Look to safe supply research, not disinformation campaigns, London doctor pleads with Ottawa

A London, Ont., doctor who leads Canada's longest running safe opioid supply program told a federal health committee that politicians and others spreading disinformation around addiction are taking the focus away from care and causing more deaths.

Dr. Andrea Sereda, who leads the Safer Opioid Supply (SOS) Program at London InterCommunity Health Centre, said politicizing the issue and ignoring evidence-based harm reduction practices further stigmatize overdose deaths that can be prevented through safe supply programs. 

"I would like to see people who spread this disinformation — politicians, media and critics — to be the ones who call the mothers of the dead, because I think if that was their responsibility and not mine, they would really be focusing on the emergent nature here, on the actual evidence that we have around safe supply and other harm reduction interventions," she said. 

The standing committee on health (HESA) asked Sereda and other addiction experts on Monday about the benefits and risks of safe supply in preventing overdose deaths. The information gathered will be used to inform recommendations for how Canada can tackle its ongoing opioid crisis. 

"Disinformation is important and extremely troubling. The addiction crisis is incredibly troubling in my home province, This is not something I take lightly. I don't think that giving more drugs is somehow going to solve the problem," said Alberta Conservative MP Laila Goodridge.

Toxic drug-related deaths reached an all-time high across the country in 2023. British Columbia reported 2,511 suspected illicit drug deaths and Alberta had more than four opioid-related deaths per day. Earlier this month, Belleville, Ont., declared a state of emergency after 23 people overdosed in a span of two days. 

"We can't forget that over 42,000 people have died of overdoses and disinformation that actually slows our response to saving the next set of lives is really disappointing," Sereda said. 

Canadians want answers, say politicians  

Sereda was among a group of physicians and advocates specializing in addiction treatment who spoke about improving access to medical and harm reduction services to treat opioid addiction.

MPs from different parties asked Sereda if she's concerned about drugs from safe supply that are being diverted to other individuals, including young people, and the moral and legal responsibility physicians bear for that. 

Bloc MP Luc Thériault asked how common diversion is and if it could be prevented when those taking opioids prescribed by doctors still have have access to street drugs. 

Sereda responded by saying safe supply clinicians like herself rely on good research and published qualitative evidence, not anecdotal evidence such as social media posts or stories of a few individuals.

"Coroners in B.C. and Ontario carefully monitor overdose deaths; there's absolutely no data to support that children are accessing hydromorphone (an opioid used to treat severe chronic pain) and dying from them," she said.

Conservative MP Robert Kitchen pushed back and said it's not anecdotal for the committee to ask questions because Canadians want answers on how to prevent this crisis from taking more lives. 

"They want their loved ones back home the way they were, and as much as you want to call that anecdotal, it's our constituents around this table that are telling us this information," he said. 

Uncertainty around safe supply funding

The SOS program started in 2016 and allows physicians to prescribe opioids that replace the illicit toxic supply people rely on. In reports that track the program, safe supply users self-reported fewer overdoses and better health outcomes because of the program. 

However, with federal funding ending in March, the program's future is up in the air, putting Sereda and her patients on the edge of their seats, she said.  

The uncertainty is also causing moral distress among safer supply doctors because decades of data suggests that people turn to the illicit market when the opioids they are taking stop being prescribed, leading to more deaths, she added.

"My patients have been asking me if these programs end and they have to return to the toxic supply, they ask me if they're going to die and I don't have an answer for them because I don't know if funding is going to be renewed. 

"The moral distress comes from knowing they've been keeping people alive for years on these programs and not knowing if in a month, the people that they serve are going to die."