Thank you, Ms. Smith.
Thank you for your presentations here today.
Certainly this committee has been fortunate to have heard many distinguished presenters as we've studied post-market surveillance, and one thing I heard suggested early on in the testimony thus far was mobile devices, electronic devices, as a way to have real-time exchanges of Health Canada updates. I heard from the Canadian Medical Association that sometimes their notices to physicians are mailed out or faxed out, and that there is a block of time involved there that could be hazardous when prescriptions are made.
Secondly, we heard from Terence Young on behalf of some victims, including his own daughter, who suffered, unfortunately, from an adverse drug reaction. One thing he suggested, which I wanted to get your comments on, was better pooling of international information. He said there was a timeline—and I forget what it was, but I think he said it was six or eight months—within which studies by a pharmaceutical company had to be shared if their products were being used in Canada. He thought that if study results were found, they should be shared within 48 hours with Health Canada.
I wanted to get your impressions, one, on how mobile devices would be useful, and two, what we could do to better exchange internationally the studies done on pharmaceutical products. They may be sold in Canada, and the study may have been done outside of Canada, but there should be a requirement on that pharmaceutical company to share that information in Canada.