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The Current Transcript for February 2, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: theme]

SOUNDCLIP

We've spent billions of dollars to make the new blood system safe and almost in a blink of an eye we're putting people at risk again.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: That is from a video circulating urging Canadians to sign a petition asking Ottawa to ban private for-profit donor paid blood products companies. It features survivors of the tainted blood scandal of the eighties and comes just as a private company is poised to get Health Canada approval to operate a private blood plasma company in Saskatchewan. The blood plasma industry is a multi-billion dollar endeavor in North America and supporters argue Canadians are already a part of it. In a moment we'll hear from one of the activists from the company and from Saskatchewanâ€™s Minister of Health. Then pregnant women across Brazil are worried.

SOUNDCLIP

What do we have at this moment in this country is a group of women who is in fear of getting pregnant and not knowing what will happen during the pregnancy.

AMT: Brazil is just one of several countries affected by the Zika virus where abortions are illegal or heavily restricted and come with jail time. Activists say this outbreak is not solely about a mosquito; it is about reproductive rights across Latin America. We have that story in half an hour. And it was 19 years ago this coming June that the boy with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead captured the imaginations and the hearts of a new generation of readers. Who knew he would follow them into adulthood.

SOUNDCLIP

When things get hard, in my darkest hours, by chance and by choice, Harry Potter has always been there for me.

AMT: In an hour Shannon Higgins brings us the Ripple Effect of the magic of Harry Potter. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Critics worry Sask. for-profit plasma clinic could erode Canada's blood supply

Guests: Mike McCarthy, Barzin Bahardoust, Dustin Duncan

AMT: Money for blood can be a controversial practice anywhere in the world but especially so in Canada. Yet Saskatchewan is set to open the first for-profit plasma donation clinic in the country. The tainted blood scandal of the 1980s looms large over the discussion of paid-for donations after upwards of 30,000 Canadians were infected with HIV and hepatitis C after receiving tainted blood and plasma and the federal inquiry that followed found that paid blood donations were in part to blame. Since then the provinces of Ontario and Quebec moved to ban pay donations and there been calls to put a federal ban in place. But Saskatchewan says it is going ahead with a paid plasma clinic. Mike McCarthy is a hemophiliac who was infected with hepatitis C during the tainted blood crisis. He's become a vocal advocate for protecting Canada's blood and plasma system. And he's with me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

MIKE MCCARTHY: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: I want to get your opinion about for-profit plasma clinics, but let's begin with how you contracted hep C.

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well, I was born with hemophilia, a bleeding disorder, and it ran in the family so I had three uncles with it as well. And I grew up taking a concentrate medicine that was collected from many people and put into medicine and it was supposed to be a miracle medicine and it turned out to be a death sentence for my three uncles. And I got hepatitis C that was collected from plasma that was collected from prisoners in Arkansas in 1984. I wasn't told this. But I was told by my physician that if I kept taking this type of product in â€˜84 that I would probably get AIDS and die. And so I stopped taking blood products from 1984 to 1992. It saved my life.

AMT: How did that affect you as a hemophiliac?

MIKE MCCARTHY: I had got some crippled joints out of it, but I saved my life and I didn't - and dying like many of my friends in the hemophilia community that took this medicine and got HIV.

AMT: Roughly, how many people did die during the tainted blood scandal?

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well, certainly in the hemophilia community we've seen upwards of a couple of thousand people die from tainted blood which was two thirds of our membership in Canada and probably there's upwards of 30,000 people that were infected by Hepatitis C and the numberâ€™s unknown but many thousands have died since getting their infection through the blood system in the eighties.

AMT: All these years later, what's wrong with paying people for their plasma?

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well, first of all, there's no shortage for plasma products. There's no crisis of getting access to these blood products that are manufactured in big facilities in Europe in the United States. We have a specific history in Canada where our dirty laundry was aired. We had an inquiry that cost millions of dollars. We had a criminal investigation that led to criminal charges and there's been billions of dollars paid out in compensation to people harmed through the blood system and we spent a billion dollars renewing Canada's blood system to make it safe again. So our donor base is very fragile. And so paid plasma, which is not known in Canada in terms of being a competing interest in terms of the volunteer blood donor system, this puts Canadians at risk. There's no advantage to setting up a parallel system. And, ironically, Health Canada and the Canadian Blood Services have not communicated to the public what type of plan that they will implement to ensure the protection of the volunteer blood system other than passive surveillance. And that's not a plan.

AMT: So plasma comes from the blood donors?

MIKE MCCARTHY: Correct.

AMT: How do we get plasma now for Canadians?

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well, Canada is self-sufficient for fresh plasma to be used in hospitals for routine procedures that is not imported from the United States. We're self-sufficient. In terms of blood products that are manufactured from plasma that's put into concentrates of thousands of donors, we don't have the scale in order to be self-sufficient in Canada. So what is a bit of an awkward position that puts Canada in that we have to buy our products from the United States. Much of those products are made with plasma collected from Canadians through the volunteer blood system, but some of those products include paid blood donors.

AMT: For-profit clinics in the US?

MIKE MCCARTHY: For-profit clinics.

AMT: So how confident are you in the blood plasma being supplied from the US?

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well. They have a sordid past and, you know, they made a business of collecting from the most risky areas of North America at the height of the AIDS crisis, both from the Mexican border, from prisons, as I indicated earlier, and in skid row. And so they said that they had learned their lessons from the scandal of the past and that it was much safer and that science was foolproof now. Well, I've always heard the science argument that nobody could get infected. As they told us back in the eighties, it was one in a million to get AIDS and it turned out to be, you know, at one point one in ten people were getting infected with the virus through the blood system. And so, you know, did they learn their lesson when they tried to set up in Ontario? No. Those free clinics that were identified by Canadian Plasma Resources two of them were set up right beside homeless shelters and the third in Hamilton was set up across the street from a methadone clinic.

AMT: So, youâ€™re saying itâ€™s vulnerable people who could have blood issues.

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well, it could be. You know, itâ€™s the science that you donâ€™t know. And so Justice Krever pointed out, you don't wait for the body count in order to implement safety. Safety is supposed to be paramount and so in the absence of science you should collect from the safest areas and it should be a unified one donor system. And we already pay Canadian. Blood Services a billion dollars to ensure that we have integrity and supply in the system.

AMT: Okay. Now the Canadian Hemophilia Society actually supports this, but you- and youâ€™re former vice president of that- you are part of a group that does not.

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well, I'm also part of a group that is the chapters of the Canadian Hemophilia Society that went against paid plasma, Ontario and BC, to name two provinces.

AMT: Right. So, now you have a petition. What do you want to see happen next?

