On Friday, December 10th, the CBC carried an item about Thelin – depending on what news source you read, it is a blood pressure or a lung drug.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2010/12/10/thelin-blood-pressure-recall.html
The reason for pulling it was because it causes liver disease. My question to the Health Ministries is why was it out there in the first place if all the required tests were not conducted? Clearly the drug companies are either lying to you or you make subjective decisions about what can be done and what can’t be done. The MS Liberation treatment is one you have emphatically refused to allow in Canada, even though Angioplasty has been used in Canada for other things for years. Of course, your experts make no money from the treatment. They do from prescribing the hoard of MS drugs presently on the market even though they have never been proven to work and have not had one result that could begin to compare with some of the good results of the treatment. Are you aware that patients have quit some of these C.R.A.B. drugs cold turkey after taking them for more than a decade and have experienced no difference in the behavior of their affliction?
http://www.msliberation.ca/MS_Liberation_Group/Welcome_files/New%20Studies%20Show%20the%20MS%20Drugs%20Don%27t%20Slow%20Progression%5B1%5D.pdf
Frankly, from a strictly financial view, I am not sure why you would ok these drugs. They don’t work and they cost the taxpayer, either directly or indirectly, a small fortune that would be better spent on treatments for other conditions or even treatments for this condition that work. The Liberation treatment, if done in Canada, would cost about half the price. Right now, Canadians who can afford it or who fundraise for themselves, are going elsewhere and having it done for $15-20,000. Do you really think so many people would fork out that kind of money on what Dr. Freedman has called a hoax? If you do I think you need to give your head a shake and clear the cobwebs out.
I will grant you some of these folks are independently wealthy but most are not. They come from every province and territory, are not related to each other – they don’t even know each other usually. They have no reason to say they can walk when they can’t – that would be one of the easier ways of recognizing a lie. And those that it has not helped have been quite open about it not working for them. If you understood the vast array of symptoms that are lumped together and called MS, you would not find that all that surprising.
Every time $3000 comes out of the tax account to pay for a C.R.A.B. drug that doesn’t work, it isn’t going to someone who needs something that we already knows works. You continually talk about lack of funds but you blatantly waste the funds you have. And I have no doubt, you will want to spend even more money come election time, telling people to vote you back in because you have done such an outstanding job?? I don’t think so – not my vote anyway. I think I have already mentioned to you both that if the press did not include your names with your press releases, I couldn’t tell which of you was speaking. That could be because you are both taking advice from people paid to tell you what to think. I cannot believe either of you is quite that dense if left to your own devices.
CBC did an Insight program this past week about how the various governments have so trivialized politics that the average citizen has lost all interest. They are right. On the subject of MS at least, can one of you, or preferably both of you, not start making your own decisions instead of the ones the drug companies via “experts” such as Dr. Mark Freedman tell you to take? Who runs the health ministries in this country anyway? You or the drug companies? You want to talk to an expert on MS? It can be arranged to put you in touch with a patient who knows more about MS than Dr. Freedman et al will ever know. Or a relative of a patient – again, they know more than Dr. Freedman et al.
There are 75,000 people who are known to have MS in Canada. Dr. Freedman’s staff have decided I have had it for over 20 years but it was only diagnosed recently – MRI was not always available. How many other undiagnosed/misdiagnosed folks are out there? Add to that all the other forms of autoimmune conditions that neurologists and drug companies have not, in fact, been able to help and you have a lot of sick Canadians. You might think you, yourself are immune but you aren’t. Do you want to be treated this way should MS land on your plate? Or Alzheimer’s? Or any other autoimmune disease? And if those two arguments do not make a dent, is this the way you want to remembered in history – as the two female Health Ministers who were puppets for the drug companies? Cause, ladies, that is how you are coming across to me and to many Canadians.
Finally, (and this is directed mostly to Ms. Aglukkaq because Ms Matthews did respond once) could you please do something totally unusual and respond. I am from the old school that says a response from your representatives in government is not only good manners, it is good politics.
Sincerely
Karen Copeland