Dear Hugh Sturgess,
I no doubt echo the wishes of e-drug's moderator in thinking it would be
useful first to have some additional information on your study:
1) who is commissioning and funding it.
2) where you have learned that DTCA will be introduced in Canada within the
next year.
I am probably not the only Canadian on this discussion list to be rather
surprised and alarmed at your assertion that DTCA prescription drug
advertising will be introduced in Canada within the next year.
There has been an almost total lack of public consultation or press
coverage on anything of the sort. The only semi-public consultation within
the last year on pharmaceutical policy issues initiated by the federal
government was the conference on Pharmacare held in Saskatoon last January,
to follow up the National Forum on Health's recommendation for a full,
first dollar, publicly funded and administered system of drug reimbursement
in Canada.
This conference included participants from: provincial ministries of
health, pharmacists and physicians' organizations, patient groups, health
service providers, aboriginal organizations, consumer groups, women's
groups, unions, insurance providers, brand-name, generic and OTC
industries, anti-poverty groups and other community health organizations.
It was held to follow-up recommended changes to health service provision in
Canada made by the National Forum on Health, a national expert committee
which reviewed the current system of health service provision and held
public consultations throughout the country.
At the Saskatoon conference there was overwhelming opposition from the
floor to the idea of DTCA prescription drug advertising, including very
vocal opposition from representatives of provincial health ministries who
manage health services and existing drug reimbursement plans in Canada. The
recommendation against introducing direct-to-consumer advertising was also
repeated in the summary statement by federal government representatives. No
official report has yet been published with the conference's
recommendations (or at least any report that I or other participants have
seen) but presumably in the meanwhile these recommendations have not been
twisted around to state exactly the opposite of what the participants so
strongly recommended -- on health, consumer rights and economic grounds.
I and no doubt others on this discussion list would very much appreciate
clarification on who you are working for and where you have obtained this
information.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Barbara Mintzes
PS: Members of e-drug might be interested to know that unlike the European
Union and Australia and even unlike the US with a mandated voluntary system
for patient leaflet provision, Canada has no legally required patient
information leaflets accompanying prescription drugs. So, if Mr Sturgess is
correct, our national government will soon be "empowering" us with
advertising, having forgotten to meet the simplest of the public's drug
information needs -- approved product labelling. Most drugs are dispensed
in a bottle with a sticky label stating the patient's name, drug name,
dose, and a simple message such as "take two at bedtime".
[E-drug messages should indeed not be used for commercial purposes; but
the DTCA issue seemed interesting enough to start a discussion. WB E-drug
moderator]
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