MIKE MCCARTHY: Well, this is like whack-a-mole, so the carpet bagging of blood brokers in Canada, they've gone to virtually every province to find a place to set up their operation and found one, ironically, in the birthplace of Medicare in Saskatchewan, where everybody else told them no. And so what we do need is-- Because if they set up in one province it impacts the integrity of the whole system. We don't know what we don't know and so it could have a negative impact on security of supply, so we're looking for the federal government to implement a national ban on paid plasma.

AMT: Mike McCarthy, thank you for coming in.

MIKE MCCARTHY: Thank you.

AMT: Mike McCarthy is a hemophiliac. Heâ€™s an activist and a tainted blood survivor. He joined us in our Toronto studio. Well, to help us understand why Canada needs proper for-profit plasma clinics, to hear his argument I'm joined by Barzin Bahardoust. He is the CEO of Canadian Plasma Resources. He joins me in our Toronto studio. Hello.

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Hello, Anna Maria.

AMT: So, walk us through the process. You have a clinic in Saskatoon. Do you have a licence yet?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Not at the moment. We are expecting to receive the licence very shortly from Health Canada to distribute our products.

AMT: Okay. So if I want to donate plasma, what kind of screening do I go through?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: The screening process is similar to blood donor screening process, although we only use the plasma for further manufacturing into plasma protein products. So the plasma that we collect is not used for direct transfusion to patients. But this screening has multiple layers and it involves a donor filling a questionnaire, then being interviewed by a registered nurse, a physical examination, checking vital signs of the donor to ensure that the donation is safe for them, and then taking sample of blood and plasma from the donor and test it for HIV, hepatitis A, B, C, parvo B19 virus, and syphilis. We also check the protein composition of the donor to ensure again that it is safe for the donor to donate.

AMT: How much do you pay a donor?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: We will just complete this process-- So this has to be repeated twice for the donor to be qualified to screening process. After they are qualified the donors, and only qualified donors, will receive a gift card, a universal gift card that cannot be transferred and cannot be used as cash. They cannot use that to withdraw cash. $25 for each visit.

AMT: Okay. Why can't they have cash? What are you trying to guard against?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Well, we want to be compatible with the World Health Organizationâ€™s definition of volunteering non-remunerated donation and as long as the compensation is proportionate to the time involved and the compensation is non-cash and non-transferable then, by their definition, the process is voluntary and non-remunerated and that's what we wanted to keep in mind.

AMT: Is that also partly because you've been accused of wanting to open places next to methadone clinics, next to places where people are vulnerable and theyâ€™ll use the cash that you-- The argument is you're going to give money to vulnerable people who are drug-addicted and theyâ€™ll use the cash in that way.

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: We were accused of that and I just want to point out that in a debate which is so highly emotional sometimes there is no use for science and evidence, unfortunately. In our case, our processes all have to be approved by Health Canada and we are regulated by Health Canada, same body that regulates Canadian Blood Services.

AMT: No, fair enough. I'm just asking why not cash?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Again, as I mentioned, we wanted to become-- to use a definition which is compatible with the World Health Organizationâ€™s definition of voluntary non-remunerated donation.

AMT: Okay.

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: And to avoid any controversy, as you mentioned.

AMT: Okay. So, you actually have a clinic in Saskatchewan right now that is actually taking plasma donations in a pilot project, do you not?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Yes.

AMT: What are you doing with that plasma?

AMT: That plasma actually cannot be used for further manufacturing because we have not received our Health Canada licence and the licence number for that specific centre, although we were licensed in Ontario in 2014. So the plasma that we collect can only be used for research purposes or has to be discarded at the conclusion of the pilot.

AMT: Until you get your full license.

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Yes.

AMT: And how far away are you from that?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: We are at the final stages. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly when we will receive the licence, but will be very soon, but we don't have a date.

AMT: Days or months? Weeks?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: It would be probably days or weeks.

AMT: Okay. Canada has a plasma supply issue. Volunteer donations do not cover our existing plasma needs. Will your clinic help? Will you be putting plasma back into the Canadian system?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: This is a highly regulated industry, so the plasma that is collected in Canada and if you're licenced by Health Canada, we can only distribute this plasma in Canada. And Canada currently relies heavily on other jurisdictions and specifically on the United States. Up to 80 percent of our IVIG is manufactured from paid donors in the United States. Although, as Mr. McCarthy pointed out, we are self-sufficient in fresh blood products and fresh frozen plasma. That need is something on the order of only 50,000 litres of plasma and demand for fresh frozen plasma is actually going down. But to meet the demand for the plasma protein products we need something on the order of 1,250,000 litres of plasma. We are collecting about only 20 percent of that through the efforts of Canadian Blood Services and HÃ©ma-QuÃ©bec, so there is a very large gap that needs to be filled in here.

AMT: Once you get the plasma do you sell it to the US companies that make the products?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: We are in the final stages of negotiating a contract where we supply the plasma to a fractionator and we will get IVIGâ€”

AMT: IVIG means?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Intravenous Immunoglobulin.

AMT: Okay. You supply it to who?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: This product is used for a variety of disorders, such as, for example, primary immune deficiency. Itâ€™s for immune deficiencies in general.

AMT: Right, but you supply it to who? You called it a--

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: --a fractionator. A fractionator takes our plasma and producesâ€”it separates the proteins and produces what is generally called plasma protein products.

AMT: Right, so that people can use, like hemophiliacs and others.

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Yes, for example.

AMT: And so where is the fractionator?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: The fractionator is based in the United States.

AMT: Okay. So you're going to take Canadian plasma, you're going to sell it to the States, and then theyâ€™re going to sell it back to us?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Yes, we will-- It will be a contract manufacturing, similar way that CBS and HÃ©ma-QuÃ©bec are dealing with the plasma that they have through their, the recovered plasma that they have from their whole blood operations, because, at the moment, there is no fractionation capability in Canada. Fortunately, hopefully, in the near future things will change. We know that the Korean Green Cross is setting up a fractionation plant in Quebec. And if we reach our targets for plasma collection, we are hoping to also set up a fractionation plant in Western Canada as well.

AMT: Have you approached any other provinces about opening for- profit plasma clinics?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Yes, we have and we have received confirmation from several other provinces that we are welcome to open plasma collection centres in various jurisdictions.

AMT: Can you tell me where?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: British Columbia, Manitoba, which already has the same system in place for the last 30 years - the only province in Canada which has plasma collection centres operating in Winnipeg called Cangene- New Brunswick and, obviously, Saskatchewan. And we had confirmation from Alberta [indecipherable].

AMT: Alberta as well?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: But that was from the previous government so we will reach out to them when or if we plan to move to that province in the future.

