Health Canada Gave Access To Unapproved Drugs To AIDS/HIV Patients.
Reported July 4, 2007
In Vancouver Health Canada gives access to the usage of two drugs in a rare medical trail. These drugs were necessary to help prevent men dying of AIDS.
They are anti-retroviral drugs which have been studied individually but there action together is not been reviewed. These drugs are unapproved for the usage in AIDS patient and hence their access is declined by the government.
The usage of this new unapproved AIDS drug started nine months earlier and a patient died. So the clinicians were not interested in getting themselves enmeshed in a bureaucratic delay.
The two unapproved drugs for AIDS were TMC 114 and TMC 125 was planned to be brought into Canada through the Health Canada special access program for terminally ill patients.
But it did not do so. Hence the clinicians went public. Due to the stress from the politicians and media personnel, Health Canada accepted for a clinical trail to be conducted using these two drugs.
Due to this new way of treatment hospitals wanted a change in their patient consent forms. A Belgian based company Tibotec Inc told the hospitals that it will provide the drugs free of cost but sign a contract with the hospital and then ship the drugs from US.
The clinicians suggested that the patients will be put on their drugs in the beginning of the new yea. One of the patients suffering from AIDS only five are critical and one of them is an artist.
He is very happy about the news of the unapproved drugs coming to Canada for their treatment. The doctor said that his nervous system is damaged and he has lost sensation in his feet and one hand. But still he paints with his other hand.
Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh was met by another patient who led a protest in which Santa and his elves brought 5 coffin boxes to signify the number of lives at risk.
Hedy Fry, the Liberal candidate for Vancouver Centre, said that they will make the necessary steps in the procedure so that the minister could supersede whenever necessary with expert clinical advice. Hence such actions can be avoided in the future.