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The Current Transcript for January 16, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

AZIZ ANSARI: You send the first text, you're all confidence. 'Forget about it, it's done.' Twenty minutes later, no response. 'Okay, well I'm sure she's just busy with a couple of things and, any minute now.' Three hours later: "I put too many exclamation points in my text."

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Aziz Ansari's comedy routines on modern romance get a lot of giggles, but his interpretation on the challenge of communication while dating is not as funny after this past weekend. With an online report of one woman's date night with him, which she now says she recognizes as sexual assault. The online reaction alternating between support and backlash was swift. Just as it was for Margaret Atwood writing this weekend and Catherine Deneuve who joined 100 other prominent women in France with their thoughts on #MeToo and the consequences of accusations. Some see a generational divide among women at this important moment in time. In a moment we have got a lot to talk about. Also today, right down the middle...

SOUNDCLIP

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: The North Korean threat is so urgent, and that's why Canada is really prepared to do everything we can to work towards a peaceful diplomatic solution.

AMT: Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland isn't alone in suggesting that the world is at a make-or-break moment with North Korea. As Canada prepares to host a summit of nations anxious to keep U.S. and North Korean rhetoric from becoming real, we're asking how a middle power like Canada might manoeuvre on this one. That's in half an hour. And it begins as a minor itch and can become debilitating.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: It's pain that was like a 'throbiness.' You don't want to have shingles. That I do know.

AMT: As the cases of shingles rise, especially among seniors, there's a push for provincial governments to cover the cost of a new and effective vaccine. We'll tell you more in an hour. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Is there a generational divide in the #MeToo movement?

Guests: Elizabeth Renzetti, Natasha Kornak, Rania El Mugammar

SOUNDCLIP

AZIZ ANSARI: I'm actually doing a new show with that guy, Chef Jeff, it's called BFF. It's like a travel show—we just travel around the world eating food, it's great!

VOICE 1: Chef Jeff?

AZIZ ANSARI: Yeah, you know that guy?

VOICE 1: Yeah I've heard of him. I'd be careful of that guy.

AZIZ ANSARI: Why do you say that?

VOICE 1: Well I've heard through the grapevine that Chef Jeff is a little bit of a creep.

AZIZ ANSARI: What?

VOICE 1: Yeah. My wife's friend was a food stylist on Jeff's backyard barbecue or some show. And she said he hit on her and like every woman on the crew, and at one point, he crossed the line.

AMT: That is Aziz Ansari on his Netflix comedy, "Master of None." The semi-autobiographical show earned him a Golden Globe award earlier this month. Last weekend, Mr. Ansari became the latest high-profile man to make an appearence in the real-life #MeToo storyline. An anonymous woman told the website babe.net about her date with the comedian, and their sexual encounter which she says left her feeling—quote—"violated." For his part Mr. Ansari has replied to say he believed their encounter was—quote—"completely consensual." And that when he later learned how she felt he took her words to heart. This points to a changing dynamic between men and women, not just in the boardroom but in the dating world too. It's another incident that also appears to be dividing women along generational lines. To talk about all of this I'm joined by three women. Natasha Kornak is a Queen's University student who has been an advocate for consent education and sexual violence prevention for the past few years. She joins us from Kingston, Ontario. Elizabeth Renzetti is a Globe and Mail columnist and author of a forthcoming book of essays called "Shrewed." She is in Toronto. And Rania El Mugammar is an artist, gender-based violence advocate and equity consultant. She's in Toronto as well. Hello everyone and welcome.

ELIZABETH RENZETTI: Hello.

NATASHA KORNAK: Hello.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Hi.

AMT: Rania El Mugammar I want to start with you. For those who have not been following it, what's your understanding of the Aziz Ansari story? What happened?

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I think it's a familiar story for a lot of people, particularly a lot of young women. The "bad date story," where you don't really have real consent. You don't have a whole lot of room to say 'no.' There's a lot of power dynamics at play and I think as soon as that kind of surfaced, I started getting messages from a lot of young women who were like, 'oh this seems familiar to me. I had a lot of those experiences too and I wasn't really consenting either.' So it brought a lot of disclosure forward and I think it's been complicating our understanding of consent.

AMT: So we don't know a lot about her except she's a photographer. She meets him at an event. They have a date a couple of weeks later, and they go back to his apartment, and several times she tells him he's going too fast with her and they have various sexual encounters in his apartment. She leaves in tears. Natasha Kornak what do you think of the Aziz Ansari allegation?

NATASHA KORNAK: Ultimately when I was reading the article, I think people have a very concrete conception of what sexual assault is. And it's really important that we understand what it really means in the context of the law. Sexual assault is defined in the Criminal Code of Canada as any form of unwanted sexual advances, touching—things like that. Those of course are not the exact words. But it's a very broad overreaching definition. And so when I was reading through the article—if you read through it she talks about what happens with respect to oral sex. Forced oral sex or oral sex without explicit consent is a form of sexual assault. It's really important that we take that into consideration because it often gets overlooked and people who experience those types of things, often don't come forward and report. And what kind of makes me a little bit upset is people say, 'oh well you know he's just not a mind-reader. You can't really blame him.' And I think that he was putting forward or rather she was putting forward a lot of cues expressing things like, 'you're going too fast' as you mentioned. And he didn't pick up on that. What I've been trying to do is educate youth on consent. And consent, we often try to say, 'it's not the absence of a no, it's the presence of a yes.' But there's also other little aspects of consent which are things like body language and verbal cues and things like that.

AMT: Which she argues that she used.

NATASHA KORNAK: Yes.

AMT: Okay.

NATASHA KORNAK: I mean I wasn't there. But I believe that she probably and likely did express such cues. So it's important that we take those things into consideration when we're considering how this affected her.

AMT: Elizabeth Renzetti what do you make of this?

ELIZABETH RENZETTI: I completely agree with both of the panelists here. I think the issue is that we need to better teach enthusiastic consent to boys and girls at a much earlier age. We need to teach them to read verbal and non-verbal cues. We need to teach them about obviously the pleasures of sexual encounters when they're consensual. And my worry with the Aziz Ansari story is that—I've written about the backlash to the #MeToo movement which troubles me immensely. And I worry that the enemies of the movement will use this as a wedge to say—essentially what they're saying is all issues on this spectrum are being treated the same. And I worry that then this will give—as I say enemies of the movement—an opportunity to dismiss all the aspects of #MeToo which is frightening.

