Health Minister Adrian Dix described UVic Professor Rebecca Warburton as “a remarkable, determined and generous person who stood her ground and believed in the evidence.”
Rebecca Warburton has worked everything from a CIA analyst contributing to then US President Jimmy Carter's daily briefings to a researcher and University of Victoria professor, but she infamously shot to the headlines in 2012. He was fired from the Ministry of Health in 2010.
Health Minister Adrian Dix, who advocated on behalf of the sacked researchers, first in opposition and later in government, said the general advice in such disputes was to move on, but that Mr Warburton's He said it's not about style.
“She was just a force of nature,” Dix said of Warburton, who died suddenly at age 70 on March 13 from complications involving a ruptured appendix.
“She was a wonderful, determined, generous person who stood her ground and believed in the evidence.”
Mr. Warburton, who holds a master's degree in economics from the London School of Economics, worked in several British Columbia ministries before graduating from the University of London in 1996, three years after receiving his Ph.D. He earned tenure at UVic's School of Government.
She was at the top of her game when she and seven colleagues, including her husband, became embroiled in a flawed investigation by the then BC Liberal government. The investigation involved alleged data privacy violations and contract awarding irregularities related to B.C.'s Ministry of Health's Pharmaceutical Services Division. Everyone was fired.
“It was an example of people starting with a conclusion and trying to fabricate evidence to support that conclusion,” Dix said.
Conflicts of interest, irregular contracting claims and a series of other accusations have been leveled against Warburton, her husband Bill Warburton, an economist who had contracts with the state health department, and his distant cousin, the health department. It arose from a relationship with employee Malcolm McClure. She is an epidemiologist and shared the role of co-director of the department's medicines division.
Whistleblower Alana James, a Department of Health official, claimed that a group of rogue researchers were circumventing protocols and sharing anonymized data. But as the years passed, the investigation unraveled.
Within months, Roderick McIsaac, a UVic doctoral student who was working as a co-op student for the Department of Health, committed suicide. Concerns were raised that research would come to a standstill as media scrutiny intensified.
Some of the Ministry of Health researchers who were fired were considering the off-label use of antipsychotic drugs in children and the elderly. MacIsaac and another researcher were looking at B.C.'s smoking cessation program and smoking cessation drugs, including Champix, which has been the subject of a Health Canada warning for psychiatric side effects.
The Ministry of Health's use of the data comes from UVic, which was researching Alzheimer's disease drugs, and a University of British Columbia-based company that independently assesses the effectiveness of drugs to balance pharmaceutical industry-backed treatments. The Therapeutics Initiative, a research group, was suspended from using the data. Source of information.
It was ultimately revealed that there was no RCMP investigation, as the BC Liberal government had publicly stated.
The facts were clear, but the process was not. “So it's been a long battle,” Dix said.
Bill Warburton said Rebecca and other members of the group believed strongly in the safety and effectiveness of drugs and worked hard to ensure money was not wasted on drugs that were ineffective.
“So when the firing happened, she felt really betrayed and confused as to why someone would do something like this without any evidence,” said Bill Warburton, who, as a MacIsaac professor, was one of his He added that he was deeply affected by the death.
Dix said Rebecca Warburton was of a generation that believed in evidence and sought to apply it, sometimes against powerful forces. That belief of hers sustained her through her medical layoffs, he said.
All of the fired researchers ultimately won their wrongful termination lawsuits. A 488-page report called “Misfire” released in 2017 after a thorough investigation into the dismissals led by B.C.'s Ombudsman Jay Chalke found that eight researchers were unfairly wronged by the Ministry of Health. Turns out he was fired.
This report exonerated the researchers. Under the subsequent NDP government, 41 recommendations were implemented, including a government apology, changes to how allegations were investigated, cash payments to fired researchers, and UVic scholarships for doctoral students in McIsaac's honor. .
After Rebecca Warburton's death, UVic's School of Public Administration said in an online memorial that she returned to the University of Victoria full-time with a strong interest in faculty rights and protections and university governance. Ta.
She took on several additional roles and retired as an associate professor in 2020, but continued to serve as a senator. Her term was supposed to end on June 30th.
The couple recently reflected on their favorite published paper, one they wrote together. The paper “Canada needs better data for evidence-based policy,” published in 2004, “was a paper that benefited from her tireless logic and interest.” Details and my rants and abuse,” Bill Warburton said.
The couple fell in love with the city in 1982 while traveling from Sandspit, Haida Gwaii, and after a short stay moved to Victoria. Their only son Dave was born in 1991.
“Others think she has a hot temper, but my son Dave and I think of her as kind and loving,” Bill Warburton said. She said she made fresh fruit salad and baked quiches every morning. “She really took care of us.”
She started snowboarding at age 46 and wakeboarding in her 50s.
The stress of the investigation and the ensuing pandemic have affected Rebecca's health, but the couple, who have been married for 43 years, have been happy to walk their son Finn, a husky shepherd, in recent years, and Rebecca has also been to the dog park there. He said he took her with him. Many of her friends are “like her”.
“Things were pretty good,” he said.
Rebecca Warburton's ashes will be scattered this summer at Lake Cowichan, her favorite place. A celebration of life was held on April 27th.
[email protected]
>>> To comment on this article, write a letter to the editor: [email protected]
