received from medical professionals urging him to take immediate action to see if they actually give any coherent evidence that there was a life-threatening crisis.

He even goes so far as to suggest that Parliament consider that these medical professionals might have had a financial motivation to exaggerate the crisis, given that they all work on a fee-for-service basis, so if there are no isotopes...

Nah! They wouldn't do that, would they?

Coincidentally, about 20 minutes in there's an interview with that McDonald Dettwiler employee who quit in protest over the sale of the Canadarm branch to American arms manufacturer ATK.

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