AMT: Rania is nodding her head.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I mean I empathize with that to an extent. But I think it's really important to first of all expand our understanding of sexual violence as part of the same spectrum, whether that is a bad date or whether it goes all the way to rape. Those are all part of the same culture that enables and fosters rape culture. That enables and fosters gender-based violence, violence against women, and vulnerable people in general. There is room for that. There's room for both of these conversations to happen at the same time. So I think it's critical to have them simultaneously. And it's critical because it invites people who were not previously talking about consent to talk about consent. And it gives people the language to name a lot of their experiences and start problematizing them. There's been a lot of fear of, 'oh well everything is assault now.' That's first of all ridiculous. Second of all, it stresses to people to have real consent. And consent doesn't look like, 'I can live with this.' It looks like, 'I want this.' So being able to kind of shift our understanding as far as that goes. Building a culture of consent is critical for all of us. It's good for everyone. And I mean there's been a lot of conversations about 'oh it's ruining romance'—a lot of those kind of ridiculous notions. And to me what's more romantic than having sexual encounters that you really want and you're really enjoying. So I think it's instilling people with a sense of responsibility even if that sense of responsibility is coming from a sense of fear of being accused to do something. I mean I don't have the time to wait for people to put their moral compass in the right place. Whatever it takes to instigate that conversation and to feel really accountable for your actions and to have really intentional conversations with your intimate partners about what that looks like. I think that's really critical. I think this culture of violence and the structures that enable it and all the other power dynamics that play into it, are a conversation that needs to happen all the time and that needs to happen at every level.

AMT: Well let's talk a little bit more about the backlash. Over the weekend the Atlantic contributing editor Caitlin Flanagan described Mr. Ansari's critics as part of a hit squad of privileged young white women opening fire on brown-skinned men. Who wants to tackle that comment. Okay, go ahead Natasha.

NATASHA KORNAK: Well I think that when we look at these types of instances, I didn't look at it as a brown-skinned man. And if you look at what happens with respect to a lot of these instances, a lot of the people who have been accused have been white men. I think that a lot of is actually about valuing women. Our society still treats women as property. We might have rights. We might still have all these things enshrined in law, but we're still very much treated as though we are still sex objects in lot of ways. So for this woman to come forward and actually say that she felt uncomfortable and that she didn't feel as though her concerns were addressed. I don't think that has anything to do with race. I think that has to do with the fact that she had a bad experience and that she was completely entitled to speaking out like every other woman whose address any other man of any other race of any other notoriety throughout this whole entire #MeToo movement.

AMT: Well we've also seen some older women who have argued their generation was better equipped to handle what they would have called the "bad date." The younger women don't seem to distinguish between awkward or unpleasant encounters and actual sexual assaults.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Its beyond awkward or unpleasant at this point. She stated—Grace—stated that several times she pushed his hand away. Several times asked him to slow down. These are all both verbal and non-verbal cues that this is not okay. But also I think a lot of us are socialized to blame ourselves first. I think a lot of us have a lot more language to talk about than maybe women in older generations. But I also disagree that its a generational thing. I think largely its a privilege thing. There is a lot of young racialized, disabled, queer women—and old racialized, disabled, and queer women—who can talk about these experiences in really nuanced ways. I mean those were the women who taught me and challenged my understanding of these things and pushed me to expand my understanding of consent and understand sexual violence in a lot more broad terms and all the ways in which these things are connected. I think sometimes older women have been socialized so well to be quiet about it. That it's younger women too depending on our cultural context. So I don't know that it's a generational thing. And I don't know that people are better equipped. I think sometimes we're better at being quite.

ELIZABETH RENZETTI: Well as the token old lady on the panel, I agree with much of what Rania is saying. But I also disagree because I think it actually is a generational issue in certain ways. And I see this among older feminists and I put myself in this group. I think sometimes we have real difficulty sharing the microphone or handing the megaphone over because for so long we've existed with this idea that we're oppressed. We are the oppressed people. And it's very hard for us to see that there are different modes of oppression and that we need to listen now. Not just to younger feminists, but as you say, women from traditionally marginalized communities. And that is a very hard thing to do when you have yourself felt so put upon for so long, it's really hard to just sit back and listen. But it's so important. And I know it's hard. But I think it's crucial. Otherwise you end up with all these weird cracks in feminism pitting us against each other which is not helpful at all.

AMT: Natasha, what do you think about the generational divide? Is there one in your view?

NATASHA KORNAK: I think there is and there isn't. Some of my best allies with respect to the consent movement. One of them back in Calgary—she's two generations older than I am. And she's been a huge ally with respect to consent education and a huge advocate against sexual violence. But then I think about people like my grandmother who maybe had different social expectations and things like that. I think there was a different expectation definition about what sexual violence entailed back a few generations ago. You know things like, 'if it's not hetero-penetrative sex, it doesn't really count as sexual assault.' Things like that. And now we're in this era where we understand that people like you mentioned, queer women and men and people of all genders and vulnerable people in general, can experience sexual violence and it can affect them the same way that it would straight women. And so I think we're in a generational shift where we are realizing that sexual violence is not a black and white issue. It's a very multifaceted, which is why I think it's important to agree with Elizabeth that, 'yes we need to listen to each other.' And I think it's very important that we empathize with each other and understand that what this woman experienced. While it wasn't by definition "rape" per say, she still experienced trauma associated with this. She's still experienced negative feelings and and whatnot after this incident. So these are things that we need to look at. And we have to take these things in consideration because I know women who have been in this situation and I think their experiences are perfectly valid. I don't think anyone's trauma should be ignored or put into a box or labelled as lesser than someone else's because we choose to not empathize with them.

AMT: I want to raise another question and that is the accusations that come out and people are named. I've got a clip here. This one happens to be from Christina Hoff Summers expressing her concerns about that on Fox News with Tucker Carlson from November. Listen to this.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRISTINA HOFF SUMMERS: I consider myself a feminist. This is not true of all feminists, but there is a school of feminism that is very averse to masculinity. It sees as intrinsically, pathological and toxic. I've seen a willingness to sacrifice innocent people, because when we remind people of the importance of the presumption of innocence and being careful about false accusation, there have been some activists who have said well 'who cares if some innocent people go down?' And so that sort of attitude worries me.

