Health Committee on Oct. 16th, 2018

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I'm just going to follow along with Mr. Ayoub's questioning of Dr. Yusuf regarding what's going on internationally. You commented earlier on how we've failed miserably here in Canada with respect to our research dollars. Your main point was that we certainly need to increase our funding in health research.

Do any of these other countries that are doing so much more investment than we are here have that open science concept whereby they share their intellectual property with anyone, or any other country? Is there any example, or is it still muzzled throughout the world?

Dr. Yusuf, would you comment?

[Dr. Salim Yusuf]

I think the policies of at least the western countries—the U.K., the U.S., western Europe, Japan and Australia—are similar to what we do here. The intellectual property is owned either by the person who discovered it or the universities. By and large it's the same.

China is very regressive. They have not only tried to take ideas and patents from other people; they are now even preventing their own data from coming out. There's been a recent edict, in April, that will prevent any collaboration between Chinese and international investigators. The papers have to be reviewed and approved by the Chinese government. I don't know how this is going to play out.

I do want to add to one point you raised. One of my points was that we need to increase our investment research. A second equally important point is that we need to ensure a redistribution of that money so that the translational part, into clinical systems and patients and into populations, is well supported. That is even more miserably underfunded than the basic biomedical research.

[Dr. Aled Edwards]

I'm the CEO of an organization with labs in Stockholm, Germany, England, America, Brazil and Canada. The system of science is the same around the world. Frankly, it is rather open. We publish. That's how we get our credibility, by publishing. When we're speaking about product development, we believe that the secrecy in that small aspect of the research endeavour causes more harm than good. We think open science is the solution to that.

To the point about whether Canada should invest, let's all remember the U.K. government study that showed that a dollar invested in health research leads to six dollars of economic benefit—not only health impacts, but actual economic benefit. If you're thinking of your ROI, it's a good investment in terms of public dollars.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I have one very quick question, not quite related, to Dr. Fowke with your expertise on Aspirin. I carry two Aspirin around all the time because I'm told that if I feel like I'm going to have a stroke, I should be popping these Aspirins and rushing to the closest emergency room. Do you suggest this? Do you recommend everybody should be carrying Aspirin around for this particular reason?

[Dr. Keith Fowke]

The reason you carry two Aspirin around is not for a risk of acquiring HIV. It's for heart disease. I think Aspirin is a good example. These drugs are very complex and have many different mechanisms. The mechanism Aspirin uses to prevent stroke or a heart attack is different from the mechanism that prevents the cell that HIV infects from getting to the genital tract.

There are different approaches, and we need to understand how these drugs are working. It's two different mechanisms in one drug.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to Ms. Moore.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Fowke, you said that more research should be done on molecules that are known and have been used for a long time in our health care system to see if we can also use them for other therapeutic indications than those generally known. With this objective in mind, are there any molecules or classes of drugs that should be studied in particular?

[Dr. Keith Fowke]

All of us have a very focused field of investigation, so I won't speak in general terms.

One commonality in many diseases is inflammation. Arthritis is an inflammatory disease. Some neurological conditions are inflammatory diseases. We're discovering that even infectious diseases involve inflammation. If we can understand how the immune system works, how the inflammation process works, and exactly how particular drugs interfere with that inflammatory process, it would be just one example of how understanding basic processes of inflammation may have impacts on many different diseases.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Okay. Is there anything further?

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Is there anyone else who would like to answer this question?

[Dr. Aled Edwards]

Repurposing, which is what it's called, is pretty exciting. Again, when you think about diseases that have shared mechanisms, it's good. We must be cautious, though. The well is not that rich in medicines. We have medicines to very few pathways. Those that happen to work will be cost-effective for the health care system, but the track record for repurposing medicines is poor, and not because it's not a great idea; it's just that biology is complicated and we don't really understand it.

We have to balance between inventing new things and trying to extract the value of what already exists. Both are good ideas. You just have to be cautious. It's not going to be the panacea.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Okay. Thanks very much.

I want to say that you've been an excellent panel. You've created an appetite for us to dig into this a little further.

I want to thank the member for raising this issue as well, because it certainly has been interesting.

You've been a wonderful panel and very helpful, great communicators. I want to thank you all for your contribution.

With that, I have one question. Why is it 81 milligrams and not 80 or 85 milligrams of Aspirin? How did they come up with 81 milligrams?

[Dr. Keith Fowke]

That's historical. I can't answer that question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That's a tough question.

Thanks very much.

I'm going to adjourn the meeting, but the parliamentary secretary wants to comment very quickly.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Tomorrow Bill C-45, an act to legalize and regulate the production of cannabis, comes into effect. I wanted to take this moment in time to acknowledge and thank the HESA committee for the work that they did in furthering that legislation.

You will recall it was a year ago September that we met for a solid week before anybody else was back here on the Hill. We heard over a hundred witnesses and made some very substantive changes to the legislation. On October 5, 2017, we tabled our document in the House and it proceeded to go to the Senate after that.

Again, thank you for that time and the contribution by the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I understand you have free samples for us all, do you?

Thank you very much.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

I have a question with regard to translation.

First of all, do our witnesses on teleconference hear that translation as well? They do. Okay.

Second, with regard to documents that are brought in—like Dr. Yusuf's, with no French translation—is it up to witnesses to provide that translation, or do we do that here?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Marie-Hélène Sauvé]

We do provide the translation. There is a turnaround time, and given that we received Dr. Yusuf's presentation yesterday, there was not enough time to have that translated for the meeting today.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

How much time do you require to get documents translated?

[The Clerk]

Typically, we require three business days.

[Len Webber, Conservative, Calgary Confederation, AB]

We just got Dr. Yusuf's yesterday? Okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Witnesses are always given the parameters of what their opening statement time is and the language requirements as well.

[Christine Moore, NDP, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

So we can get them on Thursday.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much, everybody.

With that, I adjourn the meeting.