Tory MP fights for drug safety, pens book on daughter's death _http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=2009/apri l/13/qa_young/&c=2_ (http://www.thehilltimes.ca/html/index.php?display=story&full_path=2009/april/13/qa_young/&c=2) Terence Young's 15-year-old daughter died after taking a billion-dollar-selling drug to alleviate a stomach disorder, but he made a promise to expose the truth. By Cynthia Münster When Conservative MP Terence Young's 15-year-old daughter Vanessa dropped dead on March 19, 2000 after taking a billion-dollar-selling drug to alleviate a stomach disorder, he made a promise to himself to find out the cause of her death and expose the truth. Nine years later, Mr. Young, a former Ontario Progressive Conservative MPP and a Bell Canada executive, is the new MP for Oakville, Ont. He founded Drug Safety Canada, an advocacy group for increased drug safety, sued the drug manufacturer and settled out of court, and wrote Death by Prescription: A Father Takes On His Daughter's Killer—The Multi-Billion Dollar Pharmaceutical Industry, published by Key Porter Books. Calm, but passionate, Mr. Young talks about the book, his daughter's tragic death, and the need for Canada's healthcare system to be overhauled. He describes the pharmaceutical industry as a "multi-headed creature," and says that "everywhere we look in society for objective information on prescription drugs is information that is coloured by pharmaceutical company money." Mr. Young says he's not a one-issue MP, but does want to continue his fight for increased drug safety and plans to introduce a private member's motion proposing to create an independent drug agency. Mr. Young will launch his book in Ottawa on Oct. 20. This interview was edited for style and length.
What do you hope to accomplish through the book? "There are a number of reasons I wrote the book, the first was, I believe, it will save lives, I believe it will reduce injuries. In fact, people have told me so, people who've followed the work that I do and people who've already read advance copies but also, the book was fulfilling an oath that I made to myself the day after Vanessa died, which was that I would find out exactly how and why she died and expose the truth." How hard was it to take on the big pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare industry? "Well, it was very daunting, what I was able to do and I'm not sure how I did it. I knew I could not afford to be angry in my work, my advocacy or in the book, instead, I don't know, I was blessed I guess, I was able to transform the anger into resolve and I just determined that I would not give up, that I would never give up. For example, the lawsuit that we started, my lawyer Gary Will, he fought four motions over six years, legal motions which were designed to delay and put us off and they were hoping that I would give up or die. So that was going in parallel to my advocacy and in parallel to working on the book." And part of doing the lawsuit, in my understanding from reading the book, was also to expose this issue, right? "Absolutely, that was the key reason." So how do you feel about settling out of court? Does it defeat the purpose? "Oh, that's such a good question. Settling out of court was perhaps the hardest decision in my life. Because I had made this promise to myself, in Vanessa's name, to expose the truth, to discover the truth, and to expose it, I had always felt that a trial where the newspapers got a little bit more evidence every day, over one or two weeks, was the best way to do that, so I had always wanted a trial. But the legal reality in this country is, because of our civil procedure rules, is major corporations have a huge advantage over individuals and, first of all, they have very, very deep pockets; they can afford to pay lawyers $600 an hour for six years, they are very, very wealthy. But also, there is a civil procedure rule in Ontario courts that says if you refuse to settle and you insist on your day in court and then you don't win an award for damages that exceed the amount of that settlement, then you may be ordered to pay the legal fees of the opposite side, of the opposition. "In my case, because it had been six years of legal action, plus the inquest, we estimated the legal cost on the other side to be in excess of a $1-million and so the decision I was making was to insist on our day in court for Vanessa, I was putting at risk losing my home and my livelihood, and so on, on top of losing Vanessa we could have lost our home and paying legal fees for the rest of our lives. "My family had already suffered enough and so I sought the advice of close friends and spiritual advisers because I wanted to make sure it was the right decision and they were unanimous, they said, 'By writing the book you are fulfilling the promise and so in settling you are doing the right thing for Gloria and Madeline and Hart.' " You said you are going to introduce a private member's motion, but as a member of the governing party, why don't you lobby your own government to get a bill introduced and made into law? "Well, I will be doing that is the answer and I've thought about this for years, because I first ran in January 2006 and first of all, I think it's important to say, I'm not a one-issue candidate or MP, I was known [an a MPP] from 1995 to 1999 to be a little