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The Current Transcript for February 15, 2018

Host: Laura Lynch

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

He wasn't the same after that and once he took it he wasn't the same. He is not the son that I knew before

LAURA LYNCH: Ruth Dixon isn't talking about the effects of heroin or the deadly drug fentanyl. Her son got hooked on crystal meth, part of a tragic wave of addiction to the drug that's rolling through Winnipeg. A cheap powerful high, it's doing damage to so many. Those on the front lines are calling it a crisis. We'll speak with a recovering addict and those who are fighting for more help later on. After that.

SOUNDCLIP

Your face is probably the last place you'd expect to find a parasite. After all you studied in detail every day, surly nothing could live there without you nothing about it.

LL: Oh yuk! The very idea that there could be bugs worms anywhere in or on your body, yeah. It's creepy, but they may not always be harmful and for scientists they're fascinating. We will find out why. And coming up in our first half hour.

SOUNDCLIP

Going forward recognition of rights will guide all government interactions with indigenous people.

LL: More than 35 years after his father is thriving aboriginal rights in the Constitution. Justin Trudeau is now vowing to take action to ensure the rights are recognized. This morning we get reaction from three first nation leaders. But first we're going to Florida for the latest on yesterday's deadly high school shooting. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current age.

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'Thoughts and prayers a grossly inadequate response' in wake of Florida school shooting

Guest: Douglas Phillips

SOUNDCLIP

There were students and teachers and [crying]. And we went to west [unintelligible] and then I jumped the fence and just ran.

LL: That is the voice of high school student Maciel Baluja talking to reporters yesterday about how she escaped the carnage at her high school. 17 people were killed when a young man opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The suspected shooter was charged this morning with 17 counts of murder. Doug Phillips is the breaking news editor at The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel and he covers the Parkland area. Hello.

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: Hi Laura how are you?

LL: I'm fine thank you. Tell me what kind of reaction you're hearing this morning to this shooting?

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: As you could imagine it's a very tragic situation. As you well know there are 17 people that are students and we believe administrators or teachers or coaches are among them. The names have not been released and the investigation is very very early in its stages and is still taking place and that school is going to be closed today and tomorrow.

LL: Not surprising. What more have you heard or you're starting to hear about those victims?

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: Well we're starting to hear that what's happening is that people who have not been able to be reunited with their relatives have been putting out these very woeful social media messages. And by doing that we're getting a hint who some of these people are. We've seen some that are students and their families we're told have been officially notified but other family members are putting out these messages and we're getting an idea that some were seniors at the school, others were students at other levels. Certainly there is a grieving process going on and as a matter of fact the school district is opening up several grieving counselling centers today, for not only students, teachers and administrators but also families associated with the school.

LL: As you said it's very early in the investigation but is there any sense that any of the victims were targeted?

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: Right now there's no indication that this was a targeted situation for specific individuals. The investigators believe that this young man might have pulled the fire alarm to get as many students leaving the classroom as possible so that he could have that many more victims. But nothing like now would indicate that this was done for a specific reason against a specific person or number of people.

LL: Now there is a man in custody. Tell me what we know about him so far?

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: Sure. Nicholas Cruz we do know that he was adopted at birth by a mother and father and adoptive parents and that his adoptive father had died some years ago and the adopted mother had died within recent months. And he was known as a troubled kid and he had a sibling and he was living right now with somebody in the Portland area and had earlier been expelled from this school for reasons that we're not quite sure of. But he was known to have some troubles.

LL: He was also known to have access to firearms.

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: Yes that's right. He had an AR 15 like rifle that his lawyer, or the lawyer representing him right now, has told us that he bought legally. He is 19 years old and in the state of Florida you could buy one of those at the age of 18. So he acquired that rifle legally and the ammunition that he had as well, which the sheriff indicated, he had numerous magazines in order to have enough weaponry to cause the havoc that was caused at that school.

LL: Doug, tell me about the school and the community that it's in.

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: Sure. Parkland is a rural area in northwestern Broward County so if you know anything about Fort Lauderdale would be maybe 20 miles north west of Fort Lauderdale. It's inland. It's known as a more affluent area of south Florida, with very low crime statistics, not known as a crime ridden community. The high school itself, more than 3000 students. It was kind of a model for a school of modernity when it was built in 1990. And along with the high school there are several feeder schools that are nearby it.

LL: Doug, after every shooting I was surprised to read this morning that there have been 18 school shootings in the US this year alone, at least 273 shootings since Sandy Hook in 2012. There is always this debate about what to do. What do you see happening now?

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: Well the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's editorial board has been a fairly strong voice and advocate in this area and it put out a new editorial this morning and one sentence in that editorial says "yes thoughts and prayers are a welcome response to anyone in mourning and in need, but with this type of tragedy repeated so many times across our country we already know that thoughts and prayers alone are grossly an adequate response to our country's self-inflicted cancer of gun violence". And usually what has happened up to now and all of these situations as you know when all is said and done usually more is said than done. So collectively everybody are throwing their arms up in the air and saying 'what now?'

LL: Doug Phillips, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us.

DOUGLAS PHILLIPS: More than welcome.

LL: Doug Phillips is the breaking news editor at The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

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Will Trudeau's new legal framework be a breakthrough for Indigenous rights?

Guests: Jean Teillet, Chief Bob Chamberlin, Hayden King

[Music]

LL: I'm Laura Lynch and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

To truly renew the relationship between Canada and indigenous peoples, not just for today but for the next 150 years and beyond, we need a comprehensive far reaching approach. We need a government wide shift in how we do things.

LL: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaking in the House of Commons yesterday as he lay out plans for a new legal framework which he says will guarantee the legal rights of indigenous people in Canada are respected. Indigenous and treaty rights are already recognised in Section 35 of the Constitution but too often indigenous people are forced to go to the courts to have them upheld. Trudeau says the proposed changes which he hopes to have in place before the next election will ensure the federal government keeps those rights front and center in all of its actions.

SOUNDCLIP

The federal government's absence over generations in recognising complementing indigenous rights has resulted in social and economic exclusion, uncertainty and litigation, when our shared focus should have always been on creating prosperity and opportunity for everyone. Netter opportunities for Indigenous peoples and certainty for indigenous youth are precisely what we hoped to achieve through this framework.

LL: Ottawa insiders say the prime minister's speech was a long time in the making but it comes amid a wave of anger and calls for a change that have rippled across the country, in the wake of the acquittal of Gerald Stanley in the shooting death of Colton Boushie, a 22 year old Cree man in Saskatchewan, and more than two years after the truth and reconciliation commission called for a new relationship between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. So today we're asking how this new framework could fit into that broader conversation and what it could achieve. But their thoughts on this I'm joined now by three people Jean Teillet is an indigenous rights lawyer who has been involved in several negotiations and litigation with both provincial and federal governments concerning Metis and first nation rights. She is senior counsel with Pape Salter Teillet in Vancouver where we have reached her. Chief Bob Chamberlin is the vice president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. He is in our Vancouver studio and Hayden King is the director of the Center for Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University. He is in our Toronto studio. Hello to you all.

JEAN TEILLET: Good morning.

[Crosstalk]

LL: Jean Teillet, let's start with you what do you think of the Prime Minister's plan for a new legal framework to guarantee indigenous rights.