AMT: Okay, I see to two people in front of me making unusual faces. Elizabeth Renzetti…

ELIZABETH RENZETTI: Well who are these innocent people? Who are these martyrs that we're burning at the stake? Could Christina Hoff Summers please name names of people who have been falsely accused and who are being persecuted. When we talk about, 'oh this is so hard on you know certain men who this is happening to you,' I think I would like those people to listen to the women who email me every day—because I write about these things—who have suffered harassment and abuse and misconduct at work and were ignored, were forced out, and had to quit their jobs. Some of them are in their 60s, their 70s, their 80s and they carry the scars of this and they carry it silently. They carry it often by themselves. They sometimes have families and they've had to leave work and they feel completely unsupported. Those are the people we should be thinking of and those are the people we should reserve our sympathy for.

AMT: Rania...

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: I agree. People forget that actually the consequences for victims who come forward and disclose are so much worse. They get berated. Some of them lose their jobs. They lose family. The consequences for our mental health are tremendous. When you disclose you don't get a gold star, you get attacked. So these are the people who are actually marginalized by this experience. And there's a lot of misunderstanding around really the numbers. In reality we only see about six out of 100 sexual assault cases that are being reported to police and that one out of five are dismissed as unfounded by the detective—that was a Globe and Mail study that came out last year. Despite that we actually know that only two to four percent of reported sexual assault cases are found out to be "false." So there's this idea that there's a big conspiracy is problematic. And when we talk about masculinity and feminism, masculinity hurts everybody. Toxic masculinity hurts everybody. It's not just about the harm that it impacts on people. It hurts people all across the gender spectrum. It also silences people who may identify as men when they experience sexual violence because you are told, 'you can't be assaulted in that way. You should have been able to defend yourself.' And so we actually don't have a lot of stats when it comes to that because toxic masculinity prevents that.

AMT: Natasha, you want to weigh in here?

NATASHA KORNAK: Yeah. So I think we have to consider—this was an incident that occurred in the United States. The United States has statute of limitation on reporting a sexual assault. And there's also very few methods people can take to seek justice when it comes to things like sexual harassment. This was an instance that she described as assault. I have no idea who these martyrs are that this woman was referring to. With respect to calling this a false allegation, I think what's more important is that we look at the number of cases that are dismissed as unfounded, which was a huge thing that the Globe and Mail looked into. But looking at cases that are dismissed and thought of as baseless without proper investigation. So when women do come forward they're attacked by all angles. So if they can't see justice in the justice system and they go out into the public sphere and disclose what their experience was and their attacked, they're putting their reputations on the line there. So ultimately there really is no winning when you come forward with respect to these sorts of things a lot of the time.

AMT: Natasha we have to leave it there. We're out of time. But it's good that we're having this conversation and per as usual, we could keep going but the computer won't let us [laughs]. Thank you to all three of you for weighing in on this.

NATASHA KORNAK: Thank you.

RANIA EL MUGAMMAR: Thank you.

ELIZABETH RENZETTI: Thank you very much.

AMT: I've been speaking Natasha Kornak. She's a Queen's University student who has been an advocate for consent education and sexual violence prevention. She's in Kingston, Ontario. Elizabeth Renzetti is a Globe and Mail columnist and author of the forthcoming book of essays called, "Shrewed." And Rania El Mugammar is an artist, gender-based violence advocate, and equity consultant. Their both in our Toronto studio with me. Over to you. What do you think of the #MeToo conversation? Where it's going with some of the backlash? Do you think there is a generational divide? Is this conversation something you are learning from? Taking part in? Let us know. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Go to the website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Find us on Facebook. And stay with us. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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'An extraordinary moment': North Korea summit shows tug-of-war over how to deal with rogue state

Guests: Nan Kim, Kathryn Weathersby, Danny Lam

Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, just say the word to someone who's had it and you can see the pain on their faces. Shingles strikes more than 100,000 Canadians every year. Should provincial governments cover the cost of a new more effective vaccine? We are asking in half an hour. But first, how do you solve a problem like North Korea?

SOUNDCLIP

DONALD TRUMP: The United States has great strength and patience. But if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime. The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary.

AMT: U.S. President Donald Trump doing some sabre rattling at the U.N. last September, and putting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on notice. It was just one of many moments in the past year where the world could feel the tension ratcheting up between North Korea and the U.S. Today in Vancouver foreign ministers from around the world are meeting to address that volatility. Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is co-hosting a summit with her American counterpart, the U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Twenty countries are represented at that meeting. There are some notable absences, including China, Russia, and North Korea itself. Going into today's talks there are three main strategies on the table for dealing with Kim Jong Un and his nuclear program: Increased diplomacy, stronger sanctions or a pre-emptive strike. We're joined by three guests to debate the strengths and weaknesses of each of those options. Nan Kim is an associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a Steering Committee Member of the Alliance for Scholars Concerned about Korea. She joins us from Vancouver. Kathryn Weathersby is a professor of history at Korea University in Seoul, with a speciality in the Korean War. She joins us from our studio in Washington. And Danny Lam is a Defense Analyst. He joins us from Calgary. Hi everyone. Welcome.

KATHRYN WEATHERSBY: Hello.

DANNY LAM: Good morning.

NAN KIM: Good morning.

AMT: Nan Kim let's start with you. How important are the meetings happening today in Vancouver?

NAN KIM: This is really an extraordinary moment. Right now we have the gathering of foreign ministers representing the countries part of the U.N. command, where it sent humanitarian aid. And we're here in Vancouver where we have the international community really trying to grapple with this issue. And at the same time this recent warming of relations between the North and South Korea. This revival of the process of reconciliation and integrating ties. And at the same time of course we're here in Canada. And we as a group have come to Vancouver as 16 women from around the world in order witness and really bring to the table issues representing peace movements that are both engaged with civil society perspectives that really are trying to highlight the importance of addressing this issue in Canada, which of course is both an strong ally of the US as well as having just recently launched its own feminist foreign policy.

