how they do us

how they do us I was a director on the Vancouver/Richmond health board which was at the executive level run by wealthy white racist guys 'racist' because 3 First Nations' women on the board were marginalized ignored insulted and resigned anyway the Downtown Eastside was in flames with epidemics among impoverished drug users who had the highest rate of hiv infections in the western world and more health money had been spent dealing with a dozen bee sting reactions on the UBC campus than on the vast misery and deaths of the epidemics then I attended a meeting with the top health officials from across the province and the money guy for the health board drew a pyramid on a blackboard depicting the rising hiv rate and the point at which 'saturation' would be reached and then the rate of new hiv infections would naturally decrease (until it would sometime later rise again) but at the point of saturation with fewer new infections the health board could say it successfully reduced hiv without the board having to do anything or spend any more money on the hiv epidemic actually “pandemic” which means out of control with no end in sight I EXPLODED OUT OF MY CHAIR and ripped into that bureaucratic deception for what it was – a form of genocide “genocide” was coined and defined by Rafael Lempkin who declared genocide wasn't the number of people killed but any group targeted for destruction like vulnerable drug users in the Downtown Eastside eventually I was able against board executive pressure and more skullduggery to have a motion passed declaring Vancouver's First Public Health Emergency which forced money loose for several initiatives but this is merely one example of how THEY do us Bud Osborn