Health committee  If I could comment too, the figures that I gave the committee from the Canadian Pharmacists Association—$2 billion to $9 billion in savings if drugs were only prescribed appropriately, and another $10 billion for care from adverse drug reactions—mean that $19 billion would be on

Health committee  I think Gardasil does hold promise, but when they don't know whether it will last beyond five years and it hasn't been tested with other vaccines.... The most important word in drug safety is contraindication. If it hasn't been tested with these 16 other vaccines, say, that littl

Health committee  The medical community calls them signals. A patient falls dead, and they think it might be due to a prescription drug. That could be in the U.K., South America, the United States, or somewhere else. The medical community calls that a signal. They start counting them, and when the

Health committee  In doing the investigation into Vanessa's death, I found out the regulators in each country. Janssen-Ortho, for example—their head office is in Belgium, Janssen Research Foundation—would only communicate with each regulator in each jurisdiction individually and talk about the dea

Health committee  The primary study was done by Lazarou et al., three professors from the University of Toronto, in 1998. It was a macro study of hospitals. I don't remember the number of hospitals, but I have a reference for you in the printed material. They determined that 104,000 people die fro

Health committee  Thank you. About a month after Vanessa died, I had a call from a pharmacist at an Ontario hospital. She told me she did a report on the cancer ward in her own hospital and that seven out of nine patients who had been given Prepulsid had died. They were very sick patients. They w

Health committee  Health Canada should respond by saying exactly what Dr. Michèle Brill-Edwards just said to you. They should post it on their website. They should make Canadians aware.

Health committee  Can I go ahead, Chair?

Health committee  Thank you, Chairman. Gardasil is three painful needles over a period of time. It costs $450, is effective on 70% of the viruses that can be cancer causing, and may only last five years. Would you buy a television or an automobile that works 70% of the time and only lasted five y

Health committee  Thank you. The only death I ever reported was my own daughter's death, which was the day after she died, because I never felt anything useful was being done with the reports. We focused at the time on research. We know the doctors don't generally report adverse drug reactions

Health committee  Thank you very much.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  Thank you very much.

Health committee  The big pharma companies call themselves “research based” and push to get their “cures” and “breakthrough” drugs on the market faster. Less than 5% of drugs introduced in Canada are considered to be breakthrough or substantial improvements over existing therapies. In 2006 only on

Health committee  Good morning. My name is Terence Young. I'm the founding chair of Drug Safety Canada, a former Ontario MPP, and the author of the book, Death by Prescription, which will be published by Key Porter this coming September. Drug Safety Canada promotes the safe use of prescription