AMT: So, the fact that you can't operate in Ontario is not that much of a hindrance to you?

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Not really, no.

AMT: Okay. Thank you for coming in.

BARZIN BAHARDOUST: Thank you very much.

AMT: That is Barzin Bahardoust. He is the CEO of Canadian Plasma Resources and he joined me in our Toronto studio. Well, Saskatchewan is not the first province in which Canadian Plasma Resources tried to set up for-profit clinics. The company tried to open clinics in Ontario until the province passed legislation forbidding companies from paying people for their plasma. That was in 2014. To find out why Saskatchewan thinks for-profit plasma clinics are right for that province I'm joined by the province's health minister Dustin Duncan. He is in Regina. Hi, Mr. Duncan.

DUSTIN DUNCAN: Good morning, Anna Maria.

AMT: Okay. So, Ontario said no. Why has Saskatchewan said yes?

DUSTIN DUNCAN: We basically said that we had no plans in place to put in legislation that would ban the practice in large part because the Canadian plasma system is already heavily reliant on procuring plasma from paid donors. It just happens to be that they're largely in the United States or in some European countries. So your previous guest that talked about the gap between supply and demand in Canada, only about 20 percent of our plasma needs are actually supplied by Canadians. So 80 percent of our plasma-based protein products, like drugs used to fight cancer and other illnesses, already comes from paid donors. They just happen to live in another country. Canadian Blood Services, in fact, Justice Krever even put this in his report that Canada needs to become self-sufficient or more self-sufficient. But at only 20 percent weâ€™re certainly a long ways away from that and I certainly believe that a dual system is one way to increase our sufficiency levels.

AMT: How do we become self-sufficient if, in fact, we're sending it to the States to be in those places where they mix it up with everybody elseâ€™s plasma?

DUSTIN DUNCAN: Well, I think that because we're only at 20 percent in terms of the supply coming from Canadians that makes it difficult for to have a fractionation plant here in Canada. I think that if and when the supply numbers do increase, and there may be a day when that actually happens, but to this point we are already heavily reliant on the American system for plasma and plasma protein products that are manufactured in the United States. But we do certainly need to-- We may never get to 100 percent. In fact, the most recent meeting that I attended with Canadian Blood Services, they agree that 100 percent is probably not likely for Canada, but certainly 20 percent is not acceptable. And the fact that we are so heavily reliant on largely the United States it really does become a security of supply issue. If there was ever to be any situation in the United States that would severely impact the supply coming into Canada certainly our patients would, I guess, in a way take backseat to American patients and that could poseâ€”

AMT: Well, wouldnâ€™t they anyway then? If we send our plasma there and the United States wants to hang on to it, they just could then.

DUSTIN DUNCAN: Right. And so the current system is, as it's operating right now, we are able to procure plasma-based products from the United States, but, again, because of the derivative, the product that is derived from paid donors the plasma product that then goes into making, you know, protein-based products and cancer drugsâ€”

AMT: So, let me ask you, is this a health issue?

DUSTIN DUNCAN: 80 percent of that is already coming from â€“

AMT: No, I understand that. Is this a health issue for you or is this an economic issue?

DUSTIN DUNCAN: No, no. For me, itâ€™s a health issue. Because we are so reliant on other people in other countries for plasma-based products it really becomes a supply issue, so security of the supply. And it really speaks to the fact that only 20 percent of Canadians demand for plasma protein products are actually satisfied by Canadians that are donating. And that has been through an altruistic system whichâ€” You know, I think, separate this out from the blood system. The blood system is fully reliant upon an altruistic system and nothing, I think, is going to change that, but it hasn't been the same way on the plasma system. We are heavily reliant on a paid donor system. It just happens to be the people that are getting paid are not Canadians. So we need to change that imbalance and raise it up. And, you know, it might be going from 20 percent to 40 or even 50 percent, but that's a lot better than 20 percent, where weâ€™re at now, what weâ€™ve been able to achieve through the altruistic system.

AMT: Dustin Duncan, thank you for your perspective.

DUSTIN DUNCAN: Okay, thank you.

AMT: That is Dustin Duncan. Heâ€™s Saskatchewanâ€™s health minister and we reached him in Regina. What do you think? This is a hot button issue for a lot of people. You can tweet us. We are @thecurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook or comment by going to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent and then click on the Contact link. Let us know what you think about this. It looks like it's in train in several provinces.

Zika virus could lead to rise in unsafe abortions in Latin America

Guests: Carmen Barroso, Debora Diniz, Leslie Reagan

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Anna Maria Tremonti: Still to come, how Harry Potter, the boy wizard of fiction and film, ended up casting some very real life-altering spells on a generation of fans. The Currentâ€™s Shannon Higgins counts herself as a member of the Potter generation. Hear her documentary in half an hour. But first, a sad and dangerous ripple effect from a sad and dangerous disease.

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Non-english speaking:

Translation
transcribed audio content Women should consider delaying pregnancy for six to eight months. We do this because I think it's also a good way to communicate the risk. There could be serious consequences.

AMT: That is what it's come to in Latin America, official warnings for women to avoid becoming pregnant. That was the Minister of Health in Colombia who you just heard in translation, but the warnings are the same across much of the region. In El Salvador, women have been advised to put off conception, put off getting pregnant, until 2018. It's all due to fears that the mosquito borne Zika virus is to blame for a wave of microcephaly. Now since last October in Brazil alone, there have been nearly 4,000 cases of the birth defect. It leaves babies with unusually small heads and impaired brain development. Many thousands more could be on their way. The World Health Organization yesterday declared Zika a public health emergency of international concern. And since Latin America is home to some of the most restrictive abortion access laws in the world, there is now a new fear that a rise of unsafe abortions will put women's lives at risk. Carmen Barroso is regional director for the western hemisphere at the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She's in New York City, hello.

CARMEN BARROSO: Good morning, Anna Maria, how are you?

AMT: Well, I'm curious to know what youâ€™re thinking about. What are your particular concerns about women in Latin America right now when it comes to pregnancy and the Zika virus?

CARMEN BARROSO: Well, we have the sense that everybody has, that this is bringing tragedy to many homes, and a lack of support for women to really implement the decision not to get pregnant if they so wish, you know. This is a region where about half of the pregnancies are not planned. That women are not enabled to avoid a pregnancy they don't want, especially young women, especially poor women, especially women in more remote areas, and these are the women who are most affected by the virus. It's a country of great inequality.

AMT: How restrictive are abortion laws across the region?

CARMEN BARROSO: Well, this is a region where five of the countries that absolutely forbid abortion are located, you know, because most countries in the world allow abortion, at least for some cases, cases of danger of life of the women, or cases of fetal malformation, which would be this case. Although this is a complicated case, because the diagnosis of microcephaly is possible only after the second, at the end of the second trimester, and that is where abortion is already more difficult.

