UBC Reports | Vol. 54 | No. 7 | Jul. 3, 2008

In the News

Hightlights of UBC Media Coverage in June 2008

Compiled by Meg Walker

Landmark Sex Exploitation Study Finds Surprising Number of Female Abusers

The results of Canada’s largest study into the sexual exploitation of street kids and runaways were reported by CanWest News Service and The Vancouver Sun.

Elizabeth Saewyc, associate professor of nursing at UBC and principal investigator for the study, said researchers were surprised to find that many abusers are women seeking sex with young males.

Results were drawn from interviews with 1,845 youth -- some as young as 12 -- in surveys taken across the province between 2000 and 2006.

Status of Therapeutics Initiative Under Heavy Discussion

A review of Therapeutics Initiative (TI), a UBC-based group that independently evaluates drug trials and provides recommendations to doctors and to the government, was released as the Report of the Pharmaceutical Task Force.
The report’s recommendations to overhaul TI were met with more than a month’s worth of discussion about, and defense of, the watchdog organization in The Canadian Medical Association Journal, The National Post and The Vancouver Sun. Many highlighted the work the TI has done in drawing attention to potentially dangerous drugs like Vioxx, which was later withdrawn from the market.

Human Trafficking in Canada

UBC law professor Benjamin Perrin was widely quoted for his comments on a recently released U.S. report on human trafficking. Canada looks good on paper, but has much more work to do.

“We know that human trafficking is continuing to flourish in Canada and that it’s one of the most serious crimes in our country,’’ said Perrin, founder of The Future Group, a non-governmental organization dedicated to ending human trafficking.

Perrin’s research and advocacy work was discussed by media outlets across the country including CTV, Canoe.ca, Victoria Star, Chronicle Herald, Vancouver Province, Metro, CKWS, Miramichi Leader, Bugle-Observer, Canadian Press, Canwest News Service and The Vancouver Sun.

Congress of the Humanities Comes to UBC

More than 9,500 academics met at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences at UBC to present cutting-edge research and engage in panel discussions in 4,000 sessions at the university’s four campuses.

The May 31 to June 8 conference was the largest Congress in the organization’s history, and the biggest event UBC has ever hosted.

Their research was gathered under the umbrella theme, Thinking Beyond Borders.

Multiple stories about ideas presented during the Congress were picked up by The Globe and Mail, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Times Colonist and papers across B.C.

Rare Edward Curtis Film Restored and on Tour

A restored and expanded edition of the 1914 film “In the Land of the Head Hunters,” the only feature-length film made by acclaimed photographer Edward Curtis (1868-1952), played in Los Angeles and Seattle before coming to the UBC.

Aaron Glass, a UBC anthropologist who worked on the four-year restoration project and who found the film’s original score at the Getty Institute in 2004, said the original work was very much a collaboration between the Kwakwaka’wakw people of B.C. and Curtis.

Stories appeared in The Vancouver Sun and Los Angeles and Seattle newspapers.