JEAN TEILLET: I didn't hear anything, anything at all that the yardsticks forward even in inch. Because wher we've been for a long time, I would say at least since 1982 when we put constitutional protections for Aboriginal and treaty rights in the Constitution, governments have been fighting rearguard action against this move. So I think that anything that try to break down that attitude and move us forward is sending us in at least the right direction. It remains to be seen how far they can move it, but a lot can happen just with an intention to do something.

LL: Okay Chief Bob Chamberlin, there were a lot of words yesterday but I'm wondering what concrete difference you think a new indigenous rights framework would make for first nations.

BOB CHAMBERLIN: Well I think the concrete difference is the government is making the proper steps for the recognition of our Aboriginal rights here in Canada. I think we and CBC need to understand that is not a creation of rights that we enjoy as people but it's inherent to our existence here on the planet. So I mean the path forward now has been charted to a degree. And I greet the announcement with equal optimism and pessimism because there have been a lot of commitments made by this government before and after the election; things such as Site-C, Kindermorgan are in contradiction to the commitments ever made. Having said that we will be lining up to be sure to put our shoulder to the wheel and make best use of this opportunity that's in front of us.

LL: Hayden King, the Prime Minister has said it will require that the Constitution to be reopened to put this legal framework in place. What do you think of that?

HAYDEN KING: I think that's been a consistent theme in the Prime Minister's language around Aboriginal rights but it does cause a little bit of concern. I was watching the speech, it was a fantastic speech had all the rights notes, but I was really expecting the Prime Minister to say we're going to reactivate section 37 of the Constitution and go back and really breathe life into Section 35. And I think that that's really the only way that we're going to ensure that indigenous rights, Aboriginal rights are going to be recognised and respected by provinces. Of course provinces, through the Constitution, have jurisdiction over land and resources. This new rights framework must have some land redistribution included in it. So how are we going to compel the provinces and I am not sure we can do that independent of a constitutional amendment. And then in addition to that legislation is better than policy absolutely. But there is nothing really to stop a new government after this one or the one after that from coming in and you know gutting any potential legislation that we do create.

LL: Jean Teillet, I am wondering because you have been in court. You've been fighting for rights. One of the things that's said about the framework is that will end, the court battles it will end. Do you believe that that will actually be the case especially with Hayden King says about maybe the provinces don't want to go along with the federal government on all of this?

JEAN TEILLET: Well I think some provinces are going along with it. I mean I am a treaty negotiation tier in British Columbia, and British Columbia had a fundamental shift in the last six or eight months. So you know this certainly the treaty table on that. We have a specific statement now in the treaty that the United Nations declaration would be recognized in this specific statement that the treaty will not extinguish their rights, so there is possibility. But let me address the constitutional question you are talking about. It is important for everybody to understand that all of the provinces take their land and resources subject to interests what the languages is, other than the province of [unintelligible]. So basically what that means and the court has said, Aboriginal interests are interests other than the province. So I think the federal government if they want should be able to implement, fully implement, aboriginal rights and start to move on this. They can do this. And this was at the bottom of the big Tsilhqot'in case that is the first case on land title. All of which is to say, yes we need the provinces at the table on this stuff but can the federal government take massive steps forward on all the issues that have been lagging on? Absolutely they can. We certainly need the provinces to come along with this, because if you are going to implement truly truly change this, what we have to do is to is recognize that there are nations of transport in this country who have political entities with collective political rights, land rights, economic rights, all of those things that is where we get to go.

LL: I'm sorry Jean. I'm just pressing along here because we really do have so little time and there is so much to cover. I want to turn to the question of reconciliation now, because it's been more than two years since the Truth and Reconciliation Commission called for this massive reset. Chief Bob Chamberlin, to what extent will this new legal framework help to advance reconciliation?

BOB CHAMBERLIN: Well it's clearing a path for the government and something that the electorate can hold them accountable for. When you mention the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Canadians I believe now are starting to understand the dark past of Canadian history in terms of the racist approach towards indigenous people. When I think about the division of powers federally and provincially, of course we have to have the province come along. And I know for our first nation and a group of nations that we are affiliated with, we've got a table with the provincial government here in B.C. to have UN drip base consent shared decision making on fish farm tenders. I believe the first table in Canada to retain that and that work is not just beginning. So how far we are willing to go for Canada and B.C. and reconciliation the workers in front of us to push every inch of the way.

LL: Hayden King I wonder what your thoughts are on that especially given the Stanley verdict and the reaction to it.

HAYDEN KING: Obviously we have a really long way to go and I think that this week no one has really been interested in talking about reconciliation. I thought it was a bit [unintelligible] to be honest when the Prime Minister invoked the Boushie family as- you know his meaning with the Boushie family as an example of reconciliation and that sort of language isn't really going to move the conversation forward.

LL: But could this be a legal framework?

HAYDEN KING: If we get it right. Absolutely. I think there's a lot of debate about whether or not indigenous rights can even be realised within Canada's constitutional framework. I think that we're going to take you know the steps that Jean and Bob are talking about there are required are significant, and they require the provinces and they require First Nation governments, they require the resurrection of indigenous laws, indigenous governments and of course importantly above all else the return of land. And this is what residential school survivors demanded to the truth and reconciliation process. Three things really: Restitution which is the return of land, power, resources. Transformation of society which means changing our institutions, throwing them out even and building them up from the ground, and a future that can be defined by respect and dignity. So I think that that's a good framework to move towards but I'm just not sure that many people are really interested after this week in using the word reconciliation having this reconciliatory conversation right now.

LL: Jean Teillet.

JEAN TEILLET: I think the justice system is one of the fundamental things that we do have to go after and I think that the Boushie trial shows us that. But my take on it is that doing things like going after who is on the jury is low hanging fruit in a justice system that is choked with weeds. Everybody knows that our justice system needs a serious serious rethink and we all know it’s too expensive, it takes too long, it's too complicate, there are people that are not protected, and I would say the majority of Canadians are not really looked after by our justice system. And I would put indigenous people as a large group in there, but I would also add women and I think the whole issue with the Jian Ghomeshi trial showed us that the justice system doesn't protect women and certainly doesn't protect women of color, doesn't protect people of color.

[Crosstalk]

LL: But if I can just bring you back to the framework though, do you think that the framework is enough to advance reconciliation?

JEAN TEILLET: Well if it means that we're going to go in and talk about reconciliation in terms of a rethink of how the justice system deals with us, if it is allowing us to go in and really look at the real problems and the real roots of things and open up discussion so that people can even name the real problems as opposed to just trying to bring in existing institution, that would be a big start, half the conversation.

LL: We have about a minute have left, and I want to go around the table that you give you and ask you this: if you were sitting down at the beginning of these talks about a framework with the Prime Minister or others, what is the one message you want to deliver on that? We'll start with you Chief Chamberlin.

BOB CHAMBERLIN: Thank you. I believe the previous comments about the land issue, especially here in British Columbia, is something that needs to be addressed. You know with the president negotiations that are being offered, it is about drawing down federal responsibilities and I do not see that that includes the land question. And for me when I heard the Prime Minister mention full partnership of First Nations we haven't seen that to date. I'm really curious to see how that's going to unfold going forward.

LL: Hayden King.

