Steve Anthony: True Canadian Pharmacy

Hundreds of natural health products could disappear from store shelves next spring because of a Health Canada backlog in approving licences, warns the Canadian Health Food Association.
We’re at a critical stage, said Carl Carter, director of regulatory affairs and policy development for the CHFA.
The biggest concern we have at this point is the standards of evidence Health Canada has been requesting for products’ efficacy, he told CBC News.
!–more– Firms that make and sell natural health products are not opposed to being regulated. In fact, they welcome the Health Canada stamp of approval, said Carter. However, he said the pendulum has swung too far in terms of proving that a drug works.

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p That’s because fashion is so much more important to us [women], said Dufour, laughing at the contradiction. There’s not a whole lot of different shoes that men can wear that aren’t flat, she said. Researchers found one-quarter of participants reported generalized foot pain on most days, with 19 per cent of men and 29 per cent of women falling into this category. Yet even the lead researcher admitted she would not likely stop wearing heels, !–more– despite the mounting evidence against them. The study will be published in the October issue of the journal Arthritis Care Research.
The study offered one unexpected finding in that women reported pain only in their hind foot.
The study analyzed data from 1,900 women and nearly 1,500 men enrolled in the Framingham Foot Study between 2002 and 2008. The study is one of the first to examine the association between footwear beyond just high-heel use and foot pain. There’s nothing to hold your foot in. High-heels, pumps, sandals and slippers were classified as poor. Women who regularly wear high heels can expect to suffer heel pain as they age, according to a study from a Harvard-affiliated institute. They found no significant link between foot pain and the types of shoes men wear, something that did not surprise Dufour. The real issue is designing a good high heel that is affordable. She would like to see her research used by shoe designers and manufacturers. Hard- or rubber-soled shoes and work boots were average, and athletic and casual sneakers were good. According to this newest study, it’s not just high heels. Flip-flops are terrible for your feet. High heels need not be so damaging, said Dufour, but sadly, good high heels — those that offer good padding and strong support — are very expensive. The flattest of the flat shoe, the flip-flop, is one of the worst shoes a woman can wear, said Dufour. Dufour, a graduate student at the Institute for Aging Research of Hebrew Senior Life. Eleven shoe types were considered. Past studies have shown women who wear high heels are more likely to fall or develop a variety of painful, degenerative muscle and joint diseases. More than 60 per cent of women reported wearing poor shoes in the past, compared to only two per cent of men. Dufour said she and her researchers had expected more reports of pain all over the foot. In her own experience, she finds the ball of her foot become sore when she wears heels. I thought about it after I started doing all this research and seeing pictures of feet disfigured by wearing bad shoes, but no, I haven’t given anything up, said lead author Alyssa B. The researchers say past shoe-wear among women is a key factor for hind-foot, or heel, pain.

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First Nations could soon form their own health regions, own their own pharmacies and control their own health information and research, say members of a new task force.
On Friday afternoon, members of the Medicine Chest Task Force and various First Nations chiefs from across the province gathered at the First Nations University of Canada’s Saskatoon campus to announce a series of partnerships with the university and others.
We’re building capacity !–more– in First Nations country. We have inherent rights and we’re taking responsibility for ourselves, said Red Pheasant First Nation Chief Sheldon Wuttunee.

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Canada will have a pandemic vaccine by early next month, and could speed up delivery to Canadians if the swine-flu virus turns more severe in the fall, the country’s chief public-health officer says.
David Butler-Jones’s comments run contrary to the federal government’s insistence that Canadians should not expect to be immunized until mid-November, and follow a rash of criticism that Canada is lagging behind other countries in vaccine delivery.
!–more– The Canadian Medical Association Journal took a swipe at Ottawa this week, accusing it of delaying the rollout of the H1N1 vaccine. The governments of Australia, the United States and several European countries are planning to immunize their citizens with a vaccine starting in October.
But Health Canada’s decision to fortify vaccine with adjuvants #8211; chemical boosters that can increase production #8211; will mire the vaccine in a time-consuming regulatory process, the CMAJ said in an editorial.

