- © 2008 Canadian Medical Association or its licensors
It was deeply distressing to read Ann Silversides' report on the Therapeutics Initiative and discover that the British Columbia minister of health is yielding to pressures from the pharmaceutical industry and “other vested interest groups” to replace it by a system of evaluation less “resistant to meaningful stakeholder engagement.”1 The real stakeholders are those who depend on having an independent and trustworthy source of information on new drugs. These groups include the citizens of British Columbia who are prescribed these drugs and must both take and often pay for them. There are also the physicians and surgeons of the province who must prescribe these drugs and the British Columbia health care agencies that want to control drug costs.
The loss of the Therapeutics Initiative will have an impact not only in British Columbia but across Canada and internationally. As one of the very few independent groups undertaking this type of work, it has a widespread reputation for scientific excellence and probity. The extensiveness of this reputation may well explain the ferocity of the attempts to destroy the Therapeutics Initiative.
It may be difficult to explain to consumers and health professionals that their need for reliable evidence has been trumped by the claims of powerful interest groups. Sadly, whatever is put in the place of the Therapeutics Initiative will be seen as untrustworthy because of the way in which it will have been set up, but also because public trust in the pharmaceutical industry is at a low ebb.
Footnotes
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Competing interests: None declared.
REFERENCE
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