Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.06.2013, Blaðsíða 10

Continued
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More Iceland for less money
As far as outrage goes, having to pay sev-
enteen thousand, five hundred and thirty
eight ISK for a few packs of test strips and
insulin pens ranks pretty high on my list.
As a type one diabetic, I am unable to pro-
duce insulin, a hormone essential to the
body’s metabolic process. I have to moni-
tor my glucose levels with single use test
strips, and regularly inject myself with in-
sulin, without which I am likely to go into
a coma or have a violent seizure.
Under a newly passed law meant to
save the State money and make the health-
care system more egalitarian, everyone
now pays a greater proportion for his or
her prescriptions until their cost of care
reaches 69,415 ISK per year, at which point
the State takes over payments.
It sounds good in theory, so what’s the
problem? Noticeably missing from the
new law governing public insurance is the
clause that made medication free for most
chronically ill. Specifically, the old law
stated that it was illegal to take payment
for repeat prescriptions vital to patients’
continued survival.
This means that suddenly that same
goody bag of drugs essential to my basic
survival went from approximately 25,000
ISK to 50,000 ISK per year. And because
under no circumstances will my diabetic
costs reach the pay ceiling of the new bill,
the new law ensures that my costs of living
will double.
To add insult to injury, any equipment
essential to my care that needs to be re-
placed is no longer covered. If I lose my
glucose monitor when it’s out of warranty,
that’s 8,000 ISK out of pocket, regardless
of whether I’ve reached the cap or not.
Thankfully I am able to pay for my pre-
scription, as my mother taught me to have
a rainy day fund for bat-shit crazy govern-
ment decisions. However, not everyone is
in that same position. For families strug-
gling to make ends meet, this may be the
straw that breaks the camel’s back. And in
a so-called welfare state, why should those
who get dealt an unfortunate hand in life
be further penalized financially?
With the high upfront cost, some of the
chronically ill are put into the impossible
position of having to decide how much
they are willing to pay for proper medical
care. When patients can't afford the right
treatment, the state runs the risk of expo-
nentially increasing its costs through more
hospital admissions. And can you really
ask a diabetic to dilute their level of care
when it is signing them up for a long list of
harmful side effects including nerve dam-
age, blindness and impotence?
Would you ask someone with schizo-
phrenia to only take his medication every
other day? An epileptic to forgo treatment
and instead avoid stressful situations and
flashing lights? An asthmatic person to
stop using an inhaler and refrain from
physical activity? No, because that would
be senseless and barbaric.
As I see it, there are two solutions avail-
able to new Minister of Health Kristján
Þór Júlíusson. One, he recalls the bill in its
entirety, or two, he reinserts the clause en-
suring that the chronically ill get their care
for free while those who do benefit from
the new bill are not left hanging.
Ultimately this is a question of whether
or not we want to care properly for our ill-
nesses. And this is a question the new min-
ister of health will have to answer.
World food prices have soared in recent
years, not least after the financial cri-
sis of 2007–8. The poor are expectedly
hit hardest. But a large source of cheap,
healthy food is available and hardly uti-
lised: the whale stocks in the seven seas.
Iceland is one of few countries to allow
some whaling. The two stocks harvested
in Icelandic waters are the minke whale,
one of the smaller whale species, and the
fin whale, the world’s second-largest mam-
mal. These stocks are in good shape: ac-
cording to Icelandic marine biologists,
there about 40,000 minke whales and
20,000 fin whales in Icelandic waters.
Harvesting a few hundred whales of each
stock per year is thus fully sustainable.
The European Union—to which Ice-
land recently applied for membership—
is however adamantly against whaling.
The motive is political. Along with the
African elephant and a few other big
animals, the whale is part of the “char-
ismatic megafauna” embraced by envi-
ronmentalists, a powerful political con-
stituency in Europe. The whale no longer
has the image of the deadly Moby Dick
in Melville’s novel. Now it is supposed to
be the smiling, cheerful Keiko of ‘Free
Willy.’ The scientific argument for a
ban on whaling is weaker, however. If
many stocks, not only the minke and fin
whales in Icelandic waters, are abundant,
why are they not harvested?
Part of the answer is history: terrible
overexploitation of whale stocks in the
early 20th century. The International
Whaling Commission, IWC, which was
established in 1946, was proving ineffec-
tive in protecting whale stocks and the
majestic blue whale, the world’s largest
animal, was almost driven to extinction.
In 1973, a respected Canadian mathema-
tician, Colin W. Clark, published a piece
in ‘Science’ arguing that, with a high
discount rate, and a slow-growing spe-
cies like the blue whale, it might not be
profitable to hunt it to extinction. Taking
their cue from Clark, environmentalists
targeted the IWC, succeeding in 1982 to
impose a moratorium on whaling, effec-
tive in 1986.