AMT: You say difficult. Some countries have jail terms, do they not?

CARMEN BARROSO: Oh, yes. There are some absurd situations like El Salvador, where women are even persecuted for miscarriages, and there are several cases that are being pursued in court now about this, because women are already in jail for having miscarriages.

AMT: So if abortion is so restrictive, does that mean there are a lot of illegal abortions in Latin America?

CARMEN BARROSO: Yes, the estimate of the WHO, itâ€™s that ninety five percent of abortions in Latin America are unsafe, meaning illegal. And that is putting women's life in danger, too.

AMT: Your organization has said it's concerned that would increase.

CARMEN BARROSO: Well, if women are scared of getting pregnant, and they indeed get pregnant because they cannot avoid, they go to desperate means. They do self-abortion, or they do whatever they can. And that will likely increase the number of unsafe abortions.

AMT: Now, the World Health Organization is recommending that pregnant women who fear they have been exposed to Zika consult their doctor and be monitored. How beneficial is that advice, in your view?

CM: Well, it's better than nothing, but if doctors have their hands tied and they face also criminal persecution if they provide an interruption of a pregnancy, that's not very helpful.

AMT: And how would they actually be monitored, do you know?

CARMEN BARROSO: They could have, when the resources are there, they could have monitored with a scan the growth of the pregnancy. They can learn at the end of the second trimester whether there is a case of microcephaly.

AMT: How, are we talking blood tests, are we talking ultrasound?

CARMEN BARROSO: No, ultrasound.

AMT: Like, if a woman's really concerned, what can she do?

CARMEN BARROSO: It's an ultrasound. Well, one thing that needs to be improved, also, is the Zika test. It's not widely available, and if a woman has symptoms, if she has a fever and a rash while she is pregnant, she should immediately go to a doctor and have a Zika test. And that's not widely available yet, so it should be more widespread.

AMT: So International Planned Parenthood, as theyâ€™re watching this unfold, are you looking at how they're finding the mosquito and the virus? Are you looking at the reproductive issues around, like what WHO is doing for reproductive rights, and all that? What do you, what concerns you?

CARMEN BARROSO: Well that's all important. I think that the monitoring of the mosquito and also the research on vaccines, which is several years on the horizon, it's not immediate. All this is important, but we focus now in serving the women right now. Right now, all that we can offer is offering more information, more education, more counselling, more access to contraceptives. All of this, we're doing with the hundreds of clinics that we have all over the region. This, of course, is an effort that has to be closely followed by advocacy for governments to change their restrictive laws, so that women have access to interruption of pregnancy if they cannot avoid the pregnancy.

AMT: You're talking about access to abortion.

CARMEN BARROSO: Yes.

AMT: Okay, but you also mention contraception. How available is contraception in these countries?

CARMEN BARROSO: Overall, there is, but you have to pay. The poorest women are the ones for whom contraceptive is much more difficult, and the youngest women are the ones who are really at enormous risk. There's a perfect storm there. Being poor, being young, means greater exposure to the mosquito, because they live in areas where the mosquito is more prevalent.

AMT: Carmen Barroso, thank you for your time today.

CARMEN BARROSO: Thank you.

AMT: Carmen Barroso, regional director for the western hemisphere at the International Planned Parenthood Federation. She joined us from New York City. Well, the centre of the current Zika outbreak is Brazil. An estimated 1.5 million Brazilians have been infected since last May. Now, Zika has been confirmed in 270 cases, and itâ€™s suspected in another 3,448 cases of babies born with microcephaly since October. Science has yet to establish a definitive link between Zika and the condition, but scientists have nevertheless joined Brazilian lawyers and activists to challenge the country's abortion laws. Theyâ€™re part of a group petitioning the country's Supreme Court to allow abortions for women who have contracted the virus. Joining me now is one of the women heading up this initiative. Debora Diniz is also a professor of law at BrasÃlia University, and a researcher at Anis, the Institute of Bioethics, Human Rights and Gender in BrasÃlia, Brazil, hello.

DEBORA DINIZ: Hello.

AMT: When is abortion permitted for women in Brazil?

DEBORA DINIZ: Abortion is a crime in Brazil. And basically, we have two exceptions: in the case of rape, to save a woman's life, and a recent decision at the Brazilian Supreme Court, in case of Anencephaly, in which the fetus has no brain at all.

AMT: And so tell me about this petition, what changes are you asking for?

DEBORA DINIZ: We are the same group that proposed the case 10 years ago, in case of Anencephaly. At this moment, weâ€™re facing this huge epidemic, and the consequences on women are particular, and we have to look at them. And there is no way to change it at the National Congress. We have a Minister of Health who has been saying that women should avoid becoming pregnant. So basically, what we are going to ask to the Brazilian Supreme Court is to vote. This first part is related to sexual and reproductive comprehensive policy. So itâ€™s accessing family planning, basically contraception, and with a special focus on regions of high number of cases, and a blood test to Zika virus. So we are not talking about abortion in the case of the neurological birth defects. We are talking about having access to Zika virus, and in case it is positive, women will have the right to perform a legal abortion.

AMT: So, in other words, they would have a choice.

DEBORA DINIZ: Exactly, because they don't have it. And they have to wait all the pregnancy long to know what is going on. But there is a second part of the case. There is a strong social welfare state to protect women, motherhood, and children. Because at this moment, the Brazilian government is not saying anything related of how to take care of the children.

AMT: And you're talking about the children who will be born with developmental problems because of microcephaly, there's no safety net there to help those mothers raise those children, those families.

DEBORA DINIZ: Yes, but we have to consider that when WHO announced yesterday this public health emergency in a global level, they are saying that we know a small part of what is going on in this epidemic. That birth defects related to Zika Virus is something that we are starting to know, but probably, that we have more, that we need time to know. So our demand to the Brazilian Supreme Court is to recognize womenâ€™s right to decide what kind of risk they went to face in the consequence of the historical negligence of the Brazilian government to fight against a mosquito. And secondly, if a woman decides to keep the pregnancy, she will need help to take care of the children, so we need education, health, accessibility, and there is nothing out there to help them.

AMT: Okay, so you're going to the Supreme Court. On the issue of help, do you need a law change for that, or you're just urging the government to do that?

