Health committee  I agree with what Matthew Herder said.

Health committee  No. For any new prescription or in fact non-prescription drug to reach the market, Health Canada has to evaluate the information that the companies submit about those drugs. The problem is that the trials that are done before a drug is on the market are relatively restricted kin

Health committee  I don't know of any concrete examples, but one of the problems with getting concrete examples is that it's very difficult to get information from what Health Canada publishes about drugs that it has withdrawn from the market for safety reasons. In fact, Health Canada does not cur

Health committee  That's fine. I can now hear in English. Thank you.

Health committee  There were only a few words from Mr. Morin. I didn't hear any English associated with it. Perhaps if he says a little more, I can tell.

Health committee  I certainly think we need more information about natural health products. I work in an emergency department. When people come in and they say they're taking various natural health products, I really have no idea of, one, the inherent risks associated with those products, and two,

Health committee  I haven't heard the interpreter at this point, I'm afraid.

Health committee  I'm afraid that I don't.

Health committee  First of all, Mr. Young, thank you very much for the compliment. I would like to return it to you on the basis of your long and hard fight to get this bill before the House of Commons, and unfortunately, it had to result from the tragedy around your daughter. Let me briefly outl

Health committee  There were a number of potential disasters that we might have avoided. One of them has to do with two drugs that are used to treat heart arrhythmias. These got to be widely prescribed by doctors, not for serious heart arrhythmias but for very minor heart arrhythmias. When the tri

Health committee  If you compare us with the United States and the EU, right now we're a distant third in terms of transparency. With the passage of Bill C-17, with the amendments that have been suggested, I think Canada would be leading both the U.S. and the EU. Right now, though, we're not doing

Health committee  The bill is definitely a positive step, but right now the EU is willing to disclose clinical study reports. This bill does not mandate that, so I don't think—

Health committee  Yes, I would. I think as a clinician, somebody who prescribes, patient safety is paramount, and I think that trumps anything else. Manufacturers have legitimate concerns around things like how they make drugs that need to be protected. There are manufacturing secrets. We should

Health committee  First of all, I would say that the clinical study reports would have to be made available. These are comprehensive documents. Sometimes they run into thousands of pages. Not everybody's going to read them, but people who do things like develop guidelines for practitioners, who do

Health committee  I can start with the points about independent evaluation. First of all, there are my suggestions about who does the trials, who analyzes them, and whether or not these are the trials that would be required. The second point about independent analysis is that, even with all of th