And Speaking of Paternalism . . .

In an example of breathtaking bureaucratic paternalism, Health Canada apparently withheld supplies of hand for remote native reserves during the recent swine flu outbreak because it feared the abuse of the alcohol based compound. As a report in yesterday's Globe & Mail notes

Kim Barker, public health adviser for the Assembly of First Nations, told the Senate committee on aboriginal peoples she was “devastated” when she first heard that health officials were spending precious time debating the wisdom of sending hand sanitizer – which can contain up to 70-per-cent alcohol – to the communities.

“We heard that ... people were spending days discussing the pros and cons of a non-alcohol-based hand sanitizer versus an alcohol-based one because of the concerns about addictions in communities,” she said. “It was absolutely outrageous.”

A senior health official confirmed to the committee that chiefs and public-health officials debated the sanitizer issue at length in the nascent stages of the outbreak last month. “The discussion was with the best interests of our clients in mind,” said Anne-Marie Robinson, assistant deputy minister of Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch. “We have had some rare experiences in our communities where we have had theft of hand sanitizers. … We do have communities where we have large proportions of people who suffer from addiction. … We have had a number of people come forward, and some evidence, where this could potentially put people at risk.”

During late May and early June, the mild flu outbreak erupted into a full-blown crisis on several of Manitoba's remote fly-in reserves. Dozens of flu-stricken aboriginals had to be flown from a collection of towns in the Island Lake region, 600 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, and several were hooked up to respirators. At one point, two-thirds of all flu victims on respirators in the province were aboriginal.

What can I say?