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p Aglukkaq and Butler-Jones stressed that seasonal flu costs 4,000 to 8,000 lives in Canada every year, and that Canadians should be as prudent about protecting themselves from it as from the H1N1 virus. If we get a particularly bad range of possibilities in terms of how many cases we see, it could be 1,500. , the first doses of pandemic vaccine will be available in mid-October.
Butler-Jones said extra ventilators are available, and hospitals !–more– are making arrangements for extra staff and beds, but prevention is the best way to ease the load on the health-care system.
Overwhelming hospitals is a concern for health officials worldwide. In the U. Canada’s H1N1 vaccine will contain an adjuvant designed to boost immune response and quadruple the number of people who can be immunized for the same amount of antigen, the active ingredient that triggers an immune response, said Dr. But if a serious outbreak of H1N1 happened in Canada now, the country would not be ready, said Liberal MP Marc Garneau. At the present moment because of regulatory processes with this government, because they haven’t really realized the urgency of what is happening, it’s possible that H1N1 could hit us early, and that high-risk patients will not have access to this very important vaccine, Garneau said from the party’s caucus retreat in Sudbury, Ont. S. I re-emphasize H1N1 vaccine production remains on schedule, Aglukkaq told a news conference in Winnipeg. There have been reports implying that Canada has been slow off the mark in placing its H1N1 vaccine order, that our production schedule is not sufficiently aggressive or that our regulators are being overly cautious.
The vaccine is expected to be available mid-November for groups with the highest priority. Those reports are simply wrong. Unlike other countries that need to ration vaccine supplies, the issue in Canada is to decide who should receive it first, Aglukkaq said. It could also mean that one dose would be sufficient to offer protection, but that assumption will be tested and Canada has ordered enough vaccine in case two doses are needed, he added. Because for those people who develop severe illness, the faster they can be treated and brought into good clinical care, the better the outcome. Charles Penn, of the World Health Organization in Geneva, who is attending the conference.
Dr. You have both a capacity issue, but also a timing, said Dr. At one point, Kumar said there were 60 patients with proven or suspected H1N1 infection in a city with 70 ICU beds, an experience that has him worried about what could happen in the fall and winter. wants to vaccinate first. Extrapolating Manitoba data to the rest of the country, that at its peak, you can expect to be short about 750 ICU beds, Kumar said. S. Health officials are concerned hospitals could be overloaded with patients this fall and winter. A woman reads a H1N1 flu virus warning sign outside a hospital. In Australia, which just went through its winter flu season, there were double the number of deaths compared to Canada, but with a population of 21 million versus Canada’s 31 million. American health officials expect to have 45 million doses by then, enough to vaccinate about 30 per cent of the 159 million people the U. Anand Kumar, an intensive care doctor in Winnipeg, described his experiences fighting the first wave of swine flu in the spring. Using an adjuvant may also add protection if the H1N1 virus changes in the spring, Butler-Jones said. Doctors said hospitals were overwhelmed with patients. Canada’s swine flu vaccine production is not slower than in other countries, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said Wednesday. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer. We will have H1N1 vaccine available in Canada at around the same time as most other countries. 7 million more in funding to test the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine will help researchers to better understand how the vaccine works in different populations, such as aboriginal Canadians and children. Aglukkaq attended a meeting of medical experts discussing how to manage severe cases of the H1N1 virus to prepare for an anticipated second wave of illnesses in the fall. As you know, it takes two to four weeks for it to take effect. Last week’s announcement of $2.

