Over the past two days, a major health care summit has taken place in Ottawa at the Chateau Laurier Hotel. The summit, titled "A New Health Accord for All Canadians," is a partnership between the Canada 2020 think tank and the Canadian Medical Association (CMA).
This summit featured a variety of stakeholders and speakers including Senator Chantal Peticlerc, Dr. Granger Avery, the president of the CMA, Dr. Gaétan Barrette, the Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services, and Dr. Jane Philpott, Canada's minister of health.
This summit comes at a pivotal point in the history of medicare with a new health accord being negotiated in coming months and an urgent need for national pharmacare (among many pressing topics).
When we say Big Pharma, this is generally who we mean. For a summit that calls itself independent, this seems like a conflict of interest. This isn't to say that there were not independent speakers or important topics that were covered over the two days, but it points to a worrying trend of American corporate interests further creeping into our medicare (not to mention the negative relationship between pharmaceutical promotion and quality, quantity and cost of physicians' prescriptions).
When one of the founders of Canada 2020 was questioned about this on Twitter, his response to a fair question was pejorative (in fairness he did later apologize somewhat stating he was, "tired, cranky and surprised that we're being pre-judged by progressives!")
For those keeping track of the record for the U.S. parent companies involved, Merck is well known for its deadly Vioxx scandal where it was made false or misleading safety and has paid out over $6 billion in settlements. Johnson & Johnson has had to pay $70 million to settle claims it bribed doctors in Greece, Poland and Romania to prescribe its medicines and, along with its subsidiaries, recently paid more than $2.2 billion (one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements in U.S. history) involving the drug Risperdal. Amgen was fined $762 million for illegally promoting the drug Aranesp to cancer patients in a way that increased the likelihood of their deaths.
Essentially, conferences like this are inviting the fox into the medicare henhouse.
But perhaps more worrying is the inclusion of PhRMA. In the U.S. they have already spent a near-record $11.7 million in lobbying this year and have spent nearly $150 million on lobbying since 2008 outspending powerful interests like defense contractors and the oil and gas industry. A recent Gallup poll of public opinion found drug makers are less popular than lawyers and oil companies, and just barely less hated than the federal government in the U.S. (which is saying something).
PhRMA, which took in more than $200 million in member dues in 2014, is expected to launch a major PR campaign after the U.S. election. Trying to shed the negative image incurred from industry price-gouging scandals like those involving Turing and Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the recent Purdue Pharma OxyContin nightmare, or the Mylan EpiPen fiasco, PhRMA is planning large ad campaign (that is, an image makeover) in the U.S. using a five-year-old boy and a woman with blood cancer to distance themselves from scandals.
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Why is the U.S. Big Pharma lobby sponsoring a conference on the future of health care in Canada? | rabble.ca
This summit featured a variety of stakeholders and speakers including Senator Chantal Peticlerc, Dr. Granger Avery, the president of the CMA, Dr. Gaétan Barrette, the Quebec Minister of Health and Social Services, and Dr. Jane Philpott, Canada's minister of health.
This summit comes at a pivotal point in the history of medicare with a new health accord being negotiated in coming months and an urgent need for national pharmacare (among many pressing topics).
When we say Big Pharma, this is generally who we mean. For a summit that calls itself independent, this seems like a conflict of interest. This isn't to say that there were not independent speakers or important topics that were covered over the two days, but it points to a worrying trend of American corporate interests further creeping into our medicare (not to mention the negative relationship between pharmaceutical promotion and quality, quantity and cost of physicians' prescriptions).
When one of the founders of Canada 2020 was questioned about this on Twitter, his response to a fair question was pejorative (in fairness he did later apologize somewhat stating he was, "tired, cranky and surprised that we're being pre-judged by progressives!")
For those keeping track of the record for the U.S. parent companies involved, Merck is well known for its deadly Vioxx scandal where it was made false or misleading safety and has paid out over $6 billion in settlements. Johnson & Johnson has had to pay $70 million to settle claims it bribed doctors in Greece, Poland and Romania to prescribe its medicines and, along with its subsidiaries, recently paid more than $2.2 billion (one of the largest healthcare fraud settlements in U.S. history) involving the drug Risperdal. Amgen was fined $762 million for illegally promoting the drug Aranesp to cancer patients in a way that increased the likelihood of their deaths.
Essentially, conferences like this are inviting the fox into the medicare henhouse.
But perhaps more worrying is the inclusion of PhRMA. In the U.S. they have already spent a near-record $11.7 million in lobbying this year and have spent nearly $150 million on lobbying since 2008 outspending powerful interests like defense contractors and the oil and gas industry. A recent Gallup poll of public opinion found drug makers are less popular than lawyers and oil companies, and just barely less hated than the federal government in the U.S. (which is saying something).
PhRMA, which took in more than $200 million in member dues in 2014, is expected to launch a major PR campaign after the U.S. election. Trying to shed the negative image incurred from industry price-gouging scandals like those involving Turing and Valeant Pharmaceuticals, the recent Purdue Pharma OxyContin nightmare, or the Mylan EpiPen fiasco, PhRMA is planning large ad campaign (that is, an image makeover) in the U.S. using a five-year-old boy and a woman with blood cancer to distance themselves from scandals.
more
Why is the U.S. Big Pharma lobby sponsoring a conference on the future of health care in Canada? | rabble.ca
