Thank you.
NDP-3 would amend the bill by adding, after line 3 on page 5, the following:
21.61 The Minister must undertake an independent review of all monographs of therapeutic products that the Minister has prepared since the coming into force of this section and must post the results of such reviews on the Department's Internet site.
The purpose of this amendment, Chairperson, is that we want to make sure that independent and objective reviews of Health Canada's approvals of product monographs are available. This requirement would only apply to new drugs.
This was brought forward in testimony by Dr. Meldon Kahan earlier in the spring. We think it's something that should be covered. Basically he said, as people on the committee might remember, that it's very important to ensure that product monographs are objective and are not influenced by pharmaceutical marketing, and that basically there should be an independent review of these monographs.
That is what this amendment deals with.