If I listen to Dr. Coyle, I hear him saying that we value a society that will provide an exponential amount of money for people who make themselves sick over the course of their lifetime by smoking, by drinking. There's no question that you get lung cancer; we're treating it and we're putting all of those vast resources into it, but we're leaving behind those who have simply been born with a condition, and there's nothing else they can do, just as I was born with brown eyes or brown hair.
I like to believe that I live in a country where we protect everybody in need; where we protect the most vulnerable, where we have social safety nets in place that are meant to look after everybody who's sick.
In terms of looking at drugs that may or may not show appropriate efficacy, we also have to look at how we're evaluating what that efficacy is. When I sat with the minister of health one day, he said, “Listen, big deal: Billy can walk an extra 750 metres on a six-minute walk test. Why is he worth $500,000 for me?” I was able to express to that minister that it's not just an extra 750 metres; it's walking from his house to his car; it's walking from his car to his, now, place of work, if he can do it. At school, he's able to go from the classroom to the bathroom on his own, without an EA. He's able to fit more into society and become the type of person that the rest of the health care system values, and the value for dollar is actually there.
When we look at value for dollar as well, what we're not doing is looking at the overall ramifications on the health care system. We look at it as a $500,000-a-year treatment. What we're not looking at is parents leaving the workforce, mental health requirements for those parents who are dealing with these devastating consequences of these diseases, mental health of the siblings, or the amount of school time missed for siblings and families. None of that equates into that $500,000 a year; this is the value on these lives.
I feel we need to be able to look after everybody, and there are mechanisms in place to do that. If the efficacy of a drug is a little bit low or the data isn't available, we can look at funding on an interim basis and collect real-world data. Is it doing what the manufacturers say it does? Is it doing what the clinical trials are saying it does? I believe that's a system that can be put in place. I don't believe it will be a burden on the system and I feel that the overall health of all Canadians—not most Canadians—will be impacted and improved.