A private market should have no place in the rollout of a COVID vaccine.
- Associate professor, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto
- Professor Emeritus of Health Policy and Management, York University, Canada
- University of Sydney
Patients have a stake in the relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical companies, so the CMA’s current review of its guidelines for doctor/pharma interactions is everybody’s business.
With lives depending on a vaccine, trust in Canada’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force is crucial. Members of the task force need to make any industry links or potential conflicts of interest publicly clear.
Health Canada devotes far more resources to getting new drugs onto the market compared to making sure that drugs already being sold are safe.
Word that the U.S. has bought up the entire supply of the COVID-19 drug remdesivir is another reminder that in a pandemic, treatments and vaccines need to be accessible to everyone, globally.
A research project may offer insight into how factors like laundry, food and art may be good places to start in addressing problems in long-term care homes.
Toilet paper shortages were bad enough. A shortage of drugs during the COVID-19 pandemic would be worse. A provision in the Canadian government’s relief package aims to prevent that from happening.
Aggressive marketing of prescription opioids by pharmaceutical companies provided doctors with scant information about potential harmful effects.
Hospital overcrowding in Ontario is at an all-time high. And the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario just passed a policy that will make it worse.
The election results could mean a national pharmacare program will happen, albeit slowly. Canadians can also expect more safe injection sites and money invested in the opioid crisis.
Des centaines de milliers de Canadiens se privent de nourriture, de chauffage et d'autres dépenses en santé afin de pouvoir se payer les médicaments dont ils ont besoin.
The 1964 report that paved the way for Canada’s medicare envisaged that after universal coverage for doctors, the next step would be prescription drugs. But that next step hasn’t come.
Drug companies have a job to do and so does Health Canada. When the relationship becomes murky, the public are at risk.
Health Canada must be unbiased and it must be seen to be unbiased – so that Canadians get the best possible value out of prescription drugs.
A new agency and money for drugs for rare diseases are only very partial steps on the road towards what Canada really needs: a national pharmacare plan.
A new study reveals how many patient groups lobby for new drugs to be funded by public plans in Canada – all while receiving funding from the companies manufacturing the drugs in question.
It takes about three years for safety problems to be identified in new drugs, newer drugs are almost always more expensive, and yet Canadian doctors still hand out hundreds of thousands of samples.
Evidence shows that opioid manufacturers fund patient advocacy groups in Canada, distorting policies to protect public health.
A new book, ‘The Thalidomide Catastrophe,’ raises new questions about the conduct of corporations involved. It is the duty of governments to find out the answers.
The ongoing NAFTA renegotiations could put a Canadian national pharmacare program in jeopardy, and have a particular impact on Canadians who need expensive arthritis drugs. Here’s how.
It’s time Health Canada took back the regulation of drug advertising – to protect consumers.
Big Pharma in Canada is far behind the curve when it comes to disclosing what payments to health-care professionals are for.
In the run up to the Global Hepatitis Summit 2018, new guidelines for the management of hepatitis C should come under scrutiny – for financial conflict of interest and quality of evidence.
The logic behind U.S. president Donald Trump’s proposal that Canada and other countries have been “free-riding” off high prices in the United States is bizarre at best.
Prescription drugs are policed by industry and Health Canada has never prosecuted a drug company for illegally marketing a drug.
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