Bringing about a higher level of transparency and accountability in provincial and federal governments to help protect taxpayers from abuse
This is depressing news.
Taking antidepressant medication increases the risk of death by 33 percent, according to a new study published Thursday.
Researchers at McMaster University in Canada found that the meds can prevent major organs from functioning properly by blocking the absorption of serotonin – a vital chemical that is used by the heart, kidneys, lungs and liver from the body’s bloodstream.
Read more at New York Post
The number of Canadians hospitalized because of opioid poisoning is growing dramatically, according to new numbers published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information.
But even with new data, tracking the breadth of the crisis in Canada continues to run up against problems.
Between April 1, 2016 and March 31, 2017, an average of 16 Canadians were hospitalized each day because of opioids, a jump from an average of 13 people every day two years ago.
And more than half of all cases were considered accidental, says CIHI.
Read more at CBC News
Some cancer doctors use Twitter to promote drugs manufactured by companies that pay them, but they almost never disclose their conflicts of interest on the social media platform, a new study shows.
“This is a big problem,” said senior author Dr. Vinay Prasad, a professor at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. “Doctors are directly telling patients about their views on drugs, and financial conflict plays a role. But they’re not telling patients they have a conflict.”
Prasad and his colleagues analyzed the tweets and income of blood cancer specialists who posted regularly on Twitter and received at least $1,000 US from drug manufacturers in 2014.
Read more at CBC News
As students across Canada head back to school, universities are stocking up on naloxone kits in the wake of the opioid crisis.
Opioid-related deaths claimed the lives of nearly 2,500 people in Canada in 2016, and hundreds more this year. The crisis is growing so rapidly that Health Canada recently put out a warning about the drug for students during orientation week.
Read more at Global News
Faced today with the staggering impact of the opioid addictions crisis, Ontario’s Liberal government is urging the federal government to take legal action against a company that allegedly played a role in triggering the epidemic.
But a decade ago, knowledge of lawsuits, criminal charges against executives and the increasing abuse of OxyContin wasn’t enough to dissuade the province from awarding that same company a $4.9-million taxpayer-funded grant.
According to documents obtained by the Toronto Sun in a lengthy battle at Ontario’s Information and Privacy Commission, the Liberal government doled out the money in 2007 to the manufacturer of OxyContin — Purdue Pharma. The documents reveal it did so even though it was well aware of legal issues piling up against the company because of the addictive pills which some experts say are at the root of the country’s wave of opioid addiction.
Read more at Canoe News
TORONTO — More than 700 doctors, nurses, harm reduction workers and academics are calling on Ontario to declare opioid overdoses and deaths an emergency, as British Columbia did last year.
The front-line workers delivered an open letter Monday to Premier Kathleen Wynne, saying limited resources and poor data are preventing them from responding properly to a disturbing and sustained increase in overdoses.
“The consequences have been clear: lives lost, families destroyed and harm reduction and healthcare worker burnout,” they write.
Read more at CTV News
Thousands of people with Down syndrome, autism and other developmental disabilities are being prescribed anti-psychotic medication by Ontario doctors despite a lack of evidence that the drugs actually help them, a new study has found.
Researchers with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences have called for “guidelines and training around antipsychotic prescribing and monitoring” for doctors, pharmacists and care home staff after finding that nearly 40 per cent of people with developmental disabilities were prescribed antipsychotic drugs at some point over a six-year period.
Read more at The Toronto Star
In a display of its tougher stance on misconduct involving patient-doctor relationships, the discipline committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario has revoked the licence of a psychiatrist who entered into a romantic relationship with a patient he intends to marry.
Whereas similar conduct in previous cases was typically met with suspensions, the decision to strip Toronto doctor Nagi Ghabbour’s licence is likely a response to criticism that the committee was being too lenient in the past, critics say.
Read more at The Toronto Star
A Surrey chiropractor has been ordered to pay almost $20,000 after he was found guilty of defrauding ICBC.
Dr. Maninder Singh Badyal, the owner of Absolute Health and Wellness Clinic in Surrey, was convicted in June of committing fraud over $5,000 and billing ICBC for treatments that were never performed.
The investigation dates back to October, 2014, when an ICBC adjuster noticed some irregularities in documentation involving one patient.
Read more at Global News
The Ontario Medical Association, which represents 29,000 doctors, may be the most dysfunctional professional group in the entire province, if not all of Canada.
Since January, the powerful OMA has been torn apart by vicious infighting that saw the sudden resignation of its entire executive team, a nasty campaign of cyberbullying pitting doctors against doctors, the election of a slate of dissident doctors to lead the association, and the resignation of nine hardline members of its governing council who claimed the OMA still muzzles dissenting voices.
Read more at Metro News