More about Terence Young MP

Young’s fifteen-year old daughter Vanessa died in 2000 after taking the Johnson & Johnson prescription drug Cisapride (Prepulsid). Young became a consumer advocate after this incident, and has been fighting for a more stringent and protective drug-monitoring system in Canada. He founded Drug Safety Canada to advocate for safe prescription drugs, and also initiated a hundred million dollar class action lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and Health Canada in 2000, and an individual lawsuit, later settled after a six-year court battle. This story is told in detail in Young’s book Death by Prescription, available on line. In June 2013 at a pharmacy in Etobicoke Ontario. Canada’s Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq and Young announced that the government of Canada would introduce plain language labelling for prescription and over-the-counter drugs similar to the risk communications provided to patients and doctors in the US and UK to help reduce adversee drug reactions, the fourth leading cause of death in Canada. This was a culmination of thirteen years advocacy by Young to provide Canadian patients with the same type of warnings that US patients received for years.