HAYDEN KING: I think I'd like to see communities represented in these discussions not so much the Assembly of First Nation, the Assembly of First Nations representing First Nations. I think there's a lot of - there's a deep skepticism of the Assembly of First Nations and a lot of [unintelligible] councils as well. So I'd like to see the federal government move towards engaging community members independent of that official leadership.

LL: Jean Teillet, last word to you. You've got about 30 seconds.

JEAN TEILLET: Bring the nations of people together and let's just sit and talk about where we can go to make this world, this Canada a better place for our children.

LL: I imagine that we will be coming back to all three of you to check as this process goes forward. Thank you very much for taking the time today.

HAYDEN KING: Thank you.

JEAN TEILLET: You're welcome.

BOB CHAMBERLIN: [Indistinct language]

LL: Jean Teillet is an indigenous rights lawyer who has been involved in several negotiations and litigation with both provincial and federal governments concerning Metis and First Nation rights. She is senior counsel with Papes Salter Teiller in Vancouver. Chief Bob Chamberlin is the vice president of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs. He is also in Vancouver and Hayden King is the director of the Center for Indigenous Governance at Ryerson University in Toronto. Now we requested interviews with the minister of Indigenous Services Jean Philpott, the Minister of Justice Jody Wilson-Raybould and the minister of Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Carolyn Bennett. We were told no one is available. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Annam Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

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Meth crisis in Canada: Addiction explosion means drug users are being turned away by police, hospitals

Guests: Shane, Max Waddell, Marion Willis

LL: Hello I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

LL: Still to come.

SOUNDCLIP

This is the follicle mite, they live in groups of nine or 10 males and females together, breeding and laying eggs right there, under your eyelashes.

LL: As the worm turns, eyeballing parasites both good and bad. Stay tuned to hear the woman whose itchy eye turned out to be a medical first. But coming up next: A city tries to come to grips with the meth crisis that is destroying lives and communities.

SOUNDCLIP

Often are one of the questions I get asked is what keeps me awake at night. And the emergence of the methamphetamine that we're experiencing in our community is getting to that level where it's starting to keep me awake at night. There's probably not a week that goes by where we don't encounter some kind of sensational newsworthy event that we may not even recognize at the time as associated to meth.

LL: That is when a big police chief Danny Smyth speaking to reporters about the escalating use and escalating crime associated with a flood of methamphetamine in the city. The numbers tell a disturbing story. In the first month of this year authorities seized almost half the meth confiscated in all of 2017 and frontline officers say they routinely attend calls were added the victim, the complainant, or the accused are - in their words - somehow attached to the drug. And then there is the death toll. A young meth addicted mother freezes to death on Christmas Day. A 30 year old man falls from an apartment building. His mother Judy Borynsky believes that her son was high on meth at the time.

SOUNDCLIP

The police came and told me that he overdosed [sobs]. And then I googled and saw the building. They just said that he fell off. He Od'd and fell off the roof. I just want to see him [cries]. I am so upset.

LL: Alongside those tragedies the number of people in Manitoba going for treatment from methamphetamine addiction has skyrocketed. Shane is one of them. He is currently in recovery and he considers himself lucky to be alive. He's with us from Winnipeg. We've agreed not to use his last name. Hello.

SHANE: Hi.

LL: Tell me about the first time you tried meth.

SHANE: I tried meth, probably, it was 1999. I was at a rave and we were doing other drugs. One of my friends said 'hey try a line of this'. And he gave me a little bag of some glass like substance. And he said just crush it up and snort it. And so he did and he said 'It'll just keep you awake'. And I didn't sleep for a good day and a half after I did that.

LL: You were in the midst of the meth scene in Winnipeg. How would you describe it at that time, the meth scene there?

SHANE: It was quite small. It was more like a cult so to speak. It was nowhere near the size it is now.

LL: So you've seen it grow over the years.

SHANE: Oh definitely. It's like harder times.

LL: What was it then that got you hooked on it

SHANE: It was cheap. It kind of starts out that it gives you a lot of energy and you know to work and what not. And your life seems pretty good but then you start sleeping and eating or drinking water. And you start needing to use more methods to function because your body's slowly depleting but the meth keeps you going.

LL: What was the longest period that you stayed awake for when you were on it?

SHANE: I would say probably about 10 days.

LL: 10 days!

SHANE: Yeah it gets to the point where you might kind of nod off for 20 minutes, half an hour, and then it seems that you slept for like two days. And then you do a little more meth and you're good to go for three or four days.

LL: How did it affect your relationships with the people in your life?

SHANE: It destroyed them pretty much. You know you tend to get very irritable and you kind of lose like touch of reality. So you know it really saddens like people who are close to you because they see you deteriorating, losing your mind. You know like physically your body's deteriorating. You lose tons of weight. You don't eat. You become very agitated.

LL: Did you ever suffer from drug psychoses?

SHANE: Yes I have many times.

LL: What was that like?

SHANE: It was horrible. I don't wish it upon anybody. You lose complete perception of reality. You can have auditory hallucinations, hear things that aren't there.

LL: What did you hear?

SHANE: People coming to get me. Just people talking and whispering outside or you know people walking down the hallway, for example, maybe somebody in the apartment above talking you when really there not even anybody there.

LL: Did you see things as well?

SHANE: Yeah you tend to. After the sleep deprivation you kind of start seeing like shadow people, is the best way to describe it. It's just your body is so tired and your mind so tired. You know if you haven't closed your eyes for three days.

LL: You already talked about how this damaged your relationship. Were you able to hold down a job while you were using meth?

SHANE: In the beginning I was able to work. I've been self-employed quite a bit but, you know it doesn't take long before - once you've been up for a few days, when you finally sleep you end up sleeping for three or four days and you tend to like destroy relationships you know with your customers and or employer because you just do not show up for work for three days.

LL: And you're a painter so it's important to show up for your jobs?

SHANE: Yes definitely especially when they're schedules to meet and you know people are relying on you.

LL: So what did you do for money?

SHANE: Generally I would just try to work, or in order to feed my drug habit, I'd middleman drug deals or sell stolen things for other people.

LL: Did you steal the things to sell?

SHANE: Not me personally no but I would always kind of find someone to sell it to, for someone else and make my profit off it.

LL: How long did this go on?

SHANE: This has gone on in my life, on and off, for probably 14 years.

LL: 14 years.

SHANE: What was the point where you decided I have to stop this?

SHANE: You know just when I was starting clearly like losing my mind. I thought people were out to get me. I thought my friends were going to kill me. I actually had to call 911 and get removed from a situation because I felt everyone was going to kill me, which was very real to me but apparently you know it wasn't. It was a figment of my imagination or psychoses.

LL: Tell me about that then. So did the police come, when you have 911?

SHANE: Yeah they did and they took me to the crisis resource center and they just left me outside. And so I went in there and explained to them what was going on. And they told me because I was high, there was nothing they could do for me. So they said the best thing they could do is pretty much call me a cab to anywhere I need to go. But in the state of mind I was in I had nowhere to go and I couldn't definitely think clearly at all. So you know I was lucky that my mom actually let me go to her house.

LL: And so you went home.

SHANE: Yes. To my family's house where I really wasn't welcome. Because of all the stuff I've put them through in the past, with drug psychoses and talking crazy.