AMT: Well let me ask you just a little bit more about that. I guess one third of the delegates at this meeting are female. The fact that peace activists have come—you're really underlining the point that women need a bigger place at this table. Tell us a little bit more about that.

NAN KIM: Absolutely. Women really need to be at the table in preparing the way for peace because women make a difference in achieving a peace deal. This is not just an opinion. There is research and evidence to prove it, showing that including representatives of women's peace movements in these processes not only result in actual peace agreements, but also more durable ones. We had a study of 40 peace processes showing that of 182 signed peace accords in 35 countries, an agreement was reached in all but one case when women's groups influence the peace process. And so we could see this in Columbia, in Ireland, in Liberia, and the Philippines all serving these examples of how bringing women to the table can really make a difference in terms of achieving that progress. They bring new issues to the tables such as, the rights of women and girls, sexual and gender-based violence, as well as issues of access to land and other issues, and how war itself affects the wider population.

AMT: Kathryn Weathersby, what's your perspective on what's happening in Vancouver today?

KATHRYN WEATHERSBY: It reminds me of what happened in the fall and winter of 1950, when the Truman administration made some references to the possible use of nuclear weapons against North Korea or China during the first period of the Korean War soon after the Chinese entered. This was so alarming to the British government, the French government, the Dutch government, others that the British prime minister flew to Washington to meet with Truman. And the Truman-Attlee talks were important. They did serve a restraining role, really, on the U.S. administration. And I think the same thing can happen with today's meeting. It's terribly important that that happen because it's easy for people in Washington to look at this purely in terms of American interest and that's what you hear people saying that, 'we can't tolerate North Korea having a ICBM that can reach American soil loaded with a nuclear weapon. And therefore we are justified in making us strike to take out such weapons. That the damage that will cause will be caused only over there. Korea and Japan and whoever else. The damage won't be to us and therefore we don't need to worry about it.' It's quite an outrageous statement. It is profoundly immoral in my view. And it's one that needs to be countered very forcefully by all of the other countries that will be affected by any possible military strike against North Korea.

AMT: Danny Lam, how will North Korea view this summit in Vancouver?

DANNY LAM: I think they are quite disappointed that a conference of sending states and allies got together because these are the countries—descending states—that originally signed the Armistice Agreement and guaranteed the peace. You know we have an obligation to guarantee to peace. So what they tried to do of course was to bring as much division, fear, and doubt into this group. That's what happened. Now with respect to our guest, I don't think we differ in terms of our goals, which is none of us want a war. None of us want to use force. And I in particular are gravely concerned that if military force had to be used, it has to limit casualties across the board, including North Koreans, South Koreans, Japanese, and it's not just a problem over there.

AMT: What do you think Danny Lam about the fact that China and Russia are absent from this?

DANNY LAM: They were two different visions of what the meeting was about. The vision put forward by Canada when it was asked to co-host was, this is going to be a Versailles peace conference after World War One. We're going to bring everybody to the table. We're going to have dialogue until we can hammer out a peace treaty, which I am pretty sure everyone knows how the Versailles Peace Treaty worked out after World War One. The U.S. view of the conference was that it is The Tehran Conference of 1943, where Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin got together and said, 'how are we going to fight Germany and win?' So there was two different visions. And they were conflicting. Now at the end of the day, the U.S. view prevailed and politely China had to be dis-invited. Russia was also dis-invited or invited to the sidelines which effectively is the same thing. And those visions conflict.

AMT: Kathryn Weathersby does North Korea—is it justified in being a little nervous though? I mean some of the people at this summit, they represent the countries that were part of the Korean War. North Korea saw great devastation in that war. How does that fit in to the fact that the invitees are part of that? There is talk now. I'm asking you because of course there are estimates that as many as 300,000 people could die in a war on the Peninsula if there was actually going to be a war. And that we know that there is a debate inside the U.S. military and what to do next.

KATHRYN WEATHERSBY: Yes I think the likely casualties would be much higher than that. North Korea is very concerned, according to reports we're hearing now about preparations within the American military for action on the Korean Peninsula. So for this meeting to be held largely among the countries who had participated in the U.N. command, can be seen as alarming if they are anticipating that this will be a mechanism for those countries to give approval to an American military strike. But as I said earlier that's not necessarily going to be the outcome of this meeting. It can also serve to restrain some of the impulses within the American government.

AMT: Nan Kim I wonder what you think. We're having this conversation against the backdrop of the news today that there was a mistake in North Korean missile alert in Japan today, for which Japan has apologized to its citizens. We saw that alert in Hawaii on the weekend. What does that tell you about the sort of the level of tension right now?

NAN KIM: Yes it's clear that whether it's Japan or Hawaii or elsewhere the level of fear and panic is really at a elevated point. And it is a reminder of what is at stake. And really that we don't want to go there. At this point especially because we're here early morning of the ministerial meeting—a time to step back and understand that we haven't been trying properly as far as we're here to promote or advocate for the diplomatic process. But with the approach that has been taken with a combination of this increasing level of sanctions and the overtures or the expression of wanting to engage in talks, that these can really be at cross purposes. In the sense that in what we've seen as far as the strategy of maximum pressure, it's one that has sought to add this increasing imperative to try to raise the military tensions. And what we've seen is in terms of increasing the sanctions that this hasn't furthered the process of stepping back from curbing the nuclear program—the nuclear weapons program in North Korea. But what it certainly has done is cause severe harm on the North Korean civilian population. So what we're really hoping to widen the perspective is one that calls for a more comprehensive approach toward a diplomatic process. One that recognizes how this inter-state is at the root of insecurity that is right now leading to increased levels of volatility.

AMT: So you would you vote for increased diplomacy?

NAN KIM: Indeed. What we're seeing now on the Korean Peninsula between North and South is a return to approach that we saw also from the 1998 to 2008 a period, which was the most active years that decade of Korean relations. And at that point you had a real departure from past approaches by South Korea toward North Korea. In that it stated first that South Korea would seek to absorb North Korea. It advocated the approach which is based on economic cooperation and mutual recognition. And so that as well as to understand that the process of trying to recognize the insecurity at root of the unended Korean War has led to this current situation of instability.

