Health Law

Recent media reports rightly point to Canada’s abysmal record when it comes to transparency of pharmaceutical data; this notwithstanding numerous calls and recommendations for urgent action, including in a 2012 Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology Report. A recent announcement by Health Canada that it was publishing a ‘summary report’ of data about the controversial acne pill Diane-35 (6 months after it announced it would do so) does little to reassure that we are really catching up with other countries.

In a previous post of October 25, I reported about the Markingson case and a letter we wrote with 6 health law, bioethics and medical scholars to the University of Minnesota Senate, which was co-signed by 175 colleagues from various North-American and international institutions. We requested that the university set up an Independent Committee of Inquiry into the death of Dan Markingson, a psychiatric patient who committed suicide while enrolled in a clinical trial at the University’s Fairview Hospital.  The case raises, as discussed in the previous post, serious concerns about the protection of very vulnerable patients in psychiatric industry-sponsored clinical trials.

Several things happened since this October 25 posting. There are positive developments, including a Senate vote in favour of an Independent Inquiry, but also concerns about what will happen next, which has motivated us to write last week a follow-up letter to the Senate.  

The Senate's Vote for an Independent Inquiry