LL: What was her first reaction when you walked through the door that night?

SHANE: Just you know really hurt.

LL: Did she want you to stay?

SHANE: No definitely not [sobs].

LL: Well so what happened then?

SHANE: Actually I was referred to a place called the Morberg House. I called them up and they talked to my mom convinced her to let me stay there one more day and said they'd come pick me up and take me in.

LL: And is that would set you on the path to recovery?

SHANE: Yes it did.

LL: And how long ago was that now?

SHANE: About six months ago.

LL: How are you doing?

SHANE: General leaps and bounds better. You know I've had a couple of slips but for the most part my whole life has changed. But you know there's a big demand for the place as well because there's not too many places like it. There's not much out for people with psychoses and you know in the crystal meth addiction.

LL: Is it full there?

SHANE: Yes.

LL: What would you say to anyone who is starting out or using crystal meth? What would you want to tell them?

SHANE: It's pretty much just a matter of time till everything falls apart. You seem to be in control in the beginning but it catches up to you. You start losing your belongings, your relationships, you know your job, your career. Like crystal meth fix steals your mind heroin steals your soul and cocaine steals your money but it's a matter of you know having the supports that I do you and just kind of try and stay clear of it.

LL: What's your relationship like with your mum?

SHANE: Um. It's getting better. She sees me you know changing.

LL: Well Shane I wish you the best of luck in your continued recovery. And I really do appreciate the fact that you come to talk to us about it.

SHANE: Okay thank you.

LL: Bye bye.

SHANE: Bye.

LL: Shane is a recovering meth addict in Winnipeg and we've agreed not to use his last name. Now as you just heard, he is currently staying at Morberg House in Winnipeg. It's a transitional housing unit run by my next guest, Marion Willis is the founder of St. Boniface Street Links, a non-profit organization that helps people find housing and other resources including treatment. She is joining us from Winnipeg. Hello.

MARION WILLIS: Hi. Good morning.

LL: How many of your clients right now are addicted to meth?

MARION WILLIS: Well we run three different programs and about 80 percent.

LL: Now we just heard from Shane, but can you give me a sense of who your clients are?

MARION WILLIS: Well you know I think a lot out there would think that this is a problem of troubled neighbourhoods, that it's a poverty problem. I can tell you that our clients have been lawyers, accountants, well, Shane is a painter. People from all walks of life, all demographics, every corner of the city and there are people that have started - it seems - using meth because it motivates a stimulant and you can be super productive and you feel just great. But as Shane has mentioned it eventually gets you and when it takes you down it takes you down and you lose absolutely everything. A lot of our clients had good jobs. They owned homes. They had several vehicles. They are now on the street. They lost everything and are welfare dependent.

LL: Shane talked about being unable to access care at times because he was high. I wonder what experience you've had trying to get help for your clients when they're in psychoses.

MARION WILLIS: Well that's what it's become. Up until a few months ago we actually could get help. But the problem here in Winnipeg has escalated to the point that we no longer have any place to take anybody. The hospital emergency rooms will not take anybody who is in meth psychoses. EMS tends to treat presenting issues; there is no treatment for drug psychoses. You are out. When police are called to respond to a situation they are no longer taking the person either, because what are they going to do? Drive around with the fellow in their car all evening? There's no place to take anybody.

LL: I'm surprised that the emergency- that the hospital won't take them in. What is the reason they won't take them?

MARION WILLIS: I think largely because of the aggression. This is a population that during meth psychoses is hallucinating or hearing voices. They can become very aggressive. And I think the hospital emergency rooms have just decided that they're not equipped to deal with that.

LL: Well that must mean that you end up with people in psychoses at Morberg House. How is it dealing with them there?

MARION WILLIS: Well let me tell you a little story. So a few weeks ago we had a fellow in the house who was in full blown drug psychoses. He was on the third floor of our house. He barricaded himself in a third floor bedroom and then lit the bed and dresser on fire and escaped out the third story window onto the roof. Of course the police and the paramedics and fire department were called. They attended. And then what happens next is absolutely incredulous. There's no statements taken. The fire is put out. The police leave and they leave the individual who has started the fire, who is in full blown psychoses, with us in the house. We end up taking the individual ourselves to a nearby hospital. We sit there with this individual for about five hours. During this time, the individual is hallucinating. He's also hearing voices. He believes that everybody in that waiting room has a machine gun and is going to kill him and also innocent people in that waiting room. And he's feeling very anxious because he's feeling as though he needs to do something to protect himself and others. He's becoming extremely aggressive at this point. Fortunately they finally make their way in to an examination room. A psychiatrist walks in. The fellow admits to having used meth. The psychiatrist walks out not to be seen again. The charge nurse returns and says you have to leave with your client. We're saying we can't. They're saying 'we'll call the police' and now the police attend for a second time. And the police aren't taking him either. And so then were told we either take him back with us to Morberg House or, well, he could just end up being the next person frozen outside.

LL: This must be so frustrating for you. You were at a meeting yesterday that was called by the province to address what they labelled as urgent gaps in care. How productive was that?

MARION WILLIS: That was not productive at all. You know certainly it is encouraging that the province is recognising that this is not being exaggerated. We are in a crisis here in Winnipeg. But the type of meeting that we had was the meaning that we really need. We need debt meaning that brings all the decision makers, you know, deputy ministers together from different departments to talk with us about what we are going to do, how we're going to do it and we need a concrete action plan right now.

LL: Now we contacted the ministry. They sent us a statement from the Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen. It says in part 'the increase of methamphetamine over the past decade is deeply troubling and the impact it is having on our communities is devastating. The issues surrounding addictions are complex and there is no simple solution to a problem that's plagued our province for years. Addressing this problem cannot be left to one department, one level of government, or government alone. It requires coordination with our partners in the community and non-governmental agencies.' To an extent he seems to be echoing what you are saying but how do you respond to what he's saying?

MARION WILLIS: Well I think he has to start to view all of the organizations that have feet on the street here as their partners. And so they need to step up on that front. But we need to we need more than statements. We need action at this point.

LL: What effect is this drug having on your community?

MARION WILLIS: It's absolutely devastating. All through this city, and certainly with the population we serve, the use just increases. In fact the fact that there isn't any treatment almost rewards all the dysfunctions, so the use is greater. Families are being ripped apart. The drains on all of the other social- you know everybody ends up homeless. So trying to find people housing, trying to link people who had previous work histories to the income assistance system - I mean it's horrible and what's worse is that people are dying and I think that when we look at the stats from the chief medical examiner office, at the end of this year, we're going to find out there has been many many many more meth related deaths than the ones that become sensationalized in the news.

LL: Ms. Willis, thank you.

MARION WILLIS: Thank you.

LL: Marion Willis is the founder of St. Boniface of Street Links. She is in Winnipeg. Police are also on the front lines in dealing with Winnipeg's surge in the use of methamphetamine. Max Waddell is the inspector in charge at the Organized Crime Division with the Winnipeg Police Service. Hello.

MAX WADDELL: Good morning.

LL: I mentioned some of the numbers earlier but tell me what the police are seeing. How significant is this rise in the use of crystal meth?

