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6 — Wednesday, October 9, 1991 - North Shore News

SERGE

NEWS VIEWPOINT
AIDS awareness

T’S truly pitiful when non-profit

groups have to spend precious funds

on fancy press packages zo get atten-
tion, especially when their work can mean
the difference between life and deati.

This week (Oct. 7-13) is AIDS
Awareness Week, and the message orga-
nizers are stressing is that AIDS ‘“‘is our
chailenge for life.”’

It is a disease that does not limit itself to
a specific sex or lifestyle; it is a disease
that is not just the responsibility of an ex-
clusive group; it is a disease that affects us
ali.

AIDS has been with us for more than 10
years mow, but calls to local AIDS
helplines suggest an alarming number of us

are dangerously ignorant about the disease.

A decade and 3,200 Canadian deaths in-
to the epidemic, the media must share in
the responsibility for that ignorance.

Yes, there have heen storics about
AiDS, but they’ve largely been sensational
or have given the impression that the
disease is content to stay within the con-
fines of the homosexual community.

They haven't, for the most part, given a
sense of whis: it’s like to live and die with
AIDS, nor fzve they adequately outlined
the changes required to fight the disease
and care for taose aiready afflicted.

Simply put, we need to be aware of how
AIDS affects all of us, not just during a
week-long campaign, but 52 weeks a year.

LETTER OF THE DAY
‘Taxpayer becomes the victim

of extra government programs

Dear Editor:

I would like to set the record
straight cn a few points.
_Alcohoi is a drug, and a
damaging drug to the fetus; one
ounce.of alcohol, when it crosses
over the placenta, leaves the fetus
totally intoxicated. These children
are born with mental retardation
and birth defects. Needless to say
these same children will have
many more problems with learn-
ing and social skills. Some fail
through the- cracks and become
wards of the penal system.

The Canadian Medical Associa-

tion has been trying since 1979 to
have alcohol labelled in Canada.
The alcoholic beverage makers in
Canada label for the American
market, why not for the Canadian
market? Are Canadians less wor-
thy than Americans? There are a
fot of missing answers here. Try
asking the honorable Benoit
Bouchard why we do not label our
products. .

Education is the name of the
game. Labelling ali alcoholic bev-
erages gives both men and women
the opportunity to make an
educated choice. Pregnant w omen

never drink alone, and all children
have the right to be born healthy
and intelligent. Some will not have
this choice due to their mothers’
abuse of alcohol during pregnan-
cy.

It is the taxpayer who becomes
the victim of all the programs that
governments have in place to deal
with this problem. Yes, we
become our brothers’ and sisters’
keepers.

Labelling does not infringe on a
woman’s right to drink. But
children have rights too.

Joy E. Gilmore Burnaby

Publisher ....Peter Speck
Managing Editor... Timothy Renshaw
Associate Editor Noel Wright
Advertising Director .. Linda Stewart
Comptroller . Doug Foot
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Entire contents © 1991 North Shore Free Press Lid. All rights reserved.

Elimmate the
‘middle maw
in transplants

THE ADVANCE of medica! technology and in particular
organ transplantation, brings sharply into focus the role of
a much reviled economic agent, the so-called middle man.

We all have our favorite story
about a ne’er-do-well middle man.
Historically the most notable such
figure was the grain agent who
bought wheat from the farmer
cheap and sold it to the miller or
consumer at a much higher price
thus profiting at the expense of
both the farmer and the con-
sumer.

it goes without saying that my
own view is that the middle man
serves a very useful function. He
brings together the consumer and
the producer and for rendering
this service, both pay him.

Emmanuel Thorne in a recent
article in the journal The Public
Interest, draws a picture of an en-
tirely different kind of middle
man who is performing no useful
function and indeed is a creature
of the failure of governments to
adopt a sensible policy with regard
to the economics of organ
transplantation.

The particular issue in focus for
Mr. Thorne is the problem of
bone marrow transplantation.
Thorne asserts that more than
9,000 children and young adults
die in the United States each year

Wright

of diseases that could be cured by
marrow transplants. The problem
is that law prohibits profiting
from dealing in organs, and that
includes bone marrow.

In consequence the search for
transplantable marrow is reliant
on altruism and in a very peculiar
way upon a middle man who ab-
sorbs a considerable amount of
resources without providing for
effective provision of the marrow,

As Thorne describes it, the sit-
uation is that an individual seek-
ing bone marrow at the moment
may not approach their fellow cit-
izens and offer a certain amount
of money for the provision of
marrow of the appropriate kind,
even though it is clear that such
an offer may result in the person
getting the marrow they so badly
need

However, a considerable
amount of money is spent in the
attempt to bring together prospec-

By Michael Walker
Contributing Writer

tive donors and the person who
needs the marrow. In fact hun-
dreds of thousands of dollars are
spent in advertising, in travel, in
other ways to attempt to cajole
donors to provide the patient with
the marrow that he or she needs.

From the point of view of the
relationship between the donor
and the patient, all of these activi-
lies represent middle man activi-
ties. That is still true even if the
money that is used for this pur-
pose is raised altruistically by a
non-profit organization.

If a aon-profit organization, of
which there are quite a number
already, raises money to advertise
to convince people to enrol volun-
tarily in a donor program, in ef-
fect the donor and the providers
of the fund are relying indirectly
on payment to get the donor to
contribute.

In the case of most economic
functions the middle man at least
takes moncy from the final con-

on vacation

sumer and delivers most of that
money to the producer of the
goods or service in order to
achieve a desired result for both
the producer and for the person
who needs the goods or the ser-
vice,

In the case of organ transplan-
tation, an:] bone marrow
transplantation in particular, the
middle man (in the form of the
advertising media, etc.) serves to
dissipate the resources which are
made available — resources which
might, if they were made directly
available to donors, greatly in-
crease the supply of usable mar-
row and greatly increase the
number of lives which could be
saved by this marvelous technique.

Dr. Michael Walker is the
director of the Fraser Institute, a
right-wing economic think tank
based in Vancouver.

"NEWS photo Nell Lucente

PARK ROYAL. manager Per Danielscn explains some of the pro-

posed $20 million upgrading plans to
* model located in the mail.

Park Roya! on a scale