AMT: Danny Lam what's the biggest misunderstanding about North Korea do you think?

DANNY LAM: Their intentions. I think the biggest problem we have in grappling and whether or not it is possible for a diplomatic process to achieve peace is, what do they intend to doÉ What do they want long-term? The regime has very clearly told us over 70 years that their goal is to kick the United States out of the Korean Peninsula. Then reunify the Korea's by force on their terms. And then they expect to claim compensation from everyone that has ever wronged them. And this is not just a historical—this was a demand they made at the United Nations in September in Minister Ri's speech. He says 'we will be assessing damages and seeking to you to pay us or else.' That is the biggest problem. If we were to allow this to happen, this is the default pathway if we let it go on. We have a very, very short window of perhaps, a year, maybe a little bit more. Maybe a little less. Where we have a viable military option that do not involve mass casualties. It's either now or never. I think that's the biggest problem.

AMT: You're saying pre-emptive strike.

DANNY LAM: I am not. First of all I don't think legally the notion of pre-emptive strike apply because the war has been passed legally by an Armistice. So therefore...

AMT: Okay well what are you saying though? That short window. What are you saying? What would you like to see done?

DANNY LAM: Maximum diplomatic. Maximum pressure. Maximum effort by everyone to bring them to the negotiating table. Let the Chinese, the Russians, and the North Koreans recognize the United States has a viable good military option that do not involve mass casualties. Let's sit down and figure out a way to work out a deal we could live with.

AMT: And so what role does a country like Canada—middle power—play in that Danny Lam? Where do you see Canada having any influence?

DANNY LAM: One, it's not a matter of just influence. We are allies with the United States and we have obligations to defend our allies, including the United States. Point one. The second issue is we signed and guaranteed Armistice as a sending state. So we have an obligation to bring together all these states that fought the war with us decades ago, and say, 'hey this is all our problem. We need to build. Canada's best contribution is to help secure that consensus.

AMT: Kathryn Weathersby...

KATHRYN WEATHERSBY: I agree with Danny Lam. The issue is North Korean intentions, in particular, their intentions with regard to their nuclear program. So why are they developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of deploying those weapons? That's really the issue. If they intend to use them offensively, if they intend to strike the United States or elsewhere with nuclear weapons, then there would be justification for a pre-emptive strike to take out those weapons. But having looked at their development of nuclear weapons since the 1960s, I don't see that that is there goal. That's not what the evidence suggests to me. It suggests that they are seeking this for their own security. The same reason that all of the other nuclear weapons states have developed such weapons. For them to actually use them offensively would be a suicidal act. And they are not suicidal. They understand that. And they are a bit bewildered that others don't understand that. There was a very good article I recommend published recently by 38 North reporting a conversation between a Russian-North Korean specialist Alexander Vorontsov who was in Pyongyang in November talking to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officials there. And they were expressing their great concern over the increased military preparations on the part of the U.S., and the fact that people in the U.S. are not understanding the defensive purpose of their weapons. And I should say there's so much at stake. We should look at Iraq for example. There was a lot of talk about how this would be easy. It would be clean. We would get rid of a nasty regime and make everything better in the Middle East. And we see how the damage caused by the invasion of Iraq has rippled outward affecting not only the Middle East, but Europe and North America, and elsewhere. So the damage caused by a military attack on North Korea will similarly ripple outward. But Northeast Asia is a much denser region. Denser in population. Denser in power. So the consequences will be even greater.

AMT: And when you say the consequences will be greater. Spell it out for me.

KATHRYN WEATHERSBY: Well if there were an attack on North Korea's nuclear facilities, the North Korean state would have to respond with everything they have. Kim Jong Un couldn't stay in power if he didn't make a maximum response. Right. And that would then necessarily bring in U.S. ground forces, as well as South Korean ground forces, and air forces, and naval forces. It would be an all out attack. That would necessarily involve China because China is not going to sit idly while North Korea is attacked. It's not that they particularly want to defend North Korea, but they want to defend their border. So we can easily see a spiralling conflict between the United States and China as South Korean forces rush to the north along with American forces. Japan is going to be involved as well because as North Korea would strike back they would hit Japan as well as South Korea. And this will then just escalate a military conflict between the United States and China.

AMT: Nan Kim, what do you expect to come from a one day meeting on something so large? What do you need to hear at the end of today?

NAN KIM: I think that it's true that for such a complex problem that has all these many moving parts and risks at stake, it's a lot to expect from this one day meeting. But I think what we really are hoping to see is a renewed commitment to being able to first recognize that the military option is not on the table. This notion of so-called "bloody nose strike" is really an allusion. Or the fact that we have to recognize that any military action would risk triggering the much larger and terrifying scenario frankly that Kathryn laid out so clearly. What we really would be calling for is or asking and hoping to see as a result of the dialogue from today's ministerial meeting is a commitment to engage all the relevant parties in dialogue to work toward achieving a nuclear weapons free Korean Peninsula. And that's a discussion that should occur without preconditions because that's what hampers the ability to even come to the table at all. Also really extending the spirit of the Olympic truce, that's this extraordinary moment that we were referring to earlier. And so it's a time not to assess what the possibility of having a limited strike, but rather of the resumption of the inter-Korean dialogue, supporting negotiations, and also pledged not to conduct a first strike whether nuclear or conventional. And that would really bring us to a process that could lead toward a more true and peaceful resolution.

AMT: We have to leave it there. We're out of time. But thank you all of you for your thoughts on this today. We'll have to wait and see how this meeting—what they do say out of this meeting. I've been speaking with Nan Kim, an associate professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and a Steering Committee Member of the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea. She's in Vancouver. Kathryn Weathersby is a professor of history at Korea University. She joined us from Washington today. And Danny Lam is a Defense Analyst. He joined us from Calgary. Stay with us. In our next half hour, there is a new vaccine to keep shingles away from older Canadians. The cost is about $400. Not getting shingles of course is priceless. We'll hear more about the vaccine and cause for provincial health care plans to cover it. That's in about 90 seconds. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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New shingles vaccine should be free, argues seniors advocate

Guests: Sharon Livingston, Dr. Lynora Saxinger, Jane Barratt, Dr. Allison McGeer

AMT: Hello I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. Ask anyone who has been through it and they will tell you shingles is one of the most intensely painful things they have experienced. A searing combination of burning electrical shocks and needle pricks against your skin. Every year 130,000 Canadians, most of them over the age of 60, find out for themselves. But relief from shingles could be on the horizon. A promising new vaccine called Shingrix is now available in Canada. It is considered much more effective than the older, Zostavax vaccine. But it is not cheap. Patients require two separate shots that cost about $400 in total—give or take. Unlike many other vaccines Shingrix is not covered by a provincial health care plans and that is something that senior advocates want to change. Sharon Livingston endured shingles four years ago when she was 70 years old. She is a gerontologist. She still suffers from symptoms today. Sharon Livingston is in St. George, Ontario Hello.