MAX WADDELL: Well I can be safe to say that it was really the beginning of 2016 that we first had seen this first surge of meth that's come to our city. You indicated earlier that seizures have gone from 490 seizures in 2016 all the way up to 701 seizures in 2017, seizing over 12 kilos in that year. And in the first month of January we seized half of what we did in all 2017 at almost 6 Kilos and it has a street value of nearly 600,000 dollars.

LL: Now what impact is it having on the police, dealing not just with the drug, but with the effects on people?

MAX WADDELL: Well there's a number of impacts. First and foremost would be just our general calls for service. You know when people are high on this drug they're very unpredictable and often aggressive and of violent nature. And that is what is most concerning for us. Often police officers are now placed in a situation where - with these individuals being so unpredictable - we don't know how to properly act and how to treat them. And when they're so aggressive, you know in extreme cases when they are extremely violent it could often result into a lethal force encounter.

LL: Marion Willis was saying that she's frustrated trying to get the police to help or the hospitals to help.

MAX WADDELL: Yes.

LL: Are the police able to intervene and provide help in these situations?

MAX WADDELL: Well you know our job is to build public safety and making sure that the individuals, all involved, are safe and we all kind of have a role to play in this. We're more certainly not medical professionals. So we take them to the hospital. It's our belief that this is really a health issue, when these individuals are impacted by methamphetamine, I mean because that state that they are in, as we talked about in psychoses etc. That's a psychological issue that we need assistance from.

LL: We've heard so much about the opioid crisis and fentanyl overdoses. That focus overshadowed the rise of meth to the detriment of people who are trying to find it?

MAX WADDELL: That is most certainly our belief. You know with the number of deaths that were associated with that also really in that 2016 year. I really believe that there was a methamphetamine user group that was quietly gaining momentum and it continued. And you know in Winnipeg specifically the whole fentanyl issue I believe is really levelled off. And what happened behind the scenes was more individuals have become addicted. And now we are faced with that challenge.

LL: What do you know about where the supply of crystal meth is coming from?

MAX WADDELL: Well our experts tell us that approximately 80 percent of the meth we see in Canada comes from international boundaries. One being obviously the Mexican drug cartels. I mean that is very much public knowledge whether stated by or American authorities or generally in the media. And then we would you know often say that about 20 percent is manufactured locally whether it's out west or just recently here in December we covered a meth lab right here in Winnipeg.

LL: And when you see out west what do you mean by that?

MAX WADDELL: Well we know there's been labs that have been located out in British Columbia and Alberta. That's often the flow, whether it comes up to the ports, through the water ways or channels and then it moves its way across to eastern Canada and into Winnipeg.

LL: So are other efforts being made to stop the flow?

MAX WADDELL: Well that falls out of our jurisdiction so to speak when we talk about it coming into the United States and then into Canada. But we most certainly are very closely associated with our partners being both the RCMP and Canada Border Services and we're doing all that we can.

LL: What are your police colleagues telling you about the situation in the rest of the country with regard to crystal meth? Are they seeing the same rise as Winnipeg?

MAX WADDELL: I think other jurisdictions are really specific to different drugs. Out west, it still remains very much opioid based addiction cycle. I know even a city like Edmonton, you know, you go back 15 years, that's really when their meth spike hit. But if you look at the seizures that we've seen and the exposure from meth, it's really been just these last few years that we've really seen this significant increase in Manitoba.

LL: Now you heard Ms. Willis and the statement from the province about what they see as being a way to tackle things. From the police perspective, what would you like to say?

MAX WADDELL: Well, as everyone else has stated. We all need to work collectively and we all need to do our job. It's very clear that the system that we have right now is not enough for the demand that's put on all of our front line resources and the meeting that we had yesterday is a first step in the right direction about getting all of our agencies communicating to try and come up with a viable solution.

LL: Ms. Willis didn't seem to think much came out of that meeting. What did you think?

MAX WADDELL: Well I mean we're all entitled to our own opinion. As they said it's a first step. Were decisions made that's going to change this crisis right now? No. But we have to start somewhere and it got the conversation going and we're just going to all need to leverage each other to make solutions possible.

LL: I ask you about one of the things that Ms. Willis has said. She said that if people take a closer look at the numbers of what's happening in this city, she believes that there will be far more deaths recorded that were caused by crystal meth. Do you believe that to be the case as well?

MAX WADDELL: Yes. You know I don't know the exact statistics around the deaths specific to methamphetamine. With the medical examiner's office, it's a very complex process and it often is very lengthy in getting those numbers back. It's very difficult for me to comment, but anecdotally speaking, we would believe that we're going to see a rise this year.

LL: Inspector, thank you.

MAX WADDELL: You're welcome.

LL: Inspector Max Waddell has the Organized Crime Unit with the Winnipeg Police Service. Well coming up in our next half hour: Support your local parasite. Why you shouldn't let those critters colonizing your body bug you, at least most of them. I am Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you are listening to The Current.

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Scientists thrilled as woman finds 14 worms in her eye

Guests: Abby Beckley, Richard Bradbury, Dan Riskin

LL: I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and you are listening to The Current. We are about to bring you a story you might find a bit hard to digest and you have been forewarned.

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VOICE 1: I am trying my very best not to read this eye worm story. So if it could stop being truly everywhere that would be great.

VOICE 2: Ever since that article came out about the woman of 14 worms in her eye I've become obsessed with checking my eyes and every twitch I freak out and think it's a worm.

VOICE 3: Just read a news story about a woman finding worms in her eye. Someone please tell me how to delete memories.

VOICE 4: Roses are red violets are blue. Did you read that story about the lady with eye worms? Ewe

LL: Those were some tweets voiced by our producers from people acquainted with the story of Abby Beckley and her itchy eye. Back in the summer 2016, Abby Beckley found something in her eye - something moving- and those eyeballs squatters are the subject of a study published this week in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. I'll be speaking with the author of that study in a moment but first I spoke to Abby Beckley yesterday from Ashland, Oregon. Here is that conversation. Abby Berkley congratulations it seems that unfortunately you have made medical history.

ABBY BECKLEY: I have. Yes. It seems that I have.

LL: Can you start by telling me when did you first start noticing something might be wrong.

ABBY BECKLEY: Yeah. It was about in late August, oh no excuse me, on late July, I was on a salmon fishing boat and my eye sort of getting irritated and that when I first started noticing that something was wrong and it just felt kind of like I had an eyelash in my eye.

LL: And how long did that go on for?

ABBY BECKLEY: That went on for about five days.

LL: So what did you do?

ABBY BECKLEY: I woke up one morning and I was so irritated. I had been getting headaches and I just decided that I was going to get what it ever was in my eye out of my eye. Anyway pulled from underneath my eye with like a pinching motion and that's when the word came up.

LL: You got a word between your fingers. What was your reaction when you saw that?k

ABBY BECKLEY: I was just honestly in shock. But also it was a mix between being in shock and knowing that I needed to figure out what the heck had just happened and if it was actually one that I had pulled out from my house.

LL: So what did you do next?

ABBY BECKLEY: So then I ran into my- I was I was on a boat with my crew mate Allison at the time and I ran into her room to wake her up, so I have one person just kind of researching this with me and confirming that it actually was a worm because I was in a little bit of disbelief. So we just started researching and I couldn't find anything. And then I made two appointments at the doctor's in Alaska about in Alaska that day.

