Mr. Speaker, the issue there is that the pharmaceutical industry, when it starts to get reports of serious adverse drug reactions, generally investigates them and drags them out and tries to blame them on the patients and on another drug. Or, if the company admits that its drug combined with another drug caused a serious adverse drug reaction, it then changes the label, which is a 50-page document that most doctors never read and patients never see. Then it continues marketing the drug.
In the case of Propulsid, the drug that caused Vanessa's death, the manufacturer did that over 10 years. It changed the label five times, knowing that no one ever reads the fine print on a label, and it added certain contraindications. It contraindicated it with erythromycin and clarithromycin over the years. Finally, just a few weeks before Vanessa died of heart arrhythmia from Propulsid, the manufacturer sent out a letter to all doctors, which the pharmaceutical companies can easily do and do all the time. The letter said not to prescribe Propulsid or give it to patients unless they have done an EKG first. That was the first warning that really meant anything to doctors because even a doctor who is in a big hurry with a room full of patients will look at that warning and wonder why doctors would give an EKG to a patient for a drug. Vanessa's doctor did not see that. He was in Florida on a holiday, and he came back and we know the result.
Dragging out the negotiations of changing the wording on the labels is one of the tricks pharmaceutical companies do to keep the drug on the market and keep the sales going, and it causes injuries and deaths. With the new powers under Vanessa's law, the minister would be able to examine the situation, and if that is what is going on and there is an imminent danger, she could order the companies to take the drug not only off the market but also right out of the supply chain.