SHARON LIVINGSTON: Good morning. How are you?

AMT: I am well. I am curious to know about what happened when you got shingles. How did it first appear?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: Well it started out sort of like a acne rash. And then a day later I was having lunch with a friend and she said, 'you know whatever is going on with you, it's growing and turning bright red.' So when I looked in the mirror I had bright red pustules around my ear and down the side of my neck.

AMT: Was it diagnosed immediately by then when you had that checked out?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: No. And you really need to have it done within three days because that's when you need to get the antiviral. So it took me more than a day at least to get into urgent care. I sort of squeaked under the timeline for the antiviral. And I did get the antiviral. Based on my experience I would have to say I don't think it helped a great deal.

AMT: So how debilitating was shingles for you?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: Horrible. I ended up losing at least a month of my life. Two weeks of it I walked around using ice packs because it was the only thing that actually gave me any relief. The heat, the bright red itchiness—there's actually no word to describe how hideous it is.

AMT: It started on your neck, where did it go?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: It started on my neck and went around and into my ear drum.

AMT: Did it damage your ears? Your hearing?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: No it did not. And for that I'm very grateful. And that may be because I did have the vaccine and I did have the antiviral. My GP at the time said, 'I was just really blessed that it hadn't gone into my brain.'

AMT: Oh... wow. Okay, so Zostavax is the original vaccine. You had that.

SHARON LIVINGSTON: That's correct.

AMT: Okay, so it would have been worse.

SHARON LIVINGSTON: That seems to be the medical opinion. Yes. You can't get that opinion from me because I don't think I have had anything in my life that has been this terrible.

AMT: So this was four years ago. Do you still get symptoms now?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: I do almost every day.

AMT: Like what?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: I have an itchiness down the side of my neck. It's a bit of a joke among the people I work with and play golf that they always know when I'm under stress because I am itching at my ear or down the back of my neck.

AMT: This is because you had chicken pox as a kid I guess. This was in your system.

SHARON LIVINGSTON: That's correct. Shingles is triggered by the fact that you carry the chicken pox inside your system forever. And so I live and hope that for the children who are being vaccinated against chicken pox now—that means that older adults later on won't have shingles.

AMT: So in other words again it flares up because of stress for you now?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: That seems to be one of the things. There could also be—and we're not 100 percent sure if there is a genetic connection—but it seems to also run in families. All of my adult children have had shingles.

AMT: Do you find your friends are getting it as well? Do you see more of it?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: It certainly appears that there is more of it out there. I volunteer in the emergency department at a local hospital. And in the last couple of weeks we've seen a number of—three people—with what looked to be shingles.

AMT: Will you get this new vaccine or would it help you?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: Absolutely. It's in my fridge waiting for me to go this week to get my first shot.

AMT: So you got it from the drugstore and then you'll bring it in to get it.

SHARON LIVINGSTON: You have to get a script from your doctor, and then I got it from the drugstore. I had to wait a few days to get it from the drugstore. And the first one cost me $177.

AMT: Okay. And you're willing to pay that?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: I absolutely am. If there is something I do not want to repeat in my life, it's this

AMT: So what would you like to see happen with treatment of this now?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: I would really, really insist that this is a public health issue and we need to have it available 50-plus for free. There are far too many older adults living in poverty who couldn't possibly begin to afford this.

AMT: And as you know it's quite debilitating. How long did it take you to get rid of it?

SHARON LIVINGSTON: Well I think I still have bits of it. But the reality is it was at least three and a half months.

AMT: It's a long time.

SHARON LIVINGSTON: It really is. We know older adults who get it in eye and lose vision and therefore lose independence and often lose their ability to live alone and end up in long-term care.

AMT: Sharon Livingston, it's important to hear your story. Thank you for speaking with me.

SHARON LIVINGSTON: My pleasure Anna Maria. Thank you for calling.

AMT: Bye bye. That is Sharon Livingston. She's a gerontologist and she lives in St. George, Ontario. Well the new Shingrix vaccine is out there now. And to get a lot more on this I'm joined by Dr. Lynora Saxinger. She's an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. And she is in Edmonton. Hello.

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: Good morning.

AMT: So how typical is that experience that you just heard with shingles?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: Unfortunately that's fairly typical. Not in location because it can occur everywhere. But a significant number of people go on to have nerve symptoms for quite awhile after an episode of shingles. So it can become something that's quite life-changing for people.

AMT: Do only get shingles if you've had chicken pox as a kid?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: Chicken pox as a kid is the main risk factor. So we know that this whole family of viruses doesn't actually leave your body, it comes out again. So in the case of chicken pox, it comes out as shingles. And because it lies dormant in the immune system essentially—I mean in the nervous system—it comes out along a single nerve path most commonly. So rather than getting whole body chicken pox, you get kind of a band of essentially chicken pox lesions that crest and scab later along the path of one nerve. So often it's like a [unintelligible] on one side of your body for example or in the head and neck area.

AMT: Okay. And who is most at risk?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: Your risk? It can happen to anybody. Like I've had medical school classmates get it during exams. During times of stress. It can during times of reduced immunity. For example for cancer therapy or other things. And then most commonly it happens with advancing age and it starts to tick up a little bit after age 50, which I don't consider very old. But it goes up quite sharply after age 60 and 70. And so by the time you're 70 or 80-year-old, your risk is substantially increased probably. Well I mean there's different numbers. But 10 percent per year is one such number. So it's pretty common actually.