bit stubborn and outspoken on matters relating to safe streets and fiscal responsibility and so this is just something that I have to do ... and just hope that some of my colleagues, as many as possible, will find the time to read the book because the pieces all fall in together. The pharmaceutical companies, what we call Big Pharma, are the wealthiest companies in the world, have unlimited money for public relations, expertise, and public relations experts and they do everything the can to muddy the waters on prescription drug safety, to make their drugs appear more beneficial than they are and less risky than they are and they do very, very expensive lobbying, and they lobby and focus on specific issues at any given time, so I realized I couldn't persuade anybody in the government without them knowing how all the pieces fit together. "So this bill, the reason I chose to do a private member's motion instead of a private members bill, is just facing reality, it's just very, very difficult to get a private member's bill passed because the more detail that's in it, the more comprehensive it is, the more reasons some people in Parliament will find to not to support it." What's in the motion? "I don't have the final wording. We're working on that this week. It will be a motion to establish an independent drug agency in Canada, which is modeled after the Transportation Safety Board ." Do you think this is the solution? What else needs to happen to change the current situation? "A number of things and I'm hoping that if an independent drug agency was established it would deal with most of these things. The most important is patient information leaflets ... "Patients [should] get in their hand a patient information leaflet that lists the true risk of the drug and adverse reactions and counter-indications in plain language so that they'll know if they want to take the risk related to that drug. It's close to providing informed consent. "The second would be, doctors should be required to report adverse health reactions, all the healthcare professionals should be required to report adverse drug reactions, that data is absolutely critical to addressing concerns with existing drugs and new drugs and getting risky drugs out of the market. "A third thing I would like to see an independent drug agency do is to set standards of behaviour for the Big Pharma companies with regards to the gifts that they give doctors and fees they pay them for a whole rage of things: activities that create debts of gratitude and conflicts of interest. Another is, I'd like to see an independent drug agency direct continuing medical education. Right now more than 60 per cent of continuing medical education —and these are courses doctors have to take—is funded and controlled by the pharmaceutical companies, so the doctors go to hear and all they hear about is drugs. They don't hear about, for example, if you have pain there is a whole range of therapies that can reduce pain that are drug-free that do not put patients at risk of adverse reactions. "Everything from chiropractor, to massage, to even music, is a therapy that has worked for some people with pain but when doctors go to continuing medical education programs, they are often held at fancy restaurants or ski resorts or luxury weekends away and all they hear about is drugs and all they hear about is how great the drugs are; they do not get balanced safety messages. Continuing medical education should come from an unbiased, objective source." Are medical universities any better? "Pharmaceutical companies, they are like a multi-headed creature. They creatively put their money in every major institution we look to for objective direction on science and medicine. Every major university takes money from the pharmaceutical companies for research or for their building funds or whatever, this has led to some of our best, most ethical and brilliant doctors being pushed out or even fired from our major universities. "Another thing that an independent drug agency should do is to establish rules in direct-to-consumer advertising and actually enforce them. They advertise on television and they have tremendous influence in the media. They have tremendous influence on the internet. They create and finance their own patient groups, which we call Astro Turf because they are not real grassroots. They're actually created by PR companies; in some cases the addresses of the groups are actually at the PR company. Patients join them thinking that they're really advocating for the patients when in fact their primary purpose is to make sure that the blockbuster drugs get marketed. So, everywhere we look in society for objective information on prescription drugs is information that is coloured by pharmaceutical company money." What's your attitude now to any kind of drugs, do you take anything? "I would only take a drug that I absolutely needed, when I was absolutely sure the benefit would outweigh the risk. I totally avoid new drugs, once in a while I might take an Aspirin or a Tylenol on a rare occasion." Have you spoken at all with Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq? "I have a meeting lined up with the Health minister prior to introducing the motion." [EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20090415/7088e619/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
