Data Void and Regulatory Illusions

Until 1957, the Canadian government had collected data on deaths by poisons. In the 1980’s and 90’s, the laboratories overseeing drug safety were disbanded by the Mulroney and Chretien administrations, and the recent Martin and Harper governments gutted most of what was left of food safety oversight. So if your child swallows something containing chemicals and becomes ill, doctors at hospital emergency departments will usually phone the FDA hotline in the U.S. to name the swallowed chemicals and get advice on how to detox the patient.

When the Canadian Medical Association Journal informs doctors that about 23,000 Canadians die annually from the unintended effects or unexpected side effects of properly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs, this is a statistic arrived at mostly by extrapolation from the U.S., where such data collection is mandatory.

In May 2010, the massive recall of children’s Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl was a reflex reaction to the data collected on Americans, so we have no idea how many Canadians were killed or injured by these drugs.  On April 30, the Globe and Mail reported that adverse drug events in Canada increased by 35% within the last 12 months, of which 75% