- © 2008 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
In their research letter on the extent to which publication in the biomedical literature concerning drug-induced harm can influence the legal process, David Juurlink and colleagues mention that the manufacturer of gatifloxacin stopped marketing the drug worldwide on May 1, 2006.1 Health Canada issued a number of alerts about the potential for this product to interfere with glucose metabolism2,3 but never bothered to formally inform either the public or health care professionals that oral and intravenous forms of this drug were withdrawn from sale in Canada. The only place where one can find this information is by searching the discontinued products in Health Canada's Drug Product Database (http://cpe0013211b4c6d-cm0014e88ee7a4.cpe.net.cable.rogers.com/dpdonline/searchRequest.do). This failure to communicate important information about a drug raises serious concerns about Health Canada's ability to keep health care professionals and the public informed about safety issues.
Footnotes
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Competing interests: Joel Lexchin has been retained by a law firm working for Apotex Inc. regarding the role of promotion in product sales.