LL: You were in Alaska at this point.

ABBY BECKLEY: I was in Alaska. Yes.

LL: What did Allison say when you showed her the worm?

ABBY BECKLEY: She said - She was just like 'what!' and then she looked at my finger and she was like 'Abbey. That's for sure is a worm. OH my God that looks like a salmon worm'. We thought it was a salmon worm because I was commercial at the time.

LL: So what did it look like?

ABBY BECKLEY: It was a translucent- It was a worm that is translucent. It was about half an inch and it was about a little thicker than a hair.

LL: Half an inch?

ABBY BECKLEY: Yes.

LL: That's pretty sizeable for inside your eye, especially.

ABBY BECKLEY: It was, but it was so thin. They were so translucent that's why couldn't see them squiggling in across my eye. But once I found one and then I found more I could actually pinpoint them squiggling across my eye.

LL: Right. So you found more. This was after you went to the doctor's, right?

ABBY BECKLEY: No it was actually before. So I made that appointment with the doctor and I thought it was just an isolated incident and that I ended up pulling out four more before my doctor's appointment and keeping them so that the doctor could have them when I got there.

LL: What was going through your mind as you pulled out one after another after another?

ABBY BECKLEY: At that point I was pretty I was pretty freaked out and I just wanted to figure out what was going on with me. I mean my health was okay and my vision was okay, so I was using that to kind of ground me. But I just was like 'okay this has gone from just one worm to a few worms. So I need to figure this out'.

LL: So you went to the doctor. How did the doctor react?

ABBY BECKLEY: The doctor in Alaska, she took the samples from me and then looked in my eye for a few minutes but was very- she didn't - I could tell she was very stand-offish, almost like she didn't want to touch me.

LL: Oh my gosh.

ABBY BECKLEY: Yes. And so she took my samples and said we will send these off to CDC when I was in Alaska. And then I said 'should I keep fishing? Should I go to a different hospital and have this checked out?' And she said just keep monitoring it. But at that point I decided to go to OHSU.

LL: Okay so let's go let's go to those initials. CDC is Centers for Disease Control. That's where she sent the samples. And then you decided to go where?

ABBY BECKLEY: To Oregon Health and Sciences University in Portland, Oregon. That's where I am from. I am from Oregon and that's where my mom lived at the time. So I decided to go to OHSU for further treatment and examination and try to figure out what was actually in my eye.

LL: And what were they able to tell you?

ABBY BECKLEY: When I first got there thankfully they were able to see one after a while. They were able to see one squiggle across my eye and they were able to remove it. But they didn't know what it was either. And that's I think the point where the most you kicked them. But they sent the sample that they had to the CDC and then CDC got back to them with what it was after about a week, I'd say.

LL: So one week you had to live with this.

ABBY BECKLEY: Yes and that was the most panic inducing and definitely the most fearful time for me.

LL: What did they tell you? What was it?

ABBY BECKLEY: I'm not sure how to pronounce it exactly correctly but it was a worm called Thelazia and the species of that worm is called Gulosa, I believe. And it's a fly that is actually found - a fly that deposits eggs into cattle, usually, and it just so happened that a fly must have deposited one into my eye.

LL: And were you near any cattle?

ABBY BECKLEY: Not in any way that I can remember. I live on in an active ranch in Oregon for a while, but that only had one cow on it. I was around horses for about an hour one day but I didn't ride them or anything. I probably only pet them for like 10 minutes. My family have some cattle lands and stuff like that in a different part of Oregon that I am from. So I am around cows and horses but I can't remember a specific incident where that would have occurred.

LL: How are you feeling now?

ABBY BECKLEY: I'm feeling good. I'm feeling really good now. You know, thankfully I was just trying [unintelligible]. Thankfully, the worm wasn't invasive at all. It was in the sense that it was it was[unintelligible] my eye but I am so thankful that it didn't cause any blindness, pretty minimal irritation everything like that. So I am doing just fine now.

LL: Are you are you willing to go back around horses or cattle again or do you want to stay away from that?

ABBY BECKLEY: I'm totally willing to go back around I horses and cattle for sure. You know this was a freak incident. I just happened to be at the right time at the right place like at the right exact moment. So I for sure wouldn't limit myself to anything like that.

LL: Abby I am glad that you're rid of the worms and that you're feeling all right. Thank you for talking to us.

ABBY BECKLEY: Thank you so much.

LL: That was Abby Beckley telling us what it was like to find worms in her eye. We reached her in Ashland, Oregon. Well Abby maybe able to talk her eye worm ordeal up to a freak incident, but for researchers it's also an exciting discovery. Richard Bradbury is with the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. He's the author of a research paper about Abby Beckley's case. We reached him at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Hello.

RICHARD BRADBURY: Hi how are you doing?

LL: Fine thank you. You heard Abby Beckley telling her story there. What exactly was it that was in her eye?

RICHARD BRADBURY: So what was in her I was a worm, an eye worm which is known as Thelazia Gulosa which is a big scientific name and we called it more commonly the cattle eye worm. Now this was really exciting for us you know. As parasitologist we really got very excited to see something like this because even although this eye worm, this group of worms has infected humans before - there's been about 160 cases in recorded literature in Asia and Europe of one species and then in the North America there's been about 10 cases previously with another species called the Californian eye worm - but what was interesting about this that alone finding the 11th case of Thelazia infecting a human's eye in North America was incredibly exciting. What was even more exciting was when we suddenly realized as we were trying to identify this worm that it didn't fit with the other two that had previously been found in humans. So this was something new that we'd never seen infecting humans before. And so you know for us it was tremendously interesting and we had to go down this rabbit hole of detective work to work out what this thing was because this was not in - all the books on medical parasitology didn't mention this, didn't have ways to identify this and we had to go back - Some of these worms do infect animals obviously. We had to go back looking at veterinary journals and I finally found the diagrams I needed to identify this in a journal published in 1928 in German which you could imagine was pretty hard even to get hold of. And that allowed me to identify it as this cattle eye worm which had never been seen before in a human. So as a scientist this was really exciting, interesting.

LL: Yes congratulations.

[Laughter]

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RICHARD BRADBURY: Not so good if you are the patient.

LL: Yes. No. And congratulations on all the fine detective work. I can hear the excitement in your voice.

[Laughter]

ABBY BECKLEY: Thank you. It took a while. Yes. I mean we were lucky. I work with some fantastic people as well. At the CDC parasitology reference lab we're kind of the last stop shop. When you don't know what something is it ends up on our bench and luckily we have some really incredible people here who can do this kind of work.

LL: Can we just back out for a second? Can you remind us what it is a parasite?

RICHARD BRADBURY: Okay. So a parasite is an animal which infects another animal and generally lives off it in some way to gain its nutrition or something like that. So any sort of animal that actually lives on another animal is considered to be a parasite or within another animal for that matter.

LL: I know we're not sure how Abby picked up these worms but how would someone typically contract them?

