Health Canada Is a Mess Right Now

Screencap via Health Canada.

Last week, I wrote a story about why the Canadian government wants to allow small amounts of GMOs that haven’t been approved by Health Canada into our food-supply chain. And in November, VICE reported that Health Canada can't take defective drugs off the market fast enough because pharmaceutical companies have more power than they should.

Since then, I've found out about five other issues, ranging from what could be the world's biggest botched pot deal to accusations from a former employee that the department doesn't do enough scientific testing on new products.

While the department does lots of things (like this and this) to protect Canadians, I think it's worth asking the following question on a regular basis: WTF is Health Canada doing, exactly? After all, this is the department in charge of making sure we don’t put things in our bodies that could hurt or kill us.

So, for those of you who don't have time to keep track, I put together a list of controversial stories involving Health Canada (HC) over the last couple of months:

Questionable research practices

Dr. Shiv Chopra, a former HC scientist of 35 years, is publicly calling on HC to improve its health standards and scientific processes. He lost his job in 2004 after claiming that he was pressured by the federal government to approve drugs that did not have enough data or research behind them.

He told me that when bovine growth hormone came across his desk for the first time in 1988, a recommendation was attached to the application saying that it should be approved immediately because a similar product had already been approved in the United States for Monsanto. Dr. Chopra says he refused to approve the application without adequate research from the company behind the Canadian version of the hormone. Dr. Chopra said during his 35 years at HC, he was “pressured to pass other hormones, products, all kinds of things” without adequate tests.

Dr. Chopra is still fighting his dismissal from HC 10 years ago. HC told me over e-mail that it "would not be appropriate" to comment on Dr. Chopra's dismissal because his case is still pending with the Public Service Labour Relations Board.

Making it harder to access scientific materials

Last year, the Canadian government moved HC's in-house library to the National Science Library on the Ottawa campus of the National Research Council. It also outsourced its materials to a company called Infotrieve. Now, instead of going to the in-house library, HC told me employees can go to “dedicated library workstations” to search the library catalogue and get help from librarians.

A draft report obtained by CBC says staff requests for documents have “dropped 90 per cent” since the library was outsourced. HC says the prevalence of online tools are reducing to need for physical reference libraries. But the report says the sharp decrease in the number of librarians--from 40 in 2007 to six in April 2013—is making it difficult for scientists to find the materials they need. It also says the decrease in requests “is because the information has become inaccessible” either because “it cannot arrive in due time, or it is unaffordable due to the fee structure,” which is CAD $25.65, plus the cost of a courier for print material, and anywhere from $13 to $17 for a scanned document.

All of this has prompted a guy named “Fred” to hide scientific documents in his basement. Researchers in Fred's group can now send him an e-mail and he will bring the requested documents to work with him the next day.

No prescription-tracking technology

Even if HC knows how an approved drug will affect the general population, it doesn’t have an electronic reporting system in place to track the effects of “off-label" drugs, meaning drugs that are prescribed for purposes other than what they are approved for.

A report by McGill University says 11 percent of doctors write off-label prescriptions and 79 percent of those prescriptions lack strong scientific evidence. But, only doctors practising in Quebec are required to report when they prescribe a drug off-label, so that number could be much higher.

A report released by the Senate Science Committee last month says the Minister of Health should encourage the provinces and territories to electronically record prescriptions in order to better track how doctors are using off-label drugs and how they are affecting patients. The report points to the use of antipsychotics for treating children and youth and the elderly in long-term care facilities as an issue that needs “focused monitoring.”

HC didn't respond to my questions about this issue.

Sub-par abortion options

HC is only now considering a drug that has been available since the 1980s and the Canadian Medical Association Journal calls the “gold standard” for non-surgical abortion within the first nine weeks of pregnancy. The drug, called mifepristone or Mifeprex or RU-486, is currently approved by HC to treat certain types of cancer, Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and leukaemia, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis.

The pill can be taken at home and induces abortion within a couple of days, similar to a natural miscarriage. This option is already available to women in 57 countries and is listed on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines that are “intended to be available in functioning health systems at all times in adequate amounts…”

The Globe and Mail said HC hadn't considered making the pill available to Canadians simply because the manufacturer hadn’t submitted an application. But, Libby Davies, the NDP’s health critic told the Toronto Star that “the government could have been more aggressive in bringing mifepristone to the market.”

HC said it couldn't speculate on when this drug might be available because the drug-review process depends on how long it takes scientists to assess the information provided by the manufacturer. HC didn't respond to my question about why it has taken so long to review this drug in Canada.

Leaving medical pot smokers dry

CBC reported last month that HC might not be able to provide enough medical marijuana to 38,000 patients once the new federal system—known as the Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations—comes into effect in April because the department hasn’t approved enough suppliers yet.

CBC said at the end of January that out of 400 applications, five companies had been licensed to grow and sell, and three had been licensed to grow, but not sell. Today, only seven companies are listed on HC's list of authorized licensed producers. HC told me that it is “monitoring market projections closely,” and Health minister Rona Ambrose told CBC that she expects there will be a “sufficient supply” of pot come April.

@iamrenders