Is Dr Vix legal?

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Dr Vix provides 'illegal' lab training in Thailand!
Published:  24 June, 2010

A FORMER Helmsdale Primary and Golspie High School student is now working as a volunteer in Thailand.

Dr Victoria Harris (Dr Vix) works with displaced Burmese and Karen migrants in the Myanmar border area as a laboratory scientist training microscopists to carry out tests for, among other things, malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and blood disorders at the Mae Tao Clinic (www.maetaoclinic.org).

Dr Vix graduated from Adelaide University in April this year with a PhD with special accommodation on her thesis "Physiological, biochemical and molecular characterisation of hydroxycinnamic acid catabolism by Dekkera and Brettanomyces yeasts."

She grew up in Sutherland, the daughter of Helmsdale teacher Mary Harris, and went on to graduate with a 1st class honours degree in biomedical sciences.

With a passion for wine, Vix applied to the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine at Adelaide University in Australia to do her doctorate.

Many bottles of "research" later she emerged unscathed with a mild accent change and a craving for "shrimps from the barbie!"

Never being a fan of a career path Vix has moved to Thailand as a volunteer with Australian Volunteers International (www.australianvolunteers.com).

The clinic where she works was set up over 20 years ago by a displaced Burmese doctor and has since grown to treat thousands of Burmese each year.

The clinic is not legally recognised in Thailand and neither are most of the staff, as many of them are illegal immigrants.

The patients often walk many miles across Burma, risking their lives if they are discovered by the military junta, to obtain treatment they would never receive in any other way.

As well as medical treatment the clinic provides housing and schooling for children, child protection services, training for backpacker health medics who travel to remote regions inside Burma, and runs vaccination and maternal health programmes.

The Burma Children's Medical Fund also finds money to send children to Thai hospitals.

You can follow the exploits of Dr Vix by following her blog (www.drvixblogspot.com or tripping the tightrope) and she would welcome comments from people in Sutherland.

Vix would be delighted if any school, organisation or individual would be willing to donate any money to the clinic which is desperate need of funds. about the poorly equipped laboratory where the volunteers have to work.

http://www.northern-times.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/7507/Dr_Vix_provides__illegal__lab_training_in_Thailand!.html