Health Minister Tony Clement assured Canadians the new measures, unveiled Wednesday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would not compromise safety requirements for new drugs. In an interview with Globe and Mail, Clement said, "I can assure you we are not going to change our standards or change our stringent review... Out work is going to remain as intense."
While he gave the assurance, Clement did not provide details of how the ministry would go about with its post-approval assessment system.
Health experts opposed to the easing of rules pointed out other countries that allowed more lax rules on drug approval had a surge in drug recalls and serious side effects. Joel Lexchin, health policy professor at York University, told Globe and Mail, "This is part of a general trend in a lot of countries, at least with respect to the drug-approval system, (which) is deregulation, turning over more responsibility to the drug companies."
All the drug company has to do is prove benefits of their new medicine outweigh the harm.
The bill was patterned after the Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan proposed on December by the Conservative government.
