Although we applaud the coverage1,2,3 given in the Feb. 19, 2002, issue of the case of Nancy Olivieri, Apotex, the Hospital for Sick Children and the University of Toronto, the editorial “Questions of Interest”4 may have left your readers with serious misapprehensions.
The first of these concerns the independence of our Committee of Inquiry. When it became clear that a committee of inquiry into this case was needed, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) was the only external body prepared to commission such an inquiry and to provide it with full independence. Because CAUT had taken a position on some matters arising in the case, and because this organization by definition serves the interests of university teachers, we agreed to serve on the committee only on the provision that we could be independent of CAUT or of any other person or organization. At the outset, we stipulated special arrangements to ensure our independence. CAUT agreed to these, and also undertook to have our report published exactly as submitted and in its entirety. Our report was delivered to CAUT on Oct. 26, 2001, at the same time as it was released to the public; the association had no advance copy. It is also worth noting that none of us sought appointment to this committee; we agreed to serve because of the important issues it raised, and did so for 2 years without remuneration.
Second, with respect to the participation of the various individuals involved in the case, we agree that it would have been ideal to have an inquiry in which all parties participated. However, it must be noted that the administrations of the University, the Hospital and Apotex declined our invitation to participate. The potential disadvantage of their nonparticipation was substantially offset by the access that we had to a large quantity of relevant correspondence and documents originating from the administrations of the university and the hospital, Apotex, and other nonparticipants. These thousands of documents included the 1998 Naimark Report commissioned by the hospital and its documentary base. We also had access to key Apotex and hospital documents not available to the Naimark Review. We therefore believe we had a comprehensive set, from both sides, of relevant information regarding all players in the dispute. The central conclusions of our report were independently corroborated by the Dec. 19, 2001, report issued by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario,5 who had the participation of some of those very individuals who declined to participate in our inquiry.
We would encourage your readers to read our report, along with the supplement discussing events since October 2001; both can be accessed at www.dal.ca/committeeofinquiry. Contrary to the suggestion in your editorial, the rights of “the study subject who volunteers in research” are judged to be a centrally important issue in our report; indeed, they drive the wide- ranging recommendations that we hope will be taken up by all of those responsible for the well-being of research participants in Canada.
Patricia Baird Professor, Department of Medical Genetics University Distinguished Professor University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Jon Thompson Professor and Chair Department of Mathematics and Statistics University of New Brunswick Fredericton, NB Jocelyn Downie Associate Professor Faculties of Law and Medicine Dalhousie University Halifax, NS