DEBORA DINIZ: No we don't need a law to end. We need a decision of the Supreme Court saying that this is an emergency situation, and we cannot consider a crime to perform an abortion in this situation. And to protect the social rights that we are demanding of them to say. Because we have to remember that the epidemic is growing in the poorest regions of the country. We're not talking about wealthy women. Only to give you an idea, in my neighbourhood, I live in BrasÃlia, the capital. There is not even a case of Zika virus. Not even a case of a woman pregnant with diagnosis of birth defects. So we have this social inequality that is now, the epidemic is mirroring the social inequality of this country.

AMT: Are there limits you would put on women seeking abortion if the fetus is affected by Zika, and detection comes late in the pregnancy. Would you put-- [crosstalk]

DEBORA DINIZ: [interposing] Basically --

AMT: Because you can't really detect it until the end of the second trimester.

DEBORA DINIZ: We're talking about two different things. One is to weigh the ultrasound, and have the birth defects in the fetus, to perform an abortion. We are not talking about this. We're talking about a woman being infected by Zika virus while pregnant. She will have the right to decide. So weâ€™re talking not about the condition the fetus, but we're talking about the risk of an epidemic that is going on.

AMT: Okay. I understand.

DEBORA DINIZ: So what we are asking to Brazilian Supreme Court is wide access to the blood test.

AMT: Right, and then if a woman chooses to abort even earlier in the pregnancy before it is clear, she has that right, is what youâ€™re saying.

DEBORA DINIZ: Because she doesnâ€™t want to survive with such a huge risk.

AMT: Right. What do you say to critics who say this campaign is a way to make abortion more accessible in a country where the laws are against it?

DEBORA DINIZ: I totally agree. But we have to face the reality that we have. We have a National Congress that is basically an overlapping between religion and politics. The views that we have right now with the Brazilian National Congress proposed to ban, totally ban abortion in this country. So it's a small piece, I totally agree. But it's what we can do right now. And we have an epidemic. We have women that are totally scared of being pregnant. And we have to look at them.

AMT: Under the law as it stands now, if a woman who has been infected with Zika and is pregnant seeks an abortion, what can happen to her under the law?

DEBORA DINIZ: She goes to jail.

AMT: How strong is the resistance to change? Are you meeting resistance?

AMT: Absolutely. So what we have now, it's a kind of, I would say, a naive resistance saying that we are eugenic, that we are using the emergency situation to open the abortion door in this country. So we need to step down and say, look, we have again, a historical negligence of Brazilian Government, and take care of how to fight against the mosquito and take of women. Our demand is a small piece of what is going on right now in Brazil.

AMT: When do you expect to be able to present the Supreme Court with your petition?

DEBORA DINIZ: In the month ahead.

AMT: Okay, well, thank you for talking to me. Weâ€™ll be watching this.

DEBORA DINIZ: Thank you.

AMT: Debora Diniz, professor of law at BrasÃlia University, she joined us from BrasÃlia. We did put in a call to Brazil's Ministry of Health, no one was available to speak to us today. Now, if the Zika virus does, in fact, end up altering abortion laws in Brazil or other parts of Latin America, it will not be the first time that a disease or illness has done so. It's something Leslie Reagan has studied and written about. She is a professor of History, Medicine, Gender and Women's Studies, and Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. She's also the author of Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America. Leslie Reagan joins me this morning from Champaign, Illinois, hello.

LESLIE REAGAN: Hi.

AMT: Well, as you listened to our last two guests, are you hearing any similarities in the discussion about abortion and the Zika virus and the discussion around abortion what was it, Rubella in the â€˜60s?

LESLIE REAGAN: Yes. The worldwide epidemic of German measles or Rubella in the 1960s really brought up very similar issues. There was no blood test until a bit later, and it caused serious birth defects of blindness, deafness, heart defects, caused miscarriages, newborns could die very early or within a few years, and it caused intellectual impairments and all of those together. So if women had caught German measles, which is a very, very mild infection, people didn't know if they'd had it, caused a rash and a fever for a few days, but very easily would never know you had it. And there were predictions of 20,000 â€œdamagedâ€ babies in the United States when the epidemic came through in between â€˜63 and â€˜65. So there was a lot of fear that anybody could have had German measles and have an affected baby.

AMT: Well, so--

LESLIE REAGAN: Many people did want to have abortions, and it was illegal.

AMT: I was just going to say, in the â€˜60s, abortion was illegal in the U.S.

LESLIE REAGAN: Yeah, yeah.

AMT: And so, this was also happening in Europe.

LESLIE REAGAN: Yes. So it was a worldwide epidemic, and so Europe, and had to be Canada about the same time, in the mid-â€™60s.

AMT: Thatâ€™s right, yeah.

LESLIE REAGAN: And this prompted people to look for abortions, if they were aware of this, and doctors, it was accepted in the medical profession as a legitimate reason for a therapeutic abortion, which had always been legal, performed by physicians in hospitals. It was legal under the law for preserving women's lives or health, but kind of an iffy grey area.

AMT: Okay, so--

LESLIE REAGAN: Not necessarily you could always get it.

AMT: So who were the men and women who were championing the right to have access to abortion, at that time?

LESLIE REAGAN: Well, so initially, there are physicians who want to reform the laws, and there's a small discussion among doctors and lawyers, and concerned that doctors want the law clarified because they're afraid they'll get in trouble. And this epidemic brings out some middle class, married white women, the most respectable group of the time, right, to start talking about abortion and their need as mothers for abortions. Because they are very concerned about their family and their unborn child, as they described it, that they want to have the baby, and I say, I canâ€™t do this, I cannot bring this child into the world, it's dangerous, and they start talking publicly for the first time.

AMT: And that's significant because suddenly it is â€œrespectable.â€

LESLIE REAGAN: Yeah, it really, I mean, this is what I see, is it really brings out a completely new way of talking about abortion. Prior to this, the way abortion is talked about is it is a crime. The people who have abortions are deviant. They are â€œsickâ€ psychologically. That's how the women are discussed. The doctors are considered criminals as theyâ€™re â€œprostituting the profession.â€ And theyâ€™re all described as dangerous and deadly. And that's the other side of it, is that if you could get an abortion, it's going to kill you. Which of course, is not true. It was true, it was dangerous, there were people who died. But there were also people who got safe abortions. It was dependant on, of course, as the attorney before me was talking about, was if they if they had good connections and if they had money.

AMT: Right, backroom abortions versus-- [crosstalk]

LESLIE REAGAN: [interposing] Yeah, versus people who did it themselves, or who went to somebody who wasnâ€™t any good.

AMT: Right. So what you're really talking about is how the conversation changed, so that the wider society could actually...

LESLIE REAGAN: Yes. Because people had abortions, it was what was called an open secret, that you talked only to a few people. But this brought out, prior to this was Thalidomide and a beginning conversation, but what changed was it brought out a respectable conversation and families, women and men, talking about, this was something they had to be able to decide themselves for their family. And majority of the public, when they did polls, agreed that they had to be able to make this decision. It was a decision that people had to make for themselves.

