Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here as we wrap up a really important study. You can see there's a lot of interest in the subject matter.
Dr. Landau, I just wanted to express, you made some admissions in the beginning of your presentation that you agree that opioids are sometimes over-prescribed, perhaps inappropriately prescribed. Your conclusion was that we all have a lot of work to do.
It was other witnesses who brought forth the fact that your company actually did pay a pretty substantial fine for a misleading advertising campaign. I just find it rather astonishing and perhaps disappointing that in your defence you mentioned the 400 employees in Pickering and that ultimately, as the president, it's your responsibility to ensure that the ink is black and not red.
I just thought it might have been helpful to acknowledge that your company was in fact responsible and convicted of a very serious problem in the United States and there's action pending in Canada as well. Having said that, I'll just leave that for you to think about.
I want to move on to Dr. Persaud. You brought up some very interesting points about where physicians get their information on prescribing. I'm very interested in the remedies that you both, our Toronto witnesses, brought forward. I'm aware that you mentioned the advertising campaign, the clearly inappropriate advertising and misleading campaign, that Purdue conducted.
But when physicians are asked, according to polling, where they get their prescribing information, what's their most reliable source? Is it the drug reps? Is it the product monographs? I think the most common answer, according to one poll that I saw, was actually the ads that are in the peer-reviewed journals and in the CPS, the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties.
Some of the slickest ads in the world.... I think the perception is that they're peer-reviewed. Of course the articles in the journals may be peer-reviewed, but the advertisements have never been peer-reviewed.
Would you agree with that assessment, that it's a particular problem? I think it goes along with some of the other comments you were making.