FDA seeks distance from “parasitic-Canada” comment

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says its commissioner, Dr. Mark McClellan, meant “no offence” when he appeared to support a journalist's observations that Canada's drug policies are “parasitic” and that the country has not produced a new drug since 1940.

In a late July airing of the Public Broadcasting Service current affairs show One on One, McClellan responded “that's right” after interviewer John McLaughlin said: “Do you think — without causing an international crisis here — that Canada's behaviour is parasitic? They're parasitic because they're living off of the research that we do, and that research is paid for by the taxpayer who has to pay the prices for it through the price of prescription drugs.”

The FDA later said the word “parasitic” was pressed upon McClellan and does not reflect his true feelings. “It was a word introduced by McLaughlin,” says Peter Pitts, associate commissioner for external relations. “[McClellan] did not use that word. It is not his word and it is not what he thinks.”

Members of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry were dismayed after the original interview aired. “I think there must have been a lack of information,” says Jacques Lefebvre, spokesperson at Canada's Research Based Pharmaceutical Companies.

He points to a list of more than 40 drugs that have been discovered or largely developed in Canada since 1987. The list includes a high-profile asthma drug, the leukotriene blocker montelukast sodium (Singulair), as well as one of the prime components of the drug cocktail that has been successfully battling HIV and AIDS, lamivudine (Epivir).

Pitts also downplayed the claim that Canada has not developed a drug since 1940. “I think that we would be more than willing to defer to the people that have done the research,” he said. “No offence was intended against Canada's medical establishment.” — Brian Whitwham, Ottawa