Iceland voted against the moratorium
and used a special exemption to continue
limited whaling for scientific purposes in
1986–9. In the summer of 1986, the envi-
ronmentalist organisation Sea Shepherd
responded by sinking two whaling boats
in the Reykjavík harbour and attacking
a whale processing plant. Iceland left the
IWC in 1992 to protest the disregard it
showed for scientific findings. The IWC
had not allowed whalers to resume har-
vesting stocks found to be abundant. It
seemed indeed to be turning itself into the
International Non-Whaling Commission.
The chair of IWC’s scientific committee,
Dr. Philip Hammond, resigned from his
position in 1993 for the same reason as
Iceland left the IWC.
In 2002, however, Iceland re-joined
the IWC, with a reservation that if the
scientific evidence favoured sustainable
whaling, it would be resumed in Icelandic
waters. When the minke and fin whale
stocks were found to be abundant, whal-
ing was resumed in 2006, despite loud
complaints by the EU. Icelandic whalers
are now regaining markets lost during the
moratorium, while whale watching at sea
is also popular with tourists in Iceland.
Moreover, in 2007, three distin-
guished economists, Quentin Grafton,
Tom Kompas and Ray Hilborn, published
a piece in ‘Science’ rejecting Clark’s 1973
argument against whaling. Grafton and
his co-authors pointed out that if a par-
ticular stock of an animal were owned by
someone then they would have a vested
interest in maintaining a strong stock
because harvesting costs usually are low
when the stock is abundant, with the cost
rising as the population is reduced.
The Icelanders have developed an ef-
ficient system in their fishery, making
it profitable unlike most fisheries else-
where. This is a system of individual,
transferable quotas, which can best be de-
scribed as private use rights in fish stocks.
This system could easily be extended to
whales in the Icelandic waters and for that
matter elsewhere. This would essentially
mean that whales would be privatised,
taken into stewardship. Those holding the
quotas would behave like owners: they
would have a vested interest in maintain-
ing strong whale stocks.
Whaling may not only be sustainable
in many stocks, but it may also be neces-
sary. Icelandic marine biologists estimate
that whales in the Icelandic waters consume
annually about six million tonnes of many
kinds of seafood, mostly squid and crusta-
ceans, but also two million tonnes of fish,
such as cod, herring and capelin. By com-
parison, Icelanders harvest slightly more
than one million tonnes of fish annually.
Seemingly, whales significantly re-
duce the total fish harvest in the Icelandic
waters. Even if this were not true, as some
environmentalists argue, this would only
mean that the whale succeeds in find-
ing and processing nutrients which man,
with present technology, cannot utilise. In
other words, the whale can then be looked
upon as a highly efficient search engine
for, and processor of, seafood.
Thus, in a world of food scarcity, espe-
cially amongst the poor, the fierce opposi-
tion of the European Union to sustainable
whaling may not only be scientifically
misguided, and economically unsound,
but also immoral.
Tómas Gabríel Benjamin is a furious intern at The Grapevine.
Hannes H. Gissurarson is professor of
political science at the University of Iceland.
Welfare Society, You’re Doing It Wrong
Why the new public insurance bill needs to be recalled
The Case For Sustainable Whaling
10The Reykjavík Grapevine Issue 8 — 2013
tails are still being hammered out,
Minister of Industry and Commerce
Ragnheiður Elín Árnadóttir says she
hopes to have the fees implemented
by this time next summer, which is
probably why the tourists are in
such a rush around the Ring Road.
On June 12, the police stopped 14
vehicles in Hvolsvöllur for speeding,
with most of culprits being foreign
tourists.
That's not all the Icelandic police
force has had to deal with though.
On June 10 they were called out
to Svínadal to deal with two polar
bears that had made their way over
from Greenland. As it turns out, the
alleged polar bears were actually
just a couple of especially plump
Icelandic sheep. Nothing to sing
about.
That is, unless you're a member of
Sigur Rós, who have plenty to sing
about with the release of their new-
est album, ‘Kveikur.’ The album was
released June 17, on Iceland’s Na-
tional Day, giving Icelanders yet an-
other reason to flood the streets in
celebration! Flags were flying, bal-
loons were bouncing and whistles
were blowing.
Speaking of whistle blowing, Ed-
ward Snowden, a former CIA em-
ployee, came forward earlier in the
month with information regarding
vast surveillance of American citi-
zens by the CIA and NSA. Snowden
has expressed a desire to seek po-
litical asylum in Iceland, but first he
has to get here, as asylum seekers
must be located in Iceland when
they apply. Wikileaks spokesperson
Kristinn Hrafnsson has been com-
municating with Snowden and is
trying to get him to Iceland from his
current location in Hong Kong.
And Snowden is not the only one
trying to get Iceland's attention.
This month, the EU has been push-
ing Iceland to make a decision
about whether or not it will join. But
Iceland isn't ready to make any rash
decisions. “It's just part of the dem-
ocratic process,” reported Iceland’s
Foreign Minister, Gunnar Bragi
Sveinsson, defending Iceland's con-
tinued discussion and assessment
without any talk of deadlines.
NEWS IN BRIEF
JUNE