Mr. Speaker, last Friday, I was proud to join Canada's Minister of Health to announce new patient safety legislation, Bill C-17, the protecting Canadians from unsafe drugs act, subtitled “Vanessa's Law”, named after my daughter, Vanessa Young. In 2000, at age 15, Vanessa's life was sacrificed to maintain the sales of a Wall Street blockbuster drug, Propulsid.
It is difficult to overstate the impact the bill will have for Canadians who take prescription and over the counter drugs. It represents a quantum leap forward in protecting vulnerable patients and reducing serious adverse drug reactions.
Combined with the plain language labelling initiative announced last June, Vanessa's law would: put an end to inadequate safety warnings; empower Health Canada to order unsafe drugs off the market when dangers first become clear; require mandatory adverse drug reaction reporting, creating an early and robust warning system for patients; and, undoubtedly, reduce preventable harm from drugs and save thousands of lives.
Vanessa would be pleased that her loss of life has led to this powerful legislation to prevent similar tragedies in other families.