Pharmacists, doctors, recovery specialists and politicians met at the Orchard Recovery Centre on Bowen Island last week to discuss prescription drugs, and how to make them safer. The aim of the meeting was to raise awareness about the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act, otherwise known as Vanessa’s Law, among local doctors and pharmacistss. The law received third reading in the House of Commons on June 16th and will be passed on to the Senate for review in the fall.
Vanessa’s Law is named for Vanessa Young, the daughter of Terence Young, the Member of Parliament for Oakville, Ontario. Thirteen years ago, when she was 15 years old, Vanessa died of a heart attack after taking a prescription drug that was later deemed unsafe. The law, if passed, will make reporting of adverse drug reactions mandatory; increase penalties for unsafe products; compel drug companies to do more testing on products especially when they are being used by at-risk populations (children, for example); and make labeling on prescription drugs more clear, especially when it comes to health warnings.
Lorinda Strang, the Executive Director of The Orchard, says she is happy to see that Vanessa’s Law will likely be passed.
“If people have more information, they can make better decisions for their health,” says Strang. “While this law may not appear to have a direct link to addiction, people need to understand that all drugs can be poison and they can also be abused.”
Strang says that when she, and Dr. Maire Durnan (also from the Orchard) testified at House of Common’s Standing Committee on Health’s drugs caucus, they spoke about the lives shattered by the prescription drug Oxycontin.
“I’ve spoken to many patients here at the Orchard who were prescribed this drug on legitimate grounds, and became addicted. The people who become addicted are not the ones you’d expect. I’ve met young people who had everything going for them, star athletes, not people who’ve had some trauma or horrible childhood that leads them to drug abuse,” says Strang. “I’ve heard some of these patients tell me that if only they’d known, they would have preferred the pain of their broken ankle, or whatever it was, than the pain of trying to get off of this drug.”
At the same meeting, says Strang, MP Terence Young grilled the representative from the maker of Oxycontin, Purdue Pharma.
“This is a company that has been fined more than $600 million in the US,” says Strang, adding that Young presented information on many other drug companies that have received major fines in the US. “Because of what they’ve been through in the United States, you can see a real difference in the drug fact sheets given alongside prescriptions there and here. In Canada, this information is written by lawyers and is generally very obscure to the layperson. In the US, this information is presented in plain language.”
Strang adds that while most doctors and pharmacists do a good job of explaining how to consume prescription drugs and their side-effects, the person on the receiving end needs to go out of his or her way to be informed.
