Last month, four AIDS advocacy programs and one former prison inmate took the unconventional, and rather inspired, step of suing the Canadian federal government for not providing a clean needle exchange program to the country’s prison inmates. Their argument, based on the premise that the government must provide prisoners access to the same healthcare services as would be available to them in the community, is unlikely to succeed in Canada’s courts. It does, however, bring to the forefront important public health issue.