AMT: So--

LESLIE REAGAN: And so you have the very, very early kind of discussion of changing the laws. Go ahead. [laughs]

AMT: So if given what you've tracked from the â€˜60s, and how that conversation changed things, as you watch what's unfolding in Brazil, what are you expecting to see?

LESLIE REAGAN: Well, of course, Brazil in 2016 and the United States in 1965 are not the same. Not the same place or time. But, you know, who would have guessed for the 1960s, 1950s, what we know as an era of conformity, if we look at those pictures of women in pearls and little hats, it is very conservative, and never imagine a movement for decriminalizing abortion coming out of that time period. But it did happen, and it happened very quickly. So this, I think, you know, it could happen in Brazil, as well. Brazil has a feminist movement, Latin America has a feminist movement, working to change the laws. And there is an underground that already is using abortion, is already over a million abortions in Brazil, there's already a sense among the general public of the necessity in certain situations. And it's about the political power of the leadership and the Catholic Church that makes it, thatâ€™s made it criminal and difficult. So in this kind of situation, where so much of the country is threatened, it could change. But it's not, what is different here, is the extent to which it threatens the middle classes and well to do.

AMT: Okay.

LESLIE REAGAN: But the middle classes here have an interest in decriminalizing abortion, as well. So who knows? I meanâ€¦

AMT: Yeah.

LESLIE REAGAN: It might change, and I certainly wish them luck, because it's extremely important, and they have really high mortality rates as a result of these laws.

AMT: Leslie Reagan, thank you for that historical perspective.

LESLIE REAGAN: And thank you, goodbye.

AMT: Leslie Reagan, professor of History, Medicine, Gender, Women's Studies, and Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and her book is called Dangerous Pregnancies: Mothers, Disabilities, and Abortion in Modern America. Well, let us know what you think about that. You can tweet us, we are @TheCurrentCBC. Find us online, cbc.ca/thecurrent.

The Harry Potter generation can't let go of 'The Boy Who Lived'

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[MOVIE]

HARRY: Who are you?

HAGRID: Rubeus Hagrid. Keep of keys and grounds at Hogwarts. Course you'll know all about Hogwarts.

HARRY: Sorry. No.

HAGRID: No? Blimy Harry. Did you ever wonder where your mum and dada learned it all? You're a wizard, Harry.

HARRY: I'm a what?

HAGRID: A wizard and a thumping good one I'd wager.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: And just like that the world was hooked, completely captivated with Harry Potter and his fantastical, magical world. J.K. Rowlingsâ€™ bestselling book series will go down in history as a cultural and corporate juggernaut, but for some the boy wizard came to represent more than just magic and merchandise. For some, entering into that wizarding world was an intensely formative experience. Today as part of The Currentâ€™s season long project, Ripple Effect, we look at how Harry Potter influenced an entire generation. In her documentary, All Was Well, The Currentâ€™s Shannon Higgins reveals how the boy who lived lives on, even for fans who have long since left childhood.

SOUNDCLIP

[Harry Potter theme music playing]

I have been waiting for a letter for almost 20 years. The letter. A Hogwarts letter. If I close my eyes, I can almost feel the parchment in my hands and one day, Iâ€™ll rip it open in read that I've been accepted as a pupil at Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I really don't care that it was supposed to be delivered on my 11th birthday. I still believe; just canâ€™t let go.

SHANNON HIGGINS: For all you Muggles listening, what exactly is Hogwarts? Well, it's a school for young witches and wizards in the magical world. It's where Harry Potter went to school. It's where I would like to go to school. You see, I am part of a generation who grew up with the book series. And yes, we are now in our 20s and 30s, but the story and the characters have stayed with us and the magic is still very much alive.

[mystical music playing]

VOICE 1: Everything I do is influenced by Harry Potter.

VOICE 2: Itâ€™s who we are.

VOICE 3: I feel like I've grown up with these characters. They're part of my identity almost.

VOICE 2: Harry Potter, to me, means happiness.

VOICE 1: There is never a point when I'm not reading Harry Potter and I don't think it's ever going away for me. Even talking about this, Iâ€™m getting shivers.

SHANNON HIGGINS: How could a book shape so many people? To find that out, I invited Harry Potter fans to attend a special tournament, an Honourary Hogwarts Cup here at CBC. And the tournament begins with the delivery of, what else? A Hogwarts letter.

VOICE 1: Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry would like to offer you our deepest apologies. It seems your letters of acceptance were somehow lost in post.

VOICE 2: Not again.

[upbeat music]

VOICE 3: Well, it is simply too late to begin a magical education. To make amends for the oversight, we cordially invite you to take part in a special championship today. The tournament will involve three tests of skills, strength and wit. To survive the tasks, you must be brave, clever and kind; the precise qualities most valued in pupils at Hogwarts. To begin the tournament, please proceed to the dungeons for further instructions. Follow the owls. Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall.

SHANNON HIGGINS: Before we hit the dungeons, I should explain the tournament today involves seven people. Each were carefully selected to represent a character who attends Hogwarts in the books. And where do we begin? With Harry, of course.

EVAN HOYLE: My name is Evan Hoyle and I would like to be Harry Potter in this documentary. He's always been the one person that I always just kind of clicked with. I've always really resonated with the scrawny little kid with glasses. I can remember being the outcast, being the kid who got really into Harry Potter when his dad first read them to him, begging my mom to let me wear all black and a cape to school, and also painting a scar on my forehead and going to school every day. I started really to integrate toâ€” I really only got friends in Grades seven or eight so I really understood being on the outside looking in, wanting to actually have people care about me. I remember when I was first starting to make friends and I had one or two, and then there was a stretch of time in my Grade seven year when both of them went away from school at the same time. I felt isolated, I felt desolation. It was like when Harry goes back to the Dursleyâ€™s after his first year at Hogwarts and all of a sudden he has no one again. It was almost worse for me having had that base friendship taken away because now I knew what I was missing. I really started resonating even more with Harry at that point. Everything I do is influenced by Harry Potter, like everything I wear. I'm never really upset that my hair is untidy because I read the books and it's like Harry's hair is untidy you know, okay, and I put on my dirty glasses likeâ€”yes, the books are done, the movies are done but everyone who read them, everyone who interacted with them, everyone who loved them will take those stories with them, carry them through the rest of their lives, and Hogwarts will always be there to welcome them home.

SHANNON HIGGINS: Now that you've met Harry, it's just about time for the next set of instructions.

[sprightly music]

VOICE 1: Dear champions, the tournament begins with a test of skill. Hidden within the confines of this room are seven seemingly normal objects. These evil objects must be found.

