Dan Werb
As seen in:
MSN,
The New York Times,
Yahoo Life,
TIME,
Wiley Online Library,
Harm Reduction Journal,
The Atlantic,
BMJ Open,
MDPI,
The Daily Beast
and
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Dan Werb
The Morbid Lesson of 10,000-Plus Sea-Lion Deaths
You have likely never heard of synanthropes, though you surely know them. And they know you. Synanthropes, whose name is derived from the Greek for “together with man,” are not our pets or our herds of domesticated animals but something like our oldest frenemies: beings from which we have long sought and failed to decouple ourselves, that now reside within our communities, and that have become an ineluctable part of our lives.
Why Raccoons Have Been So Successful in Taking Over Toronto
It was a brazen murder on the morning of July 9, 2015, in the heart of downtown Toronto. Was it a targeted killing? A hit-and-run? If there was a witness to the crime, they had long since fled. No one had dialed 911 for medical help. Fear—or was it apathy?—had made another life expendable, not even worth the brief phone call it would have taken to try to save him.
Dan Werb | The Walrus
The city boasts an impressive ratio of up to one critter for every four people
Welcome to Toronto, World Capital of the Urban Raccoon
If you ask anybody in Toronto, they’ll tell you that raccoons, AKA the Procyon lotor (Latin for “before-dog washer,” given their apparent penchant for washing their food), are everywhere. The creatures have turned even the most gray urban spaces into wild landscapes, which have come to suit them far better than their original woodland home. There is no part of the city that they can’t master—or at least that’s what people here believe.
OUR WILD FAMILIARS
Dazzling insights into the cohabitants of our daily lives. How and why animals are making homes for themselves in the world’s urban areas. In a wide-ranging, delightfully surprising, and often counterintuitive survey, journalist and epidemiologist Werb (The Invisible Siege, 2022) examines the question of how cities change and are changed by the behavior of the undomesticated animals that make their homes in them.
Beyond encampments: an evidence-based path to solving Canada's homelessness crisis
Homeless encampments have become a permanent fixture of the Canadian landscape, from large urban centers to small towns and remote communities.
Barriers and facilitators to safer supply pilot program implementation in Canada: a qualitative assessment of service provider perspectives - Harm Reduction Journal
Key informants reported integrating wraparound care as a critical component of safer supply provision, connecting clients to primary and secondary health services, including HIV/HCV testing and treatment, wound care, and referral to housing support services. Some key informants believed this played a vital role in making programs more appealing to policymakers: “This is why I said we integrated into a primary care service.
Investigating the spatial association between supervised consumption services and homicide rates in Toronto, Canada, 2010-2023: an ecological analysis - The Lancet Regional Health - Americas
ArticlesVolume 43101022Open access aCentre on Drug Policy Evaluation, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, Canada bInstitute on Health Policy, Management, & Evaluation, University of Toronto, Canada cDivision of Infectious Diseases & Global Public Health, University of California San Diego, USA dOntario Network of People Who Use Drugs, Canada eDepartment of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada fCentre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada gBritish Columbia Centre on Substance Use,...
Validation of case-ascertainment algorithms using health administrative data to identify people who inject drugs in Ontario, Canada
This paper is only available as a PDF. To read, Please Download here.
Validation of case-ascertainment algorithms using health administrative data to identify people who inject drugs in Ontario, Canada
This paper is only available as a PDF. To read, Please Download here.
An Analysis of the Scientific Evaluation of Orange County’s Discontinued Sterile Syringe Distribution Program and Its Implications for Drug Policy in California - CHPRC
This brief analyzes the impact of Orange County’s sterile syringe distribution program on client and community outcomes, and also assesses how its impact influenced risk of HIV and other outcomes among people who use drugs across the county. Background and Significance The state of California faces an ongoing epidemic of infectious disease transmission among people who inject drugs (PWID).
The U.S. Scientist At the Heart of COVID-19 Lab Leak Conspiracies Is Still Trying to Save the World From the Next Pandemic
Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. In this article: Oops! Something went wrong. Please try again later. Ralph S. Baric American researcher and epidemiologist Dr. Ralph Baric in a lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April. Dr. Ralph Baric in a lab at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in April. Credit - Jeremy M.
The Invisible Siege
With a red Washington Nationals mask dutifully covering my nose and mouth, I hand her my official Covid-19 Vaccination Record Card from the CDC, protected by the special plastic holder my dad got me after he received his first shot. I’m team Pfizer; he’s Johnson & Johnson. After politely checking my driver’s license to make certain it matches my CDC card, the barista happily takes my order. Signs around the coffeeshop remind us to wear our masks except when eating or drinking.
