I want to thank the committee for having me and for including patients in the review and discussion on this legislation. I'm representing the Best Medicines Coalition, which is a national alliance of patient organizations. We're very interested in health policy and involving patients in the development of health policy, and our focus has been primarily around pharmaceutical issues in Canada. We try to make sure the patient voice is heard and listened to. I am a member of our board and I'm also a past chair of the organization. I'm also president of the Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance, which is a national organization of arthritis patients from across the country.
We've been working with Health Canada for a number of years on developing this legislation. We think it's very important for patients, and BMC and CAPA are very supportive of this legislation.
I've been living with rheumatoid arthritis for almost 40 years, and part of living with this disease day to day is taking medications. Throughout the years there have been issues around some of our medications, and we've always had discussions with Health Canada about the limitations they have right now when there is an issue with a drug. The biggest example I can think of is Vioxx and all the issues around that. Vioxx was a drug that many patients benefited from. When there were issues with it, it was withdrawn. As somebody living with inflammatory arthritis, I can tell you we take far more dangerous drugs than Vioxx on a daily basis. Patients lost access to this drug. Had Health Canada had the powers that this bill will give them, patients who knew the risks and benefits and the possible uncertainties around Vioxx would still have access to the drug, and those who shouldn't be taking it would not have access to it.
As I said, we've been closely involved with Health Canada for a number of years on the consultation end of this legislation and everything it entails. I'd like to give credit to them for including all the stakeholders in this and listening to everybody's perspective, which, at times, surely got messy. Again, the Best Medicines Coalition and the patients I represent support this legislation under which Health Canada can have a regulatory framework that's modernized, and not operate under the constraints of legislation that was developed almost 40 or 50 years ago. We need to have better post-market surveillance in Canada. Health Canada has made great strides in the last number of years with MedEffect and with some of its initiatives, but they need to be able to get information when they need it and not be under the constraints they are currently working under.
We really believe this legislation is long overdue and very important for patient safety going forward. It's very important to involve patients, as has been done with this, to hear the broader perspective that we can bring to the table as people who actually have to put these drugs into our bodies to be able to live a healthy life.
We look forward to continuing to work with Health Canada going forward. Again, this is very important in the future for patients and post-market surveillance.
That's really all I have to say.