How much interaction should medical students have with industry?
A drug company sales representative stands in front of a class of University of Toronto medical students and delivers her well-rehearsed sales pitch about the benefits of her company’s birth control...
View ArticleCanada’s prescription opioid crisis
There is a prescription opioid crisis in Canada. While these drugs are effective in treating acute pain, and pain near the end of life, the evidence to support long-term use in patients with chronic...
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Canadian provinces take first steps towards lower drug prices
Prescription drugs provide important benefits to patients, and are an essential component of the health care system. They also have significant costs: Canadians spent roughly $35 billion on drugs in...
View ArticleLack of safety standards for home cancer treatment puts patients at risk
Ten years ago, almost all chemotherapy drugs were delivered intravenously at a hospital. Today, many cancer treatments are taken orally by patients, in their homes. The trend means patients enjoy the...
View ArticlePregnant women warned to avoid some pain-relief drugs
The post Pregnant women warned to avoid some pain-relief drugs appeared first on Healthy Debate.
View ArticleIt’s time for Canada to leverage “big data” for stronger drug safety
“In God we trust; all others [must] bring data.” – W. Edwards Deming Baycol, Vioxx. Avandia. These medications became household names not for their widespread prescription worth billions of dollars in...
View ArticleIt’s time to reconsider private drug plans for public employees
Most people are probably aware of Fair PharmaCare, British Columbia’s universal public plan that covers everyone for catastrophic drug costs (other provinces have similar programs, such as Trillium in...
View ArticleWhy Ontario should pioneer the expansion of prescription drug coverage
At a national health policy conference recently, Ontario’s Health Minister Deb Matthews made a few notable comments. Among them was a request that policy experts applaud government officials when they...
View ArticleAre concerns over conflict of interest stifling innovation?
“We made a practical and open work environment for engineers and shop workers, forcing the guys behind the drawing boards onto the shop floor to see how their ideas were being translated into actual...
View ArticleFinancial aid for costly cancer drugs
The post Financial aid for costly cancer drugs appeared first on Healthy Debate.
View ArticleWho pays for “free” medication samples?
A student recently started one of my patients on the oral contraceptive pill YAZ. When I asked why that particular birth control pill was chosen instead of all the alternatives, I was shocked by the...
View ArticleWeighing the evidence – should Ontario fund Avastin for brain cancer?
Like many Ontarians, I have been moved by the request of Kimm Fletcher to have the Ontario government pay for the drug Avastin to treat her recurrent brain cancer. Ms. Fletcher is 41 years old and the...
View ArticleVanessa’s Law a laudable first step towards improving patient safety
On December 6th, Health Canada announced the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act giving powers to the Minister of Health to force companies to recall or stop the sale of any therapeutic drug...
View ArticleDemystifying private drug plans
There are many pre-conceived notions about private drug coverage in Canada that are really myths. There are also significant differences between public and private drug plan coverage that result in...
View ArticleGeneric drugs: Canada needs more competition
Pharmaceutical innovations are the ultimate public good. They are ideas that make it possible for society to address otherwise unmet health care needs. As ideas, however, they are also hard to find and...
View ArticleIs Canada paying too much for generic biological drugs?
In an earlier article, we discussed the importance of post-patent competition in generating social value from the pharmaceutical market. Generic competition gives people access to less expensive drugs...
View ArticleTrump loosening FDA regulations could hurt Canadians
The post Trump loosening FDA regulations could hurt Canadians appeared first on Healthy Debate.
View ArticleVague recall process poses potential harm
The post Vague recall process poses potential harm appeared first on Healthy Debate.
View ArticleShould biosimilar drugs be artificially promoted in Canada?
The post Should biosimilar drugs be artificially promoted in Canada? appeared first on Healthy Debate.
View ArticlePharmacare: A prescription for addressing racism we can actually fill
The post Pharmacare: A prescription for addressing racism we can actually fill appeared first on Healthy Debate.
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