AMT: And the actual infection what can it do? What are the dangers?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: Aside from the initial rash and misery and possibility of prolonged nerve pain your first guest alluded to, you can have eye-involvement, which is taken quite seriously. Sometimes it can be implicated in causing encephalitis-meningitis, but not very commonly. So to me the main issue is the initial disease and then importantly the long- term pain from it. And then after that eye disease. And then rarely in hospital we might see cases where we think it's involving the central nervous system.

AMT: Okay. And when you say eye disease, can people lose their sight over this?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: They can lose their sight over this. So ordinarily when we see involvement of the face—in a territory that can be associated with eyes to the nerve—we usually get [unintelligible] about that and treat aggressively and send them to an ophthalmologist.

AMT: And we heard Sharon say that it could have gone to her brain. It can go to your brain?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: I think she's referring to encephalitis-meningitis.

AMT: Okay. Okay.

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: And it can. It just is a relatively rare complication.

AMT: So what can you tell us about this new Shingrix vaccine?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: Well I can tell you that although I've never had a visit from the drug company or gone to a drug company sponsored lecture, when I heard that there is a new vaccine I did read primary papers myself and was very impressed actually. It genuinely is a big step up in vaccinating against [unintelligible] virus. It has much higher rates of protection that seems to not matter how old you are. So for the all vaccine which was decent—I mean it was decent enough to use. It reduced risk in the maybe 70 percent range. But as you got older the likelihood of protection drop, so your immune system didn't respond as well to the vaccine. So it was more in that kind of 30 to 40 percent range for the elderly people, which are the ones with the highest risk. That's always been a disappointment of that vaccine although it was still worth getting. This one actually can give us the 80-year-old the immune system of a 20-year-old. It all seems to be more or less the same. It seems to provide potentially long-lasting immunity. At least so far it doesn't seem to decline over the first few years the way the old vaccine did. It's quite an impressive product actually.

AMT: Is it better technology? More tinkering in the lab that brought this out?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: What you said, it was technology and tinkering both. So it's one of the first vaccines out. Maybe the first one that has a new type of adjuvant. It's basically presenting the virus antigen, like the part of a virus that's been selected to give us an immune response in a different way using a liposome, which is a little membrane vesicle. So it's difficult to manufacture. But it seems to really kind of frame that little particle—virus material virus code. It's not made from live virus. It's made from manufactured bit of virus in a way that your immune system recognizes much more strongly and more effectively it looks like. That same technology is likely to result in improvements of other vaccines as well. So I guess what we're kind of talking about is the value—or value added. And the one consolation for the high price is that at least it's a high tech vaccine that took a lot of development. And so you can kind of understand why you might have to pay more for that.

AMT: You mentioned other vaccines. Is there something they could learn from the creation of this for others?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: Like we're talking this year about how crummy the influenza vaccine is—I mean currently anyway potentially. It is something that could affect influenza vaccines. There is a malaria vaccine that's already been developed with it. I think the basic technology might be actually useful for a lot of different vaccines where we see the immune response kind of dropping with age. And it appears to be because you're not using a live virus and because it's like a little ball of membrane, essentially. It seems to be reasonably safe. Although I should mention that people do tend to get more of a sore from this one than it would from the older one or from other vaccines.

AMT: Is that the sole side-effect or are there other side-effects?

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: That's the one that kind of came to the top from what I was scanning. And it's probably because your mounting such a robust immune response against the virus that you get some inflammation. So you can console yourself that at least the vaccine appears to be doing what it's supposed to do. Although they do recommend don't freak out take some Tylenol. And it wasn't something that prevented people from getting the second dose. If that makes anyone feel better in the trials whether or not this vaccine works.

AMT: Okay. Well thank you for your insights.

DR. LYNORA SAXINGER: You're very welcome.

AMT: That is Dr. Lynora Saxinger. She's an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta. She joined us from Edmonton. Well Shingrix is available in Canada. Many seniors advocates are calling on the provinces to cover its cost in their health care plans. Jane Barratt is the Secretary General of the International Federation on Ageing. She's based in Toronto. Today we have reached her in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hello.

JANE BARRATT: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: Why do you think provincial governments should cover the cost of this vaccine?

JANE BARRATT: Anna Maria by 2031 one in four of us in Canada are going to be over the age of 65. So we should understand this is a short-term investment for long-term contributions that all Canadians will make. One thing that struck me when I was listening to Sharon was she said, 'I lost a month of my life.' She works. She plays golf. She volunteers. And that contribution she couldn't make when she had the acute episode of shingles. So it's an investment.

AMT: Would you put an age restriction on it? Like a certain age range.

JANE BARRATT: Well we know that the number of shingles cases that occur in individuals over the age of 50 is two out of three. And so we've also got to think about, we're asking older people to actually remain in the workplace. We're asking them to volunteer. And of course they've got all those care-giving duties around grandparenting, as well as volunteering. So it seems to me that we need to be looking at 50 and over for a recommendation for this new and effective vaccine.

AMT: That would be I'm guessing a big hit to provincial healthcare budgets. How would you convince the governments to do that?

JANE BARRATT: You know the big hit comes in their children. Children having to care for their mom and dad who are elderly. Acute premature admissions to hospital. Also not being able to function and being independent. As Lynora also said there are some complications. And so what we would see is a spike in hospital admissions. So on balance it seems to me that we need to be actually making the investment up front. The business case is a complicated one though Anna Maria because we're not only talking about the dollar cost, we're talking about societal costs. And we don't do a very good job in understanding what that societal contribution is that older people are making generally.

AMT: Do you think governments are more dismissive of something that would be for older people than for another aspect of a population other segment?

JANE BARRATT: That's called discrimination on the basis of age. And that happens.

AMT: I know. That's why I'm asking you do you think it exists [laughs].

JANE BARRATT: Oh it absolutely does exist. And while government may argue that it is very difficult because of the complexities of comorbid conditions that an older person has, then it's very difficult to actually make that case. But I would certainly stand up and talk with any government official about discrimination on the basis of age. You know it's very difficult. Older people are not one group. Every 85-year-old is different to the next. And I think some of the problem is that we seemed to actually clump all older people into the one bucket being vulnerable, frail, and that's not the case because Canadians are living longer and more healthy.

