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14 February 2008

How magnanimous

Mr. Justice Wayne Dymond ruled today that two reviews conducted of Eastern Health labs are not peer reviews or quality assurance reports and as such will be made available to the public inquiry into breast cancer screening.

Eastern Health issued a statement which CBC reported thusly:

In a statement, Eastern Health said it will not stand in the way of the reports' release.

The decision "clears the way for Eastern Health to continue to work with the Judicial Commission of Inquiry on the estrogen and progesterone receptor (ER/PR) issue," the authority said in a statement.

How magnanimous of the authority.

Perhaps someone at Eastern Health thought no one would notice that under s. 13 of the Public Inquiries Act, 2006 - the section under which Eastern Health sought to have the reports withheld from the commission - they had no right of appeal of the judge's decision.

Perhaps no one explained to them that the authority had no choice but abide by the judge's decision.

Having already damaged its public relations position by pursuing this court appeal in the first place, this sort of comment certainly won't improve public perceptions. The way would have been cleared had the authority exercised its option not to file a loser appeal in the first place.

-srbp-