The ups and downs of harm reduction in Afghanistan
3 Harm Reduction International The global state of harm reduction 2022. The risk of provoking resistance and domestic backlash seems to have persuaded the Taliban to enforce an incomplete and subjective ban on opium production. However, their all-out war on PWUD is unrelenting. The Taliban has withdrawn support for harm reduction and HIV prevention services and cracked down on PWUD by arresting, detaining, and subjecting them to violent treatment., 8 Berz K.L. Sharaf S.
Five Finalists Announced for Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction
The 2022 finalists for the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction were announced on Wednesday, a shortlist that the Writers’ Trust of Canada touts as comprising books on “climate change, terminal illness, the politics of race and identity and the pandemic.” The finalists include: The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change, by Geoff Dembicki Nothing Will Be Different: A Memoir, by Tara McGowan-Ross The Long Road Home: On Blackness and...
Literary Review of Canada
At some point, an invasion becomes a relationship, even without the invaded party’s consent. If an occupying force can dig in and avoid defeat, the two sides will begin to adapt and to develop the conditions of a shared long-term existence. These wars of attrition can lead to several outcomes, but they often grind to a messy stalemate — and a transformed reality. We have entered a long-term relationship with COVID‑19.
For-Profit Science Can’t Save Us From the Next Pandemic
Until the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, vaccinology had fallen off a cliff. Not only were pharmaceutical companies and scientists failing to bring vaccines to market, but the time that it took to do so was measured in decades, not years—and certainly not months. That was all upended by the sudden global demand for protection against the morbid damage the SARS-CoV-2 virus wreaked on our bodies.
The Invisible Siege: The Rise of Coronaviruses and the Search for a Cure
Book Review in Non-Fiction, Medicine & Health, Science By Dan Werb Crown 384 pp. Reviewed by Michael Causey April 21, 2022 “Love your mask,” the friendly Lost Sock Roasters barista says to me as I scan the menu on the wall.
To End COVID-19, We Have to Admit That We’ve Failed
In 1985, the first HIV vaccine trial was launched with great fanfare. The previous year, Margaret Heckler, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, confidently declared that an HIV vaccine would be created within two years. But almost four decades after the initial discovery of the HIV virus, there is still no viable HIV/AIDS vaccine. That doesn’t mean, though, that there is no cure.
The Russian Flu: Was a Nineteenth-Century Outbreak Actually the Result of a Coronavirus?
“Sneezes for All. That Fashionable Influenza Will Surely Cross the Sea.” On December 13, 1889, this headline—half jest, half warning—was tucked into the top left-hand corner of page seven of the New York Sun. “Europe has an epidemic of influenza,” the (New York) Evening World blared, “but do not be frightened.
Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction 2022
Your request has been forwarded to the appropriate contact at You will receive a copy of the email request. Any questions about the status of your request should be directed to the publisher contact. Request a reading copy You have already requested a reading copy of by The request was made on .
Opinion | Seven Important Things to Know About Coronaviruses
Six reasons they’re so harmful, and one reason they’re less infectious than other diseases. By Dan Werb Dr. Werb is an epidemiologist. March 20, 2020, 3:00 p.m. ET Credit In the past two decades, coronaviruses have produced three deadly global epidemics: SARS, MERS and now Covid-19. If you’re wondering what it is about this family of viruses that makes it produce such deadly pathogens — and what about them might hinder their spread — here are a few things you should know. 1.
Opinion | To Understand the Wuhan Coronavirus, Look to the Epidemic Triangle
We must determine whether the outbreak will turn into a global epidemic. By Dan Werb Dr. Werb is the author of “City of Omens: A Search for the Missing Women of the Borderlands.” Jan. 30, 2020 An ambulance crew member carrying medical supplies in Wuhan, China, on Sunday. Five cases of the mysterious Wuhan coronavirus have been confirmed in the United States, giving rise to concerns about a potential global pandemic.
Guidelines for public health and safety metrics to evaluate the potential harms and benefits of cannabis regulation in Canada
Review Benedikt Fischer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2186-4030 Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), Toronto, Canada Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Institute of Medical Science (IMS), University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction (CARMHA), Faculty of Health Sciences,...
Stop Podcasting Yourself 589 - Dan Werb
Guests: Dan Werb Writer Dan Werb returns to talk about his new book, City of Omens, big time basketball, and small time baseball. Download episode 589 here. (right-click) Come see us at JFL in MONTREAL July 26th: Tickets Buy our NEW T-SHIRT. Email us at "spy [at] maximumfun [dot] org" Phone us at (844)779-7631 (or UGH-SPY-POD1) Mailing address: Suite 144 - 6362 Fraser St., Vancouver, BC V5W 0A1
What happens when a border city's lifeline is brutally severed
An aerial view of the U.S.-Mexico border, with Mexico on the right, on April 5, 2019 in Tijuana, Mexico. (Getty/Mario Tama) A Bush-era neoliberal policy caused the murder rate of women in Tijuana to surge 1000% in 18 years Dan Werb June 9, 2019 11:30PM (UTC) When she finally took the balloons, Rosa didn’t feel the relief she had hoped for.