AMT: Are there any provinces that cover some aspect of this now?

JANE BARRATT: The only province that I'm aware of is that Ontario covers the current vaccine. It certainly doesn't cover Shingrix. But it only covers within a certain age group because we struggle with this catch. We actually sort of struggling with chronological age like 50, 60, 70, and immunological age because we know that the immune system weakens as we grow older. So we struggle with that. However there are some good recommendations that we need to take on board when it comes to vaccine schedules. And really governments owe Canadians to invest up front because Canadians are asked to look after themselves and contribute to society.

AMT: Okay. Well Jane Barratt, thank you for your thoughts on all of this.

JANE BARRATT: Thanks very much for your time Anna Maria.

AMT: That's Jane Barratt. She's the Secretary General of the International Federation of Ageing. And we reached her in Copenhagen, Denmark today. She's actually based in Toronto. Well any decision on whether to fund a new vaccine under provincial health care programs comes from individual provinces. And Dr. Allison McGeer is here to help us shed some light on how provinces make those kinds of decisions. Dr. McGeer is a microbiologist. She's the director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto and she's in our Toronto studio. Welcome.

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: Good morning Anna Maria.

AMT: So the vaccine is being made available this month. The cost is not covered. Surprised?

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: Not surprised. The history of vaccines in Canada is that [unintelligible] vaccines are first authorized. So the government says that they are safe, that they have efficacy against something that we can trust their manufacturer. And then there is a process by which experts look at who we might use them for, who should be recommended to receive them, and then provinces have to figure out whether they can afford to pay for that. And are the timeline for when a vaccine is approved—first authorized for sale—and when it gets into publicly funded programs is highly variable. It can be really short. But it can be as long as five or six years.

AMT: So what kind of factors determine that whether funding is moved forward?

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: I think there's a wide variety of things that play into that. A piece of that is about how cost effective it is. So what is the actual benefit? Is there a savings in medical care? A piece of it is about how we perceive the illness. It's much easier to fund a vaccine against meningitis than it is to fund a vaccine against influenza. A piece of it is about how we can integrate it into a provincial programs. It's not as simple as saying, 'we'll just give everybody the vaccine.' We have to have a stable supply and we have to know how much is going to be used so we're not wasting money on vaccine that's not going to be given or running out vaccine when we need it. So there's a whole lot of complicated, logistical planning that goes into how a government would decide to fund and deliver a vaccine. It feels like something really simple. But it's actually not at all.

AMT: Can you give me an example of a vaccine governments don't fund? Like they've been made a decision that it's not worth it.

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: Well the easiest vaccine is the vaccine against Hepatitis A. So Hepatitis A is something you see travel ads on. You know if you travel somewhere where there's not safe food and water, you're at risk of Hepatitis A. But many older Canadians were already exposed to Hepatitis A in childhood, and very clearly when you do the math, at a population level it's not enough of a benefit for the government to pay for Hepatitis A vaccine for all of us. And no governments do that. Recommend it for travel vaccine. Lots of us have had Hepatitis A vaccine. But it wouldn't be paid for by the government for everybody.

AMT: What about public pressure from different lobby groups who make certain vaccines really accessible and covered. Is there a danger in that pressure? Do people jump on bandwagons?

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: I'm not sure that people do. I think it's a really interesting question. One of the problems of vaccines is that we're not willing to pay for vaccines in the same way that we're willing to pay for other things. We know that new drugs against cancer are something that everybody can see and get on board with. Somebody comes in with the new vaccine, our psychology of vaccines are such, that you tend to doubt a little bit. And you worry about it. We also don't spend money on prevention. None of us. If you are total public health budget in Canada would run our hospitals for three days.

AMT: So do you see a problem with that? [Laughs]. She asked rhetorically.

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: It's just not rational. And we understand it's not rational. But we still can't bring ourselves to invest in prevention. And in that setting I think there need to be people who are advocating for prevention. So it's hard to argue when people are advocating for effective vaccines. At the same time it's really important that the government looks carefully at what they're doing and negotiate hard to get the best price for vaccines and sometimes that takes time.

AMT: What about individual provinces. Ontario actually offers the first shingles vaccine...

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: Zostovax.

AMT: Zostovax—for people between the ages of 65 and 70 only. Why does it make that distinction? Because that's the most vulnerable group?

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: Well for Zostovax, it's the group that gets the most benefit from the vaccine. One of the really interesting questions with adult vaccines is, how do you start funding a vaccine? It's really easy for children right. You have children start their vaccine program at two months and you can say, 'okay, start this vaccine and the new birth of kids coming through is going to get the vaccine.' You talk about an adult vaccine even if you're saying adults over 65, in Ontario that's 2.3 million people. And you just can't pick up the phone to a drug company and say, 'I need you know 4.6 million doses of vaccine tomorrow please.' Right? So deciding how to introduce vaccines and how to make that piece work is hard. It's also true that we have a tendency to distrust vaccines. And we don't deliver adult vaccination programs well. So now we're also asking the government to judge ahead of time how many of us actually want this vaccine.

AMT: Do you think it's likely that something like this would be part of a health care plan any time soon?

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: I'm really hopeful that people can work it out because this is a very good vaccine. That's something that we would want to get to probably everybody if we could who's over 50 in Canada. And so I am really hopeful that we're going to do it. But it may take some time to do.

AMT: And in the meantime to those Canadians who feel vulnerable what would you suggest?

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: Well this is the really hard part. If you can afford it this is a good vaccine. It is a safe vaccine. Shingles is a dreadful, miserable disease. And if you can afford it yourself or if you have coverage for it, it makes a lot of sense to get this vaccine.

AMT: We didn't even talk about private drug coverage because they don't cover all drugs either. So that's another issue.

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: No they don't. But a lot of them will probably—this vaccine is of sufficient benefit that my guess would be that many private drug plans will start to cover it.

AMT: Alilson McGeer, thanks for coming in.

DR. ALLISON MCGEER: Pleasure.

AMT: Dr. Allison McGeer, microbiologist and director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. Canadian musician Bahamas joins Tom Power to preview tracks from his much anticipated new album Earthtones. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thank you for listening to The Current.

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January 16, 2018 Episode Transcript

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