When regulatory agencies like Health Canada approve a new drug, they require the drug company to continue monitoring the product’s safety.
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Health Canada continues to monitor newly approved drugs to determine if the benefits identified in the pre-market trials hold up to further scrutiny. Canadians need better access to that information.
Generic drug names are assigned at the global level by the World Health Organization in conjunction with national naming authorities.
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Generic drug names are often long, but they can tell doctors what type of medicine it is and how it works. But it’s brand names that appear first and most prominently in Health Canada materials.
The pharmaceutical industry opposes the suspension of intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, and no pharma companies have yet contributed to the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool.
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We should applaud drug companies for developing COVID-19 vaccines in record time, but let’s not be under any illusion about the profits that are motivating them.
Samples from volunteers are handled in the laboratory at Imperial College in London, on July 30, 2020. Imperial College is working on the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.
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With lives depending on a vaccine, trust in Canada’s COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force is crucial. Members of the task force need to make any industry links or potential conflicts of interest publicly clear.
Are we really all in this together? ‘Vaccine nationalism’ must be addressed to ensure equitable distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine.
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Word that the U.S. has bought up the entire supply of the COVID-19 drug remdesivir is another reminder that in a pandemic, treatments and vaccines need to be accessible to everyone, globally.
Even cheap dinners were found to influence prescribing habits.
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An important new study in the United States has found doctors who receive just one cheap meal from a drug company tend to prescribe a lot more of that company’s products.