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p The committee taking the government to court is alleging that amalgamation has taken away the only health authority that was working legally in French. The group taking the New Brunswick government to court over last year’s health reforms is getting support from the Montfort Hospital, an Ontario institution that faced a similar fight a decade ago. Gérald Savoie, the hospital’s executive director and an Acadian from Campbellton, will retire in !–more– October but he said he wants to help the Committee for Equality of Health in French win its legal battle against provincial government reforms. We’re talking about people who govern a health-care institution, that their first and upper-most [concern is] to make sure that the French language is preserved, he said. The Montfort battle has been an inspiration for us from the beginning. The Montfort experience is being used as an example for the legal battle that’s being fought in New Brunswick against the Liberal government’s decision to reduce the number of regional health authorities to two from eight. We’re talking about governance. Dr. The commission later proposed to merge it with another hospital and make it bilingual. Hubert Dupuis, the committee’s president, said he appreciates the support from the Ottawa francophone hospital. It’s the very, very similar battle. I think the Franco-Ontarians have shown us the way, Dupuis said. The organization has recruited Michel Bastarache, a retired Supreme Court of Canada judge and expert in linguistic cases, to assist in the case along with Michel Doucet, a law professor at the Université de Moncton. Savoie was executive director of Montfort Hospital in 1997 when a commission set up by former Ontario premier Mike Harris government first proposed to close it down. The Montfort hospital is a French institution in Ottawa that went to court 10 years ago to fight for its survival.

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p The mental health court, to sit once a week in Dartmouth starting Nov. Nova Scotia’s special court designed for people with mental illness who come into conflict with the law will open this fall. Judith McPhee, the chair of the government committee that helped create the court, said people who appear before a judge in the Halifax region may request that their case be moved to this new court. 2, will divert some people away from the criminal justice !–more– system and into treatment programs. Landry said this won’t be an easier ride for anyone. Hopefully we’ll start to collect those cases.
Provincial court Judge Bill MacDonald will hear the cases recommended by a mental-health court team, including mental-health clinicians and lawyers. This is about accountability, both to the individual and to the system, and I think that that’s critical to know, he said. Attorney General and Justice Minister Ross Landry said the court will examine the accused and their illnesses, not just their alleged crimes. Hyde died in jail about 30 hours after he was arrested for an alleged assault and stunned with a Taser during a struggle with Halifax police at the station. There are people out there who have fallen through the gaps in the process or the cracks in the floor, Landry said. The defence, Crown or police may also suggest cases, McPhee said. The provincial justice system’s handling of the mentally ill has been scrutinized during an inquiry into the 2007 death of Howard Hyde, a schizophrenic.

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p The FDA continues to investigate the theft. S. J. regulators said Wednesday. XZF0037. People should always look at their insulin carefully before using it, the FDA said, noting levemir is a clear and colorless solution. If you must switch to another brand of insulin for any reason, first contact your health care provider because another insulin product may require adjustments in dosing, the FDA said Wednesday. Only about two per cent of the !–more– 129,000 affected vials have been returned, the FDA said. A spokesperson for Health Canada said Wednesday no additional information was available, and that the department will provide an update if required. Evidence gathered to date suggests that the stolen insulin was not stored and handled properly, and may be dangerous for people to use, the FDA said in a release. The FDA advised patients to replace vials from the three lots with a vial of Levemir from another lot. People with diabetes should avoid using certain vials of insulin made by Novo Nordisk that were stolen earlier this year and have been linked to unsafe blood-sugar levels, U. Levemir insulin is used to treat Type 1 diabetes in adults and children, and Type 2 diabetes in adults who need long-acting insulin to control high blood sugar. The FDA has received reports of patients who suffered unsafe blood-sugar levels after using a vial from one of the stolen lots of Levemir insulin. Canadians with the product are advised not to use it, and check with their health-care professional if they have any concerns. XZF0038. S. XZF0036. Food and Drug Administration said in June that three lots of Novo Nordisk’s Levemir insulin were stolen in North Carolina. The company is based in Denmark. It is given by injection and comes in 10-ml vials. S. S. The lot numbers are found on the side of the box of insulin and also on the side of the vial. The products are not authorized for sale in Canada and have not been found for sale in the Canadian marketplace, but travellers may have bought them in the U. The U. , said the company is cooperating with the FDA. Since then, the FDA has received three reports of patients who suffered unsafe blood-sugar levels after using a vial from one of the stolen lots. headquarters in Princeton, N. A spokesperson from Novo Nordisk’s U. or over the internet, Health Canada said.