Life on the Margins in a Kingdom of Cartels
The room in Tijuana was white, small, hot. The sounds of the street below drifted in through the window on an endless loop: slow winding trumpets, an accordion vamping, the corrido blaring fuzzily from small tinny speakers, making it sound like a pile of dirt had been kicked over the band. Rosa, the woman I was interviewing, stared at me, flinty and impatient, with thick black eye shadow and raven hair falling past her shoulders.
Integrating supervised consumption into a continuum of care for people who use drugs
KEY POINTS Supervised-consumption services are known to be effective in reducing drug-related harms, and several dedicated services now exist in Canada. It is now time to move from asking whether such services are effective to asking whether, how and under what conditions their benefits can be maximized.
Comparing risk environments for HIV among people who inject drugs from three cities in Northern Mexico
This is the first study comparing data across three different cities in Mexico’s northern region. We have described micro and meso-level characteristics within each city that shape differentiated risk environments for HIV. Tijuana shows a prevalence of HIV among PWID of 4.2%.
December 2014 | The Walrus
How mission creep is turning our cops into warriors Read More Prescription opioids, a small Ontario community, and the failure of the war on drugs Read More A renowned bookseller’s last day on the job Read More Everyone agrees that last summer Katie shelled the peas beautifully, though she was rather slow and lunch didn’t happen until well after two.
Oxy Town
At the intersection of London Road and Victoria Street, otherwise known as Highway 2 and Highway 21, lies Thamesville, Ontario, population 928. This tiny burg is part of the sprawling municipality of Chatham-Kent, about an hour from the Windsor-Detroit border. There are few people on the streets, and only a handful of businesses: a Mac’s convenience mart, a small consignment store, the Schmid Jewellery and Gift Shop, and the John C. Badder Funeral Home.
Lost in the Barrens
On the mid-December day of my arrival in Liverpool, in 1961, the city was as grey and gloomy as the Irish Sea itself. I wasted no time there. A dismally hooting little train bore me through a besetting fog to London, where a dispirited cabbie found me a grungy little hotel that had the effrontery to call itself the King’s Arms and was inhabited chiefly by relics from Queen Victoria’s reign.
New Editor-in-Chief
For immediate release Toronto—The Walrus Foundation announces that the new Editor-in-Chief of The Walrus magazine and all of its content platforms will be Jonathan Kay. For the past decade, Jonathan Kay has acted as the National Post’s Managing Editor for Comment, with direct oversight of the paper’s Editorial, Letters, and Issues & Ideas pages. He is also a regular media panellist on CBC TV’s The National and CBC Radio’s Q.
The temporal relationship between drug supply indicators: an audit of international government surveillance systems
The temporal relationship between drug supply indicators: an audit of international government surveillance systems Dan Werb1, Thomas Kerr1, Bohdan Nosyk2, Steffanie Strathdee3, Julio Montaner2, Evan Wood1 1Urban Health Research Initiative, BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Vancouver, Canada 2BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Vancouver, Canada 3University of California San Diego, Institute of the Americas, La Jolla, California, USA Correspondence to Dr Evan Wood;...
Effect of drug law enforcement on drug market violence: a systematic review
Save citation to file Format: Add to My Bibliography Your saved search Name of saved search: Search terms: Frequency: Which day? Which day? Report format: Send at most: Send even when there aren't any new results Optional text in email: Create a file for external citation management software
Lauren B. Davis’ “Radiant City”
In her beautiful new novel, “The Radiant City,” Canadian writer Lauren B. Davis evokes a Paris that is decidedly on the edge, a city in which everyone has come from somewhere else and is trying desperately to lose themselves. The story centers around Matthew Bowles, a traumatized war correspondent whose last assignment in Hebron left him riddled with bullet holes and emotionally paralyzed.
The Seductive Saga of Cognac
It is fitting that Kyle Jarrard’s new book, “Cognac,” starts by summarizing millions of years of tectonic shifts and geological systems. After all, when you are as passionate about the subject as he is, cognac is an entire world of its own with a story as old as the earth istelf. So convincing is he that as a reader you develop the sneaking suspicion that the entire universe was created for just one purpose: to bring cognac into existence.
We’ll always have Paris
John Baxter talks about sex and love in the City of Light Renowned film critic, biographer, and Paris resident John Baxter’s new book, “We’ll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light,” is a gushing love letter to his adoptive city.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Dan
Contact Dan, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack