editor, Author at Monitor Telegram

Canada is long overdue for a national registry of drug company payments to doctors

October 17, 2017

Ontario recently took a historic step as the first province in Canada to introduce legislation that would shine a light on interactions between drug companies and prescribers. The use of the term “historic” here is not hyperbole, since the extent of payments by the pharmaceutical industry to individual physicians in Canada has never been known.

Other countries, such as the United States and France, have been making such information public for a few years now. But Ontario’s bill would provide a wider scope of transparency by including payments to prescribers of all sorts — not just doctors — into the mix, and even including payments from medical device companies.

Stop Big Pharma from ‘getting away with murder’

October 16, 2017

Few things are more infuriating to consumers than the constant, surging increases in drug prices. Americans under 65 are projected to pay an additional 11.6% this year, while seniors are expected to see increases of 9.9%. These increases follow similar ones in recent years.

Price hikes like these, which run well above inflation and wage growth year after year, are a keen indication of how the drug industry lacks market fundamentals. Or, as President Trump put it Monday, prescription drug prices “are out of control” and the big pharmaceutical companies “are getting away with murder.”

Government promises tighter rules after company accused of diverting $2.6M meant for First Nation

October 16, 2017

The federal government is promising to tighten qualifications and improve monitoring of companies managing the finances of struggling First Nations following allegations an Ontario company misappropriated millions of dollars in health-care funds.

Crupi Consulting is alleged to have diverted a total of $2.6 million in government transfers intended for the Kashechewan First Nation, an isolated reserve in Ontario’s far north. The company’s former treasurer, Joe Crupi, is facing eight fraud-related criminal charges concerning his handling of $1.2 million earmarked for an elementary school breakfast program, including an allegation he spent $700,000 for his own personal use.

University Health Network investigating errors in patients’ records

October 12, 2017

A clinical team will investigate whether the care of any patient at Ontario’s largest hospital network was impacted by errors reported in its electronic medical records, says a spokeswoman.

Gillian Howard said that while the University Health Network is conducting a review of five million electronic health records gathered over the past five years, a clinical team will also review the files of patients directly impacted by the privacy breach to ensure their care was not compromised.

Here’s how the VA helped Big Pharma get veterans hooked on opioids — then made the problem worse

October 12, 2017

he Veterans Administration overprescribed opiates and psychiatric medication for more than a decade, and then swung back dangerously in the other direction about five years ago.

Oxycontin manufacturer Purdue Pharma played a key role in spreading opiate use among veterans by giving $200,000 to essentially turn the VA into its propaganda arm, according to an investigative report by Newsweek.

Secret corporate documents obtained by the magazine show how the pharmaceutical company helped develop VA-Department of Defense guidelines that claimed opiates rarely cause addiction, and promoted the phony campaign, “Pain: The 5th Vital Sign.”

CCTV ‘highly privacy invasive’ and lacks security after Cape Breton school streamed to Russian site: Report

October 12, 2017

HALIFAX — Inadequate passwords and insufficient technical controls led to video surveillance images of Cape Breton schoolchildren being live streamed on the internet, Nova Scotia’s information and privacy commissioner says.

Catherine Tully’s report says the video system at the Rankin School of the Narrows in Iona, N.S., was breached when a link to the live feed from one school camera was picked up and distributed by a Russian website that specializes in linking non-secured video surveillance cameras.

Tully says an unsecured technical vulnerability enabled viewers to access the school’s other two cameras as well.

Now dentists are being blamed for the antibiotic crisis, says new study

October 9, 2017

DENTISTS prescribing unnecessary antibiotics could be spreading an antibiotic-resistant superbug infection, researchers have claimed.

Taking antibiotics can put patients at risk for developing C. diff and illustrates the importance of using the medications only when needed. The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) tracked community-associated C. diff infections — meaning those in patients who did not have an overnight stay in a hospital or nursing home — in five counties in the state. During the six-year period, researchers determined 15 percent of those with the infection who had taken antibiotics had them prescribed for dental procedures.

“Opioid Avenger”: Mike Moore Takes Aim at Big Pharma

October 9, 2017

Former Mississippi Attorney General Mike Moore, who famously led a campaign to punish tobacco companies for lying about the dangers of smoking, has set his sights on the pharmaceutical industry, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Moore, a University of Mississippi alumnus who served as the state’s attorney general from 1998 to 2004, was the first state AG to file a lawsuit against Big Tobacco and won the largest corporate settlement in history—$246 billion for 50 states, with the money earmarked to fund smoking cessation and prevention programs.

The Lies About ADHD Medication That Big Pharma Funds

October 5, 2017

Drug companies give financial support, sometimes without public knowledge, to individuals and groups that are key players in the research, diagnosis, and treatment of ADHD. The parent advocacy group Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), for example, which was instrumental in helping get ADD (as it was then called) designated as a handicapping condition under federal disability laws in the 1990s, was secretly taking money from pharmaceutical companies for years before disclosing its financial connections after a 1995 PBS broadcast revealed its underhanded dealings with drug companies.[i] It now regularly reports the amount it receives each year from Big Pharma.

Tax reforms will put the brakes on economic growth

October 5, 2017

Instead of clamping down on the entrepreneurs who drive Canada’s economy, the federal government needs to back off on all taxation.

The federal government is determined to eliminate the perceived income tax benefit provided to people who incorporate. The argument is that those who incorporate get an unfair benefit at the expense of Canadians who file tax returns as individuals, usually as employees.

The Finance Department proposes to eliminate exclusions and oddities so that incorporated professionals, farmers and entrepreneurs pay more tax and at rates comparable to employed individuals.