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IMMEDIATE RELEASE Safe Injection Advocates Interrupt Health Minister Urging Visit to Insite WASHINGTON, DC(July 20, 2012)Canadian Federal Minister of Health and Conservative MP for Nunavut Leona Aglukkaq was interrupted today as she spoke in the Regional Session on USA and Canada at the International AIDS Conference in Washington, DC. The Minister - whose inaction and complacency on harm reduction and AIDS prevention issues have earned her vocal criticism from health professionals throughout the conference - was urged by Vancouver-based health and addictions worker Clare Hacksel to visit Insite, North Americas only supervised injection facility. Insite is a 1,000-square-foot room in Vancouvers poverty-plagued Downtown Eastside where it is legal to inject illegal drugs. Founded in 2003 as a response to the epidemic of overdoses in the neighbourhood, Insite has since been proven in over 50 peer-reviewed academic journals to curb the spread of HIV, save public health resources, and stop overdose deaths. Despite the evidence, the Conservative government in Canada persisted in its efforts to close the site. On September 30th 2011, those efforts resulted in a Supreme Court of Canada decision affirming the rights of drug users and barring the government from closing Insite. Hacksel, a spokesperson for the PHS Community Services Society, the non-profit that operates the facility, spoke with supporters in advance of the session, saying: Minister Aglukkaq continues to ignore the science at the expense of drug users lives. Safer injection is proven to prevent the spread of HIV and overdose deaths, but this Canadian government insists on putting ideology ahead of evidence. The PHS has established a demonstration supervised injection facility at the AIDS 2012 conference in order to share the proven principles that make Insite work. Saying that if Minister Aglukkaq visited Insite or read the evidence she would be a supporter, Hacksel invited her to visit the demonstration site in booth 803 of the conferences public Global Village Harm Reduction Networking Zone. Clare Hacksel will be available for interviews throughout the AIDS 2012 conference. For more information follow Insite at @InsiteVan or directly: Clare Hacksel clareh@phs.ca 604.618.4074