After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!

Erica Frank

Dr. Erica Frank is a Professor and Canada Research Chair at University of British Columbia and the School of Population and Public Health and Department of Family Practice.  She  is Founder and Executive Director of Health Sciences Online, www.hso.info.  She is also Founder and Principal Investigator of Healthy Doc = Healthy Patient.  She is Immediate Past President of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a Research Director of the Annenberg Physician Training Program in Addiction Medicine, as well as a Professor and Senior Advisor in the Preventive Medicine Residency Program at Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at Emory University School of Medicine.

Unfurling the nuclear mystery after Fukushima

How much longer can British Columbians expect to stave off nuclear radiation contamination from Japan?

Personal reflections: are we really safer one year after Fukushima?

8:30 -As I leave my peacefully sleeping family, the quiet Sunday morning greets me with roads closed to cars for today’s triathlon. I create a sustainable transportation triathlon to today’s...

Fisker Karma car is designed to get you hot... not the planet

A month ago, I’d sent some of my most green and playful friends an invitation to do a 20-minute test drive of the Fisker Karma, an electic-gas hybrid luxury vehicle. The car was, to quote from their...

Increased thyroid cancer from radiation upsurge not expected here...for now

Many government agencies have correctly stated that there now seems to be minimal preventable risk to North Americans from an airborne radioactive iodine release from a Japanese power plant.  ...

Is Lower Mainland monitoring for nuclear fallout from Japan?

As a physician specializing in preventive medicine, I am concerned that there does not seem to be an audibly-announced U.S. or Canadian government policy on monitoring for fallout from...

My Week of Hydrocarbon Dieting in Vancouver

It started with tearful goodbyes at the Vancouver airport as my husband and son left to have Xmas in Atlanta.  It would be the first year that I’d been apart from my 12 year old at Xmas, and my...

Out in the Cold for Climate Change: UBC Professor Hopes for "Real Deal" in Copenhagen

Climate change is all about thinking globally, and acting every place you can – and that’s why I organized a rally at UBC for meaningful climate change discussions in Copenhagen.  George Monbiot...