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p McAleese was taken to The Moncton Hospital and it is not yet known what caused him to collapse. You know with his breathing and his heart problems it’s not easy but where he was so concerned with this meeting, he wanted to attend, Gould said. Health concerns from parents and local residents go back decades. The Department of Health is denying the air is dangerous near Moncton’s École Champlain, a school in the middle of an industrial area. !–more– Dr. ‘
Rod McAleese, who is in his 80s, had stepped up to the microphone and told government officials how he had spent his entire life in the area and he was convinced there were problems with the air. The school was built in 1969 when only an asphalt plant, which is roughly 150 metres away, was in the neighbourhood. You say it won’t hurt you, but we’ve had all kinds of deaths over there from cancer and breathing trouble. No. The public meeting last well over two hours, but it ended abruptly with a senior collapsed after making an impassioned speech about air quality in the area. ‘You know with his breathing and his heart problems it’s not easy but where he was so concerned with this meeting, he wanted to attend. Van Buynder and several others helped get him down and tried to keep him conscious until an ambulance arrived. Van Buynder said the department cannot demonstrate the air in the area is creating any adverse impact on the health of people in the area. You don’t live there, does the mayor live there? The type of dust that we’re seeing is not the type of dust that the Health Department is particularly worried about, he said.
Minutes later McAleese was spotted slumping over in his chair. But we do, he said. Over the last year, the provincial government has been testing the air near the primary school that is surrounded by heavy industry and sees hundreds of large trucks rumble by the building each day. Paul Van Buynder, the province’s deputy chief medical officer of health, told a public meeting on Tuesday night that the department’s testing has shown the air quality is not that bad. In recent months, parents have been calling on the government to move the school from the area. Ray Gould, a friend of McAleese, said the man has some health issues but he was determined to attend the public meeting. There are now dozens of industrial companies that have cropped up near the kindergarten to Grade 5 school.

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p The British Medical Association is now campaigning against internal competition, said Dr. Turnbull, who takes over as president of the CMA next August, said he’s deeply concerned about the health of the four million Canadians who don’t have a family doctor, and about making specialists easier to access for those who do have one. Delegates at the meeting also acclaimed Dr. Jeffrey Turnbull, chief of staff at the Ottawa Hospital, as their president-elect. !–more– Robert Woollard of Canadian Doctors for Medicare. Robert Ouellet, the outgoing president of the CMA. During a lively debate, some members said the promises haven’t panned out in the U. Competition has led to one doctor being pitted against another, one hospital being pitted against another, Dhalla said. Turnball said he’s willing to debate the merits of patients paying for more services, but he ran on a platform of maintaining a strong public system. Woollard suggested introducing competition in small doses, monitoring the results and adjusting as necessary. Irfan Dhalla. Instead, delegates at the group’s annual meeting in Saskatoon passed a resolution Tuesday calling on governments to examine internal market mechanisms, which could include a role for the private sector in the delivery of publicly funded health care. Robert Ouellet, who is finishing his term as president of the Canadian Medical Association, says competition in providing service should not be feared. And it’s an incentive to do better and to give a better service. If you don’t deliver the service, someone will do it, Ouellet said. K.
Competition is nothing to be feared, even if delivered by the private sector, said Dr. Delegates at the Canadian Medical Association conference in Saskatoon vote on a resolution to further examine the merits of a private sector component to Canada’s medicare system. Meanwhile, a rival group is urging a go-slow approach to competition in the health care system. If something’s going to be a powerful tool for change, clearly is capable of adverse side-effects, clearly let’s do it carefully, said Dr. Patients will be the winners, Ouellet said, noting competition helped reduce waiting lists in Britain. Members of the Canadian Medical Association have backed away from endorsing private competition to make the health-care system more efficient.
Dr. The discussion about private versus public has been a diversion away from some of the essential issues that are facing us, said Turnbull, who has chaired the department of medicine at the University of Ottawa, headed a UNESCO committee on health for the disadvantaged and regularly treats the homeless.

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