Evidence of meeting #29 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pipeda.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Pat Martin NDP Winnipeg Centre, MB
I don't know. You could ask her. But these questions should go to other witnesses, if they want to comment.
Corporate Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer, Canada and Latin America, IMS Health Canada
The only comment I would make is that I believe some of the witnesses, including the B.C. privacy commissioner, were dealing with the particular issue in the context of what an organization would be able to disclose about either its clients or employees in a prospective purchase in the mergers and acquisition situation. Both the B.C. and Alberta legislation accommodated those situations, because sometimes a company cannot legally disclose to anybody, either to its employees or its clients, that there's a deal in the works, because this would be in breach of securities legislation, if it's a publicly traded company.
Conservative
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
To continue where I left off, my last question is to Mr. Fabian.
You mentioned how it will help small communities such as Mr. Tilson's and Ms. Fineberg's, and many other small communities, in research and development. When you take this prescription information, can you distinguish between what is used for business purposes and what is used for research and development?
As a follow-up question, if you don't have that information available for commercial or business purposes, what are the consequences for consumers?
Vice-President, Public Affairs and Corporate Relations, IMS Health Canada
I think the distinction between what is used for commercial purposes and what I already described is in the example of pharmaceutical companies that spend enormous amounts of money on research and development to come up with new therapeutics, and so on. They need to develop their strategies. They need to understand disease states and what's coming in the future.
We have an aging population that's very concerned about what kinds of medications they're going to need to be developed. The pharmaceutical companies need to enlist physicians for clinical trial purposes, they need to provide information for continuing medical education purposes to the physician community, and they also need to provide general information about their products specifically to the medical communities and to the pharmacy sector as well.
So I think that's the clear distinction you can make between the antibiotic usage I gave you, where you have real clinical research, and then the more commercial needs.
Corporate Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer, Canada and Latin America, IMS Health Canada
If I might, I think there are a lot of areas where it's certainly impossible to draw that bright line with respect to research. Gary mentioned clinical trials and the use of the information by pharmaceutical companies to get the word out to physicians about clinical trial work. I think we'd all agree that clinical trials are health research. So where do you draw the line there? Where do you draw the line when you're talking about providing information and education about particular products and services to the health profession groups?
So I think it's difficult in many cases to distinguish between purely commercial purposes and research purposes. And the other thing we have to remember, of course, is that in Canada these days much of the health research that's conducted, on pharmaceuticals in particular, is conducted by the private sector.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
You have both spoken.
What about Dr. Landry? What is his perspective, and as a doctor, what does he see the consequences being if that work product definition is not clearly defined in the act--from a consumer perspective?
Member, Medical Advisory Board, IMS Health Canada
Let me put it this way. The concept of work product as opposed to the concept of privacy and personal information represents two different interests. The work product serves to inform the provider side of a provider-consumer relationship, in our case physician-patient. So the work product serves as a tool that informs the provider in that relationship, with the object of providing better services.
We're in a situation right now in this country where leaders in continuing medical education are discovering progressively the value of the information we can provide. Some of them want to use, or some of them are using, these tools to help physicians identify their own needs in terms of continuing medical education. Those who realize the value of this product would be at a loss if we were not able to continue this. As we meet more and more physicians and explain what we have and what we can provide as a service, the eyes all of a sudden open up and they say, “There's value to that”. As a matter of fact, it goes beyond what they ever imagined.
I hope I'm addressing your question.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative David Tilson
We're coming to the conclusion, and I have a question to our IMS guests.
I'd like to read a quotation from the Business Law Journal, October 2006, from an article written by Lisa M. Austin. I don't know whether you're familiar with this. It gives the other side of the coin in terms of what your position is. I'd like to read it to you and ask for your comments.
This is on page 31 and page 32:And despite the Privacy Commissioner's assertion that prescription information provides little information about the physician, it is important to understand that pharmaceutical companies seek this information in part because they think that it does. They use this information to compile personalized physician prescribing patterns that they can then use for purposes of targeted marketing—a practice that many physicians object to if it is done without their knowledge or consent.
That gives the other side of what you're saying, and I'd like you to comment on that.
Corporate Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer, Canada and Latin America, IMS Health Canada
Sure. Perhaps Dr. Landry, as a physician, might answer.
Member, Medical Advisory Board, IMS Health Canada
I'm just trying to figure out how to respond to that.
That's not reality in Quebec. First of all, the whole medical profession in Quebec knows exactly what we do. As Anita has alluded to, it's on our website. They get the IMS journal. We go to great lengths to provide all the information, so it is done with their knowledge across the province. That's number one.
Number two, I can understand that some might not like that, but on the other hand, a lot of physicians don't like to be approached by a whole variety of pharmaceutical reps in areas of no concern to them. More and more physicians are focusing on an area of practice and they want to deal with pharmaceutical companies that have products for their areas of interest. So part of what we do helps the pharmaceutical industry target physicians who are really using or prescribing their medications.
On the other hand, it prevents them from approaching physicians who have no interest in these, so there's a benefit to that. As a matter of fact, there is significant benefit to that, because in cases that I know of personally, physicians have a relationship with the pharmaceutical reps and get scientific information from them, especially in relation to side effects. And that's a reality.
As a matter of fact, two weeks ago I was in the hospital milieu and I heard about these things, and then we saw reps. The whole approach of pharmaceutical reps has changed over the years and it's become much more scientific, so there's value there. And that's the counter, the other side of the coin that you present.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative David Tilson
I want to thank both groups for coming and giving us your views. You've stimulated some conversation for us, and I appreciated your doing that. So thank you very much for coming.
Before we adjourn, members of the committee, our chairman, Mr. Wappell, will be returning next week. We're approaching the end of this review, and I believe that somewhere along the line we're going to be asking for the report to be prepared. Normally the Library people, Ms. Holmes or whoever, prepare a summary of the recommendations that have been made by witnesses, the proposed amendments. And the question I have is, do we wait until the end when we've heard from the minister—and I think the minister is coming, and the commissioner—or do we have a draft report before they come, so they can hear the proposed amendments from our witnesses, and ask them to comment on that when they come.
I'm not asking for an answer now. This is something that perhaps the chair should deal with when he returns, but it's an observation I have made in my position today, that we should be thinking ahead as to how we're going to prepare our report. So I'll leave that with you.
Again, thank you for coming.
The meeting is now adjourned.