VOICE 2: Each individual champion must try to find as many Horcruxes as possible. For further instruction, please proceed to the next owl. Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall.

VOICE 3: Okay so we need to find the objects, but we also have to appoint a points keeper.

VOICE 4: Hermione?

SHANNON HIGGINS: Okay, let me get you up to speed. In the books, in order to save the world, Harry and his friends must find and destroy evil objects. Today, our champions must do the same. As the champions begin to search, I'd like to introduce you to the most clever witch to ever attend Hogwarts, Hermione Granger.

MELANIE GAUDET: My name is Melanie Gaudet and I would like to be Hermione Granger because she is a strong, intelligent, powerful woman. Like Hermione, I also am not afraid to speak my mind even if it makes me unpopular or people don't like what I have to say. What really has drawn me to her is again, her lack of fear. She's not afraid to speak out, she's not afraid to stand up. This fiercely loyal, caring, wonderful person just wants the people around her to be happy. She learns to use her intelligence to help people. And, I think that when she finally gets that, that's the minute we fall in love with Hermione. I feel like I've grown up with these characters, that my identity has been in a way formed by these fictional characters, at least in part. It doesn't matter what is happening in the Harry Potter series, the ethnic cleansing, the illness, the poverty, every awful thing imaginable but yet there's always the slight.

[sprightly music]

SHANNON HIGGINS: As the search continues, let's meet the Gryffindor with the greenest thumb. The clumsy, the brave, the snake slayer, Neville Longbottom. And yes, our Neville is female.

KELLY HOBSON: My name is Kelly Hobson I'm 24-yrs old and I am a Harry Potter fanatic. I should be Neville Longbottom mostly because I'm clumsy. Also, he's a quintessential misfit so he's not cool. He doesn't like cool things, he's not athletic, he is terrible on a broom. He doesn't have an owl, he has a toad named Trevor that he's constantly losing. He likes herbology, which is this nerdy solitary thing that you do by yourself in a greenhouse, occasionally wearing ear muffs. Neville struggles a lot with his family and his family background and kind of hides his parents and their mental illness from his friends. When I was a kid, I had this fear that my friends would react badly to my younger brother who has autism and so coming to terms with that and also developing into what I think is you know, my true self, those are the things that I most identify with Neville. There's a scene where Neville is at St Mungo's, which is a hospital for magical maladies, and Harry, Ron and Hermione and Ginny show up and they come to realize that Nevilleâ€™s parents actually live full time at St Mungo's because they've been tortured into insanity. Neville in this moment, is not ashamed of his parents, but I think scared of how his friends, who have a lot more social clout than he does and who he cares for very deeply, how they'll think of his parents and what they'll think of his situation. I have a younger brother who has autism and I identify with that fear of what people will think. So, I never invited people over and I didn't talk about my brother and I had a conversation with my parents once similar to the conversation that Neville has with his grandmother, and she says you should be proud of your parents. I had a conversation with my mom where she said, are you ashamed of your brother, and I said no, I'm not ashamed that I have a brother with autism. I couldn't verbalize at that time that I was just scared. I think Neville goes through a sincere transformation over the course of the series. I think I've gone through a really significant transformation as well. When things get hard, in my darkest hours, by chance and by choice, Harry Potter has always been there for me.

VOICE 1: Iâ€™ve got the, Iâ€™ve got the ring.

VOICE 2: [laughs] I didnâ€™t find anything, but I helped Harry find himself and I got the ring.

VOICE 3: Much like Luna.

VOICE 4: Thank you, Luna. And Riddle's diary.

VOICE 2: Iâ€™ve got the locket. Found the diadem and the snake.

VOICE 1: Yeah, you did.

SHANNON HIGGINS: All the horcrux have been found and not a moment too soon. The next owl just arrived.

Reading:

The riddle of the sphinx. Dear champions, the tournament continues with a test of wit. Harry Potter once proved himself by solving a riddle from the sphinx. This challenge requires each champion to do the same.

[simultaneous voices]

Instructions for the final task will be delivered by the next owl. Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall.

SHANNON HIGGINS: Before we get to the riddles, let's take a minute to meet the youngest of the Weasley clan. The fierce, the funny, Ginny Weasley.

DARCEI GILES: So, my name is Darcei Giles and I am 24-years old. I am smart, independent, and I always stand up for myself. I think everything about me embodies Ginny. She doesn't take anything from anyone and her toughness is because she grew up around six brothers. So, she kind of had to toughen up herself. I don't have any siblings like she does, but I grew up the youngest in my whole family. All my cousins are 10 years older than me. I was always the little one, the baby. As I got older and I grew up, I discovered myself and my voice. Watching Ginny actually helped me do that. There was one time when I was riding the bus where I reacted in a way that Ginny totally would have reacted. So, I was sitting on the bus and these two guys next to me were just kind of having an argument and the argument started to turn physical. I was sitting right next to one of the guys. It was just getting completely out of hand, and I couldn't take anymore so I actually stood up and I yelled at one of the guys. Iâ€™m like, how dare you fight next to me? Get off the bus and you know what he did? He got off the bus [laughs]. It made me feel really powerful. He was probably like, 6â€™ tall, and I'm like, 4â€™11â€ and I could just tell him what to do and he went and he did it.

SHANNON HIGGINS: Back in the dungeons, our resident Ravenclaw, Luna Lovegood takes on the first riddle.

ALLESSANDRA DI SIMONE: Riddle number one. For everyone Iâ€™ve known and if you chance to meet me, the point of view is your own, the thing I have to tell you is what you always knew. To give you what you long for is what I cannot do. Did I say it right?

MANY VOICES: Yeah, itâ€™s got to be. Yeah.

ALLESSANDRA DI SIMONE: If you chance to meet me, the point of view, soâ€”youâ€™re looking in the mirror.

FEW VOICES: Good job, Luna. Yay.

ALLESSANDRA DI SIMONE: I'm Allessandra Di Simone and I would like to be Luna Lovegood in this documentary. Luna is a whimsical individual who goes to the beat of her own drum. She doesn't really fit in. She does get bullied, she gets picked on. I identify with that aspect of her personality too, because I was always bullied in high school and stuff. I never really fit in either and I never really knew why. Well, I mean when I first got to university, I think I identified with Luna the absolute most because I would sit in a class of probably, I don't know, maybe 100 people in a big lecture hall, and I knew nobody. It was like no friends, no nothing and I'm sitting there and I, like obviously the Ravenclaw that I am, trying to feverishly take notes and listen to the Prof but at the same time I'm kind of like looking left and right. How do I make friends here? How do I interact with other people? I thought about what she would do in that situation. Seriously, what would Luna do, right? She might eventually just talk to someone as if she's known them her whole life and just feel like, so what do you think of this? Just something random like that, being able to conjure up a really happy memory when you're feeling really down or when you're feeling like nothing is going right in your life or you mean nothing. You know, I think that's really powerful and I think that's the real magic behind Harry Potter. We still relate to it because we still feel like the magic exists. Iâ€™m gonna cry.

