Terence Endorses Vanessa’s Law in the House of Commons On March 28, 2014
More about Terence Young, Member of the Canadian Parliament for Oakville, Ontario, Canada
Excerpts from his speech:
What They Never Talk About
The drug industry representatives who infest parliament hill love to talk about when doctors make errors, or patients take the wrong drug, or too much of a drug.
What they never talk about is when a drug used the right way injures or kills a patient, causing 10,000 deaths a year in Canada.
In fact one in nine patients in Canada suffer serious drug reaction in hospitals.
1. All drugs are poisons. Any drug can be toxic. It’s just a matter of dose. And all drugs cause adverse effects. Some people think OTC drugs are totally safe. Yet ordinary Acetaminophen (Tylenol) causes hundreds of deaths every year, and more cases of acute liver failure than all other medications combined. Too much taken with alcohol, and it can destroy one’s liver.
Yet has your doctor ever mentioned that?
2. Twenty seven drugs have been pulled off the Canadian market since 1997 for injuring and killing patients. Propulsid is one. Another, painkiller Vioxx, killed 55,000 to 65,000 patients worldwide in four years on the market. Why don’t most Canadians know that? Because the drug companies never admit their drug harmed anyone; they spends months and months investigating serious reactions. Then they attempt to blame the patient, concluding – “He must have taken too much;” “She must have had a previous undiagnosed and unknown condition;” “It must have been the combination of our great drug with the other drug he was taking. We hereby contraindicate our great drug with their drug.”
3. Drug companies refuse to provide the true number of serious adverse drug reactions to health Canada. They report what they hear about, but what does NOT appear on the label is this crucial fact: only 1% of serious adverse drug reactions are actually reported by doctors. Most doctors have never reported an ADR! In fact, outside of the doctors I’ve met who specialize in drug safety, I’ve never met a doctor who reported an ADR. And despite my advocacy in this matter for 14 years – that reporting adverse drug reactions saves lives by providing a widely based early warning system for dangerous drugs – the Canadian Medical Association and Ontario Medical Association to this day do not support making adverse drug reaction reporting a standard practice or mandatory.
4. Over half of the serious side effects of new drugs won’t be revealed during testing. In fact, in the first two years on the US market, one in five –20%– of new drugs will be pulled off the market for injuring or killing patients, or be assigned the highest level of warning – a Black Box warning to be handed to each patient with their prescription – a more effective warning Canada has never had.
5. In 2003 Dr. Allan Roses, World-Wide Vice President of genetics at GSK – the world’s second largest Big Pharma company – made this statement at a scientific meeting, not knowing a journalist was present: “The vast majority of drugs, more than 90%, only work in 30 or 50% of people.” What this means is, with a worldwide market of $800 billion for prescription drugs, as much as $400 billion a year is not only wasted on drugs, but millions of patients are exposed to the dangers with no chance of benefitting.
“In the drug industry, killing people is not bad for business. As long as it’s not too many.” Nothing has changed since that time.
Big Pharma companies put the legal costs from injuries and deaths right in their business plans.
Here are some more examples of Big Pharma corporate crimes:
- Merck has paid $1.6 billion in settlements since 2008 in part for paying illegal kickbacks to health care providers;
- Ely Lilly paid $ 1.3 billion in 2009 for illegally promoting Zyprexa, leading to the deaths of many seniors;
- Novartis paid $422 million in 2010 for off-label promotion of Trileptal;
- Forest Labs paid $313 million in 2010 for off-label promotion of Celexa and Levothyroid;
- Allergan paid $825 million in 2010 for off-label promotion of Botox;
- AstraZeneca paid $520 million in 2010 for misleading doctors and patients about the safety of Seroquel;
- Johnson and Johnson paid $81 million in 2010 for off-label promotion of Topomax;
- Elan paid $203.5 million in 2010 for illegally marketing Zomegran;
- Sanofi-Aventis paid $ 96.5 million in 2009 for illegal pricing of a nasal spray;
- Abbott paid $22.5 million in 2010 for blocking 23 states from getting a cheaper alternative for Tricor;
And these offences are just some of those that occurred since 2008.
How do they get away with all this?
Power. And influence. They are some of the wealthiest companies in the world, with no loyalty to any country.
Read his entire speech at the link below.
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