Evidence of meeting #15 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agreement.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Alain Beaudet  President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Glenda Yeates  Deputy Minister, Department of Health
David Butler-Jones  Chief Public Health Officer, Public Health Agency of Canada

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON

Are you finding there's buy-in from the neurological charities to be that matching partner for the Brain Canada research?

4:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Dr. Alain Beaudet

As far as I understand it, there is.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON

I remember last year there was a chair on autism as well.

4:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Dr. Alain Beaudet

This is correct. You are very well informed. We will indeed be funding a $1 million endowed chair on autism, most specifically to look at the clinical treatment of autism.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Patrick Brown Conservative Barrie, ON

Has there been any financial allocation to the international partnerships on dementia yet, or is that still in the elementary stages?

4:50 p.m.

President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Dr. Alain Beaudet

Actually there have been several financial allocations. In fact, there's a provision for a roughly $25 million investment from CIHR to be matched by different countries. We're talking about several MOUs. There's one with the U.K. and Germany; there's one with France; there's one with the U.S. The most recent one is with China. The focus of these international collaborative studies is the early diagnosis and early treatment of the disease. We believe if we haven't been successful in our treatment of Alzheimer's, to a large extent it is because we've started treating too late and at a time when the degeneration was probably too advanced. Our goal is truly to devise means of diagnosing the disorders much earlier so that we can treat them more effectively.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joy Smith

Thank you very much, Dr. Beaudet.

We'll now go Dr. Fry.

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I wanted to go back to drug safety and efficacy. I think the recall of Vioxx has a whole lot of us concerned about that drug.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joy Smith

Excuse me, Dr. Fry. It seems that Ms. Davies had a point of order.

My apologies.

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC

I'm sorry to interrupt you, Dr. Fry.

In terms of the timing, I know we're doing a seven-minute round, but maybe we could kind of squeeze it down a bit, because otherwise not everybody is going to get on. I know we have to go to the votes at the end. Normally we would do a five-minute round, so maybe we can...otherwise I don't think every member that normally would get on will get on. We'll run a little bit short.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joy Smith

We'll finish our first round.

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC

But usually we go to the second round, which is five minutes.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joy Smith

We've decided on seven minutes, and the second round will be five minutes, but we'll finish with Dr. Fry and Dr. Carrie, and then what time we have will go to Mr. Morin.

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC

Okay. I just want to make sure he gets on.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joy Smith

Dr. Fry.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Going back to the safety and efficacy of drugs, I notice that your own departmental report shows that in the regulatory reviews of pharmaceuticals, biologics, radiopharmaceuticals, etc., in fact only 18% of them actually did meet the regulatory standards, and I want to know why.

I also note, going back to the Health Council of Canada report, that in terms of safety and efficacy, Health Canada cannot do a good job even if it wanted to; it doesn't have the regulatory mechanism to do anything other than a passive kind of monitoring. That passive monitoring, as we know, according to the Health Council, only reaches about 1% to 10% of adverse drug reactions. It's not a good batting average when you get only 10% of adverse drug reactions being reported because it's voluntary.

So do you see room...or do you believe regulations will help you to do a more active surveillance in terms of efficacy and safety?

Secondly, why do you think there was such a poor performance in terms of the monitoring or the regulating of drugs that came in before post-market surveillance, when you were just looking at new drugs?

4:55 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Health

Glenda Yeates

I'm very pleased to address this issue, because it is of critical importance to Canadians.

I would want to stress that I'm not sure of the 18% figure. It's not one that I have here in front of me. But I guess I would want to reassure Canadians that in fact, as drugs go to market, we are very thorough in our reviews. We have very strong reviews of drugs as they go to market. We would want to reassure Canadians on the safety reviews that are done and on the efficacy reviews that are done as drugs come on the market.

But as was noted--

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

It's from page 26--excuse me, Ms. Yeates--of your performance review.

4:55 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Health

Glenda Yeates

I'll get that document and obviously respond to that question, perhaps in a follow-up.

What I would want to flag is that we recognize that so much occurs with the drugs as they interact in the real world, as they are used, and we are very committed to having the kind of mechanisms to get the kind of information that helps us and providers--and industry, for that matter--understand that.

That's why we've been working on making it easier for consumers to report. We've added resources significantly in this area. We have a new consumer side effect reporting form, again to try to make it easier. We've strengthened our post-market surveillance capability. We've launched a new website, a new place where people can go and see what has been reported. We have mandatory reporting for industry so that when they become aware of any adverse event or problem, they must report those to us.

In addition, we are working with providers, hospitals, consumers to get their reports. Right now we're working with Accreditation Canada. I'm quite pleased to say that we're working with them to develop standards for their facilities, to in fact incorporate them into the accreditation standards to report to us.

So we are making good progress, and I'm pleased about that.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

But the Health Council of Canada has made some really clear recommendations to improve this post-market surveillance. I am just thinking that one of them, obviously, is regulations, and increased funding for research into that as well as regulatory mechanisms.

I just wanted to go to one quick thing. You talked about tobacco smoking, and the target for the department actually was to go under 12% smoking prevalence within the Canadian population. Actually, you have achieved 18% at the moment, so you have really fallen short of what you required.

The National Lung Health Framework comes up for renewal in 2012. Does it mean, because you need them, that they will be refunded? Does it mean that their funding will not be cut?

4:55 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Health

Glenda Yeates

I appreciate the comment about the importance, Madam Chair, of the smoking rates, and as was noted, we are striving...Canada's had a very ambitious goal of 12%. Since that document was published, we've now gone from 18% to 17%, which is very statistically significant.

We are right now working with partners. We're doing a consultation on the next set of strategies. What we know is that--

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Will you refund?

4:55 p.m.

Deputy Minister, Department of Health

Glenda Yeates

That is something that is under consideration, obviously, for the next budget cycle.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Thank you.

I have one more question, if I may. I don't know how much time I have left.

4:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Joy Smith

You have one minute.