VOICE 1: I'm a well-respected character from a very ancient house. You'll jump when you first see me though I wouldn't hurt a mouse. If somebody had been a bit more careful when he chopped, my social life would be improved just when I should have stopped. Who am I? I'm going to say Nearly Headless Nick.

MANY VOICES:[laughs] Yeah. Okay.

VOICE 1: That was great. Poor guy.

SHANNON HIGGINS: The next character you'll meet doesn't have much sympathy for Nearly Headless Nick. Nope, Draco Malfoy is Harry Potter's arch nemesis at school and he's not known for his kindness. But there are many who say the famously blonde Slytherin has really just been misunderstood all along.

ADOLPH TYRELL: Hi. My name is Adolph Tyrell. I am 24-years old. I should be Draco because I exhibit the same desire for power as he does as well as maintaining a bond with my folks in the same way that he does. Admittedly, what he's most known for is he's arrogant, elitist in a way, because he does take pride in being a pure-blood, and he's also a little bit of a bully, but I feel like that's reserved especially towards people that are in his way, in particular Harry Potter. Just like Draco, I do value power but not necessarily a forceful kind. It lets me have a position wherein I can decide the best way and have the resources to protect the ones I care about. As you know, Draco has pressure from his folks in terms of being better than Muggle-borns. When your parents set expectations for you, you have to meet it. I was part of competition in 2013 and one of the tasks required me to go and find our brooms, our respective brooms, and take it before proceeding on to the next part of the task. Well, I happened to come across mine, along with my other opponentsâ€™ brooms and so I took my competitionâ€™s broom and chucked it into a ditch. I think that is definitely something Draco would do because if he sees a weakness, he will exploit it. Yes, he's a bit of a jerk and yes, you can say that he's a bit of a bad guy but you know what? He realized his limitations on just how-- I'm using my fingers as a quote-- bad he could be.

[owlâ€™s wings beating]

SHANNON HIGGINS: And with that comes the delivery of the last owl.

ADOLPH TYRELL: The tournament concludes with a test of strength. Each champion will compete in a formal wizardâ€™s duel.

[simultaneous voices]

VOICE 1: Proper decorum must be followed. Once the task is complete, the keeper of the points must compile the new scores and present the tournamentâ€™s winner with the Honourary Hogwarts Cup. On behalf of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, I thank you all for your participation. Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall, Headmistress, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

VOICE 2: She's the bomb.

VOICE 3: [laughs] Yes, truly. We all love Minerva.

VOICE 2: Alright, Ron versus Hermione. Oh crap.

SHANNON HIGGINS: Let me give you an idea of what this looks like. A proper dual involves two wizards standing about 10 paces apart. They must bow, raise their wands and cast their spells hoping to hit their opponent with stronger magic and a superior spell

VOICE 1: Wands at the ready. Begin.

VOICE 2: Iâ€™m not going easy here, Hermione. Not this time.

VOICE 1: Rematch. Wands at the ready. Begin.

VOICE 2:[laughs] Itâ€™s the same one. What are the odds?

SHANNON HIGGINS: The final character you'll meet today is my personal favorite. He's Harry Potter's most trusted and loyal friend, the wise- cracking, spider-fearing and perpetually hungry, Ron Weasley.

CHRIS JACKSON: My name is Chris Jackson and Ron came from humble beginnings, you know? Very, very humble beginnings. He's unsure himself because of that. I come from a big family and Ron comes from family where he's always feeling out of place, like he's trying to measure up to what is brothers have done ahead of him. He's trying to find his place. He wants to be known for something but he doesn't really know exactly what it is. I remember those feelings of feeling very small and Ron felt that all the time. Like, when I was in high school, I wouldnâ€™t get the best of grades right, so I felt like college was probably going to be the top what I could do and yet here I am now in University, about to graduate next year in the top 10 percent soâ€”Ron evolves into this character that all of a sudden sees himself as able and willing, and with each year that grows more and more, and it helps me with a lot of my struggles growing up. A lot of adversity, a lot of the resilience that I learned, I learned from Ron.

SHANNON HIGGINS: Back in the dungeons, Neville Longbottom and Harry Potter are neck and neck. One final dual will decide who takes home the Honourary Hogwarts Cup.

VOICE 1: Once at the ready. Begin.

[Clapping and cheering]

VOICE 2: All right. That was pretty good. Good job. The Honourary Hogwarts Cup goes toâ€¦ Mr. Harry Potter. I think thatâ€™s very fitting.

[More clapping and cheering]

SHANNON HIGGINS: And with the cup won, predictably by Harry, all that's left is to toast the woman herself.

[cheers and glasses clinking]

VOICE 1: I have a friend actually who still has not read the last chapter of the seventh book. She refuses because it's like this thing in her mind that it's, if I read the last chapter then it's over.

SHANNON HIGGINS: But it's not over. Not for us. Probably never will be.

KELLY HOBSON: I go back when I need to return to my core values, when I want to laugh, when I want to cry, and whenever I need a little reassurance that even though things may seem bleak in the moment, that when all is said and done, all was well for them and all will be well for me. I pick up the books and I go back to Hogwarts.

SHANNON HIGGINS: Before we say farewell, we end the day with a reading from the final book.

Reading:

KELLY HOBSON: The last trace of steam evaporated in the autumn air. Harryâ€™s hand was still raised in farewell. Heâ€™ll be alright, murmured Ginny. The scar had not pained Harry for 19 years. All was well.

AMT: We have been listening to All Was Well, a documentary by The Currentâ€™s Shannon Higgins. Thanks to documentary producer Steve Wadhams for his work in guiding the project and you should know in the news today, J.K. Rowling has announced the location of four new wizarding schools, there are now 11, not that you're going to get to go. We want to hear from you. Are you part of the Harry Potter generation, did the books change your life too, or was it a different book that helped shape you? Let us know. Tweet us @thecurrentcbc, post on our Facebook page or email us by clicking on the contact link cbc.ca/thecurrent. While you're there, check out the amazing photos we have from the making of this documentary, featuring all the characters you just met in full costume, wands and all. We will also post instructions on how to throw your very own honourary Hogwarts cup. That's all at cbc.ca/thecurrent. That is our program for today

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Feb.2, 2016 Episode Transcript

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