Sex, scandal and scapegoats: Canada’s blood donation policy for sex workers

On May 27, 2022, Canadian Blood Services—the non-profit that manages Canada’s blood supply outside of Quebec—announced that the lifetime ban on blood donation for those who have traded sex for money would be reduced to one year pending approval from Health Canada. Their questionnaire has recently been updated to reflect this decision. They claim current evidence and available testing technology do not support the lifetime ban policy. This policy review came on the heels of outrage and criticism on Twitter in late 2021 by sex workers who had faced discrimination when trying to donate blood. Addressing discrimination on the basis...

Read more

Listening to communities: Lessons from the HIV/AIDS and monkeypox epidemics

Just over 40 years ago, clinicians recognized a rare form of pneumonia in a handful of otherwise healthy young men in Los Angeles. This cluster would soon become known as the “start” of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. In 2022, clinicians in sexual health clinics in Montreal reported the first cases of monkeypox in Canada. In both instances, however, affected communities were the first to know that something was up. In the years before HIV was identified, people who inject drugs talked of “junkie pneumonia” or “the dwindles”. Later, these were identified as AIDS-related complications. Early in our current global monkeypox outbreak, members...

Read more

How HIV self-testing can help to reach the undiagnosed in Canada

Increasing access to HIV testing is crucial in the efforts to eliminate HIV as a public health threat in Canada. Testing is the first step for people with HIV to be able to start life-saving treatment. It is also important for people to know their status (whether positive or negative) so that they can prevent passing or getting HIV. HIV self-tests are a low-barrier option that can increase uptake of HIV testing for people who may not otherwise access it. Canada has made progress in reaching more of the undiagnosed, but access to testing is inequitable Estimates recently released by...

Read more

We have eight years left

It’s been just over a month since I took the reins as CATIE’s new executive director, but the countdown is already on. We have less than eight years for Canada to eliminate HIV and hepatitis C as public health threats. In 1990, CATIE was founded as a treatment information hub for people living with HIV. Since then, the organization’s mandate has expanded, and we are now Canada’s knowledge broker for service providers working in HIV and hepatitis C prevention, testing, treatment and care. For most of CATIE’s history, an end goal to the epidemic has always seemed just out of...

Read more