RICHARD BRADBURY: Okay so this one here is normally spread by face flies. So what probably would have happened with Abby here, we think she probably acquired this in Oregon. She'd only been on that fishing boat for about a week or two when she first got the adult worms starting to show. That takes a couple of weeks to reach the point where you know they're there. So we think she was probably infected in Oregon. Also the flies that spread aren't present in Alaska. So what would have happened is she would have been somewhere near cattle as she was on a farm, and just unfortunately you know a fly would have landed on her face and started feeding on the secretions around her eyes, just a bit of tears or something like that, or maybe just you know those funny bits of secretion that you get occasionally around your eyes and you wipe away. And she just wasn't quick enough to brush it away. And what that meant was it had time for these worms which were infecting the fly to jump out of the fly and into the eyeball. And they would have been a little baby larval stages then. But over the coming weeks they grow into adults and then suddenly become aware that you've got something in your eye. You can imagine how disturbing it is that you've got - suddenly you think there's a eyelash or something in your eye and just like she said, you pull it out and find that it's actually alive wriggling worm.

LL: Oh yeas. I mean, yuk.

RICHARD BRADBURY: Very disturbing.

LL: What is it though about the human eye that makes it a good environment for a parasite or worm?

RICHARD BRADBURY: Well you know there's only a couple of parasites that infect the human eye. There's a couple in Africa and there's you know there's one species which is found in both Africa and parts of Central and South America that effect the eye. There's not very many parasites that actually infect the eye. It just happens that this is the [unintelligible] that this thing has found and of course this one normally likes to be in the eyes of cattle. It's the first time we've found in the eyes of a human. So it's a very rare and unusual event. It just happened. Different parasites adjust to different parts and virtually any part of the body there's a parasite which is infected at some point.

LL: Well why does it like eyes?

RICHARD BRADBURY: It's an excellent question. We don't know. It's just evolved over over generations to be something that sits in the eye. Its life cycle requires it to be and in the face fly for a period of time to actually maintain the life cycle of the parasite. So face flies land on eyes and eat the secretions out of your eye and that's how it continues its cycle.

LL: Oh they are feeding on it. Ah.

RICHARD BRADBURY: That's why particularly over generations it became an eye worm instead of being in some other part of the body. That's just what it did.

LL: But the worms are actually feeding on what? Tears? Or are there other materials in the eye?

RICHARD BRADBURY: Well the worms themselves are not necessarily feeding on it but the flies are. The worms are sexually reproducing. So just in time for Valentine's Day, you know those male and female they are on the eyeball and they will fight each other - it is extremely romantic - and then they produce little baby worms which are secreted in tears and in secretions from the eye. And you can imagine if you've got these worms in your eyes, you're going to have terrible pinkeye. So you are going to have puss and things like that and the flies will come along and feed on that and the baby worms are in there and that's how they get into the fly.

LL: That is so nice [laughs].

RICHARD BRADBURY: And they need to get through the fly to reach adulthood again to find a new host. So that's how it works. It's pretty disgusting isn't it?

LL: Yes [Laughs].

RICHARD BRADBURY: This is one of the reasons I like parasitology. You know it's both intriguing and repulsive at the same time.

LL: But at these eye worms dangerous?

RICHARD BRADBURY: You know they're not terribly dangerous to humans. Where you can have problems with this is in animals. And it's far more common for them to infect animals because of course animals can't swish away flies from their face like we can. They don't have the hands to do it. And we know in animals if they're not treated over several months they can cause scarring of the cornea as they crawl across the surface of the cornea and that can lead to vision loss. But with humans we don't tend to have the infection long enough for that to occur because of course you going to pull the foreign body out of your eye. So for a human it's not actually necessarily going to be particularly harmful in the long term. You will get bad conjunctivitis which is pinkeye as we commonly call it. And then once you've pulled all the worms out, that will resolve and you'll be perfectly fine afterwards. The big issue is what we call the psychological disturbance to the patient. As you can imagine this would be extremely upsetting.

LL: Abby sound like she has actually adjusted to it well over time.

RICHARD BRADBURY: She's done tremendously, hasn't she? You know she's really incredibly impressive, how she's it. The thing about it is you know for someone in her situation where she's not a specialist in parasites, even general doctors who may not have specialization in parasites, this is so rare. They'd probably never come across a case of anything like it. And so it is difficult to the patient because they don't know how serious this is. It could be really bad.

LL: Of course. For you what questions are you still hoping to answer about these parasites?

RICHARD BRADBURY: You know one of the things I'm interested in is to know the range of different species infecting humans. We thought until now there were only two species that infected humans with this. One species in Asia and Europe and the other in America. And now we found out, wow, there is actually this third one which we've discovered in Abby's eye. And one of the questions we've got is these previous cases how many of them were actually of another species and they just weren't identified probably because there wasn't the availability of the skills in those laboratories. So I'm interested to know if other Thelazias do infect humans. This is a fairly unusual event. I don't think listeners have to be worried about this increasing or happening more often. It's just a random event of something jumping out of an animal into a human which we call zoonotic disease.

LL: Phew. So glad to hear that [laughs].

RICHARD BRADBURY: There are some [unintelligible] parasites which are actually emerging. There are some other worms and other zoonotic parasites which do appear to be coming into humans more often. But thankfully this is not one of them.

LL: Alright. We are going to stop there though because I don't think I can hear any more about anything else at this point.

[Laughter]

RICHARD BRADBURY: Not something for breakfast radio, is it?

LL: Richard Bradbury thank you.

RICHARD BRADBURY: Thank you it's a pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

LL: Richard Bradbury is with the Division of Parasitic Diseases and Malaria at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. He was at CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. Well Dan Riskin knows a thing or two about parasites. He's an evolutionary biologist, author of Mother Nature is Trying to Kill You and he is the host of The Animal Planet's Monsters Inside Me. And Dan Riskin is with me here in Toronto. Hello.

DAN RISKIN: Good morning.

LL: What did you think when you heard about Abby Beckley's eye worm problem

DAN RISKIN: Well I got a lot of text messages and e-mails very quickly. I smile because this is a happy parasite story right.

LL: It is?

DAN RISKIN: I mean well, parasites can be really bad news if you get the wrong one. But here you have one that gives her a great story with great bragging rights. But it went away and she's totally fine and she's not blinded by it. She's not going to pass it on to her family members. So for me it's a good war story so to speak.

LL: What do you think people react to it the way I did, which is to just go 'oh this is gross?

DAN RISKIN: It is. You react that way for evolutionary reasons. I mean you're scared of big predators. If a bear walks into a room you're terrified for evolutionary reasons. You don't want to get eaten. But parasites arguably have played a bigger role in killing humans over evolutionary history. Parasites are very dangerous. And so if you're about to take a bite of something and you see a worm move across it that's something that you really need to be scared of. And so you know throw it and scream like you would you know if you were scared that it was going to jump out at you, but you don't want to eat it. And that urge to not eat it and to be repulsed by it is your evolutionary context coming through. It's proving that we evolved and that we know what's bad for us.

LL: It is a version of the fight or flight?

DAN RISKIN: It is. It is absolutely and the stakes are just as high as it would be if you saw a big predator.

LL: So you have travelled the world doing research. Tell me about your own up close personal experiences with parasites.

DAN RISKIN: Well so I started my biology - my love of biology comes from bats. They're charismatic. They're cute. They're fun. You know they're hard to get to. They take you to interesting places when you're chasing them. But as we learn more and more about biology parasites became sort of this interesting other thing. I mean it's music great everybody knows about Coldplay but there's all these hipster bands that you want to know about them when nobody else does. And the persons are kind of like the hipster animals. They're incredibly powerful. They're incredibly diverse and beautiful and weird. But most people just don't look at them and maybe it's for those evolutionary reason. So I was on a trip to Belize. I was catching bats. I was doing a study with York University during my masters and I came back with a mosquito bite that started growing and I knew right away what I had. Well it turns out I had not as good a story as Abby does. Wasn't in my eye but it was a maggot under the skin of my head and so it was something called a botfly. And so Abby's worms were dropped off by a fly. My parasite was also dropped off by a mosquito. And so it's this weird thing where a mosquito fed on me but it inadvertently dropped off this parasitic maggot and then that went into the hole that the mosquito had fed from. And then I had this maggot in my head for a couple weeks before I figured out that I had it, and then I went to the emergency and of course being in Canada they didn't know. They were like 'What are you even talking about?' I'm sure it's a botfly, it's a maggot and they're saying 'it looks like an ingrown hair' but I was right and I have it in a jar at home now.

LL: [Laughs] That's nice that you kept a souvenir of it all

DAN RISKIN: You have to, right? You have to.

LL: Did it have a negative effect on your health?

DAN RISKIN: No. That's the thing. I got the right kind of parasite. So some parasites are very localized. So the one Abby had in her eye, what's nice about that is it doesn't borrow in towards your brain or anything like that. But other parasites do. A lot of parasites are specialised in moving through the tissue so you eat it but then it knows exactly how to get from your stomach and then through your body to other places it wants to get. When you think about how incredibly effective our immune systems are in protecting us. For a person to break through that Armour is really impressive and so most parasites can't do it. And some do. Fortunately the one I had stayed where it was until I cut it out. Now I just have this little scar on the top of my head that nobody can see because it's covered by hair.

LL: So the parasites get a bad rep?

DAN RISKIN: No. They get the right rep. They are bad. We talk about things that are good, you know good bacteria in things like yogurt probiotics, and if it's good for you it's not a parasite. But the things that are hurting you are classified as parasites. So to not like parasites is perfectly valid. And the thing is parasites around the world are on the decline mostly because we have sanitation. We drink clean water, when it's available. You know in North America we have very little problem with that. But if you travel around the world where drinking water is a problem. If you go to say Haiti for example it's hard to get clean drinking water and so parasites are more prevalent. And we're also very careful to cook our food properly in North America and to handle our food in a way that avoids these parasites. So we've worked really hard to keep them at bay and it's this interesting thing where we live in a bit of a happy bubble now where we don't worry about them very much. I mean people saw this come up in their Facebook feed or whatever and they were 'Oh parasites. We haven't heard about those in a while'. But other people in other parts of the world don't have that. You know for a lot of people in a lot of places - and you've travelled all over the world for your journalism - so you've seen this first hand, that a lot of people just have parasitic loads and that's just part of life. And for our entire evolutionary history that's just been part of our lives too.

LL: Fortunately I don't have any great war stories like you. But are there parasites that are beneficial to the world?

DAN RISKIN: Well there are a lot of organisms that live on us that are beneficial but as soon as it's beneficial it's not considered a parasite. There is an interesting parasite that we can get. Actually it didn't use to be a parasite and we made it into one. It's this amoeba normally lives in the dirt called Acanthamoeba and normally it just lives in the dirt and it's near a lake or whatever. It gets into a lot of funny places and people who wear contact lenses should use proper contact lens solution to handle those, sterile. But some people decide to save a couple bucks and they use tap water, and this amoeba can find its way into tap water, every once in a while and normally that wouldn't be a problem. But if you happen to use it to clean your contact lenses it happens to get between your contact lens and your eyeball which happens sometimes, not often, but it happens, it finds itself in a place that it doesn't know what to do so it's start eating and it will eat its way into your eyeball and it can cause blindness.

LL: Oh my gosh.

DAN RISKIN: I know but it's so interesting because this thing wasn't a person at all until we invented contact lenses and didn't clean them properly. So being a parasite isn't something necessarily - a lot of these organisms are just making do with what they've got. That worm that ended up in Abby's eye, it went into a fly and it was doing its thing and it's ready to be dropped off at a cow and then it finds itself in Abby's face and it didn't go well for the parasite either.

LL: ]Laughs] Poor parasite. I am wondering though. You're talking about the way we've managed to almost get rid of most parasites. Does that really pose any risk to our ecosystem?

DAN RISKIN: That's a good question. Parasites play an important role in natural ecosystems. And so when you think about a functional eco system, people have argued that one of the best measures of how healthy an ecosystem is is how many parasites you can find in it.

LL: People argue that.

DAN RISKIN: Biologists argue that because it's part of diversity. In fact if you go into a place and you want to know what animals live there and you make a list of all the animals you can find there, you'll make a list of all the things you see walking around. You'll see some birds. You'll see some mammals. You'll see some insects but all of those birds, mammals and insects have parasites. Each one of those species of bird, insect or mammal might have several different kinds of parasites. So when you finally make your list you're going to have more parasites on your list than you will free living organisms. Parasites are actually the dominant form of life among animals on Earth and yet we don't think of them very often. So absolutely they're part of the natural ecosystem but in terms of the human parasites, and us eradicating them and the ethics of that I think that's okay. The diversity of all the parasites that are out there. There's plenty and other animals we can do away with the ones that are causing hardships for humans and I don't think that's going to cause a big problem to the earth.

LL: SI could see you're so animated about this, so I have to ask you what's your favourite parasite?

DAN RISKIN: Ah. So you are talking about the hipster parasite. There is one that I think people are going to be talking about in a few years a lot and it doesn't get a lot of play right now. It's called toxoplasmosis. So toxoplasma is the name of this parasites. Normally it's something that mice or rats can get. And then when a cat eats them it gets into the cat. Then when the cat goes to the bathroom it ends up in the environment and then it gets picked up by rodents again. But what's interesting about it is that while it's in the rodent it rewires the brain a little bit so that the rodent becomes more susceptible to being eaten by cats. There are all kinds of subtle things that it does there that are really interesting. But the scary thing is it doesn't just go into rodents. It does get into people and when it gets into a person it might not do anything but there are increasing signs that it's doing certain things to our brains. And so what you end up finding is that our mental health issues like schizophrenia and suicide happen more frequently in people that have this parasite. And the parasite is found in about one of every eight Canadians and it's totally hidden. So it is a very interesting place to go.

LL: I have to leave it on that note. Dan Riskin thank you very much for coming in.

DAN RISKIN: A pleasure. Thank you.

LL: Dan Riskin is an evolutionary biologist, author and the host of Monsters Inside Me and he was with me here in our studio. Well that is our program for today. Coming up next fashion journalist and Canada Reads panellist Jeanne Beker will stop by Q to share why she chose to champion the book Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto. And we are having a successful Olympics in Canada. For all the latest results, spectacular video highlights and of course Canadian stories and profiles, make sure to download the CBC Olympic app so you can keep up with all the news as it breaks. Because a lot of it is breaking through the night. All right. We will say goodbye for today. I'm Laura Lynch sitting in for Anna Maria Tremonti and this is The Current.

LL: [Music: Theme]

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Thursday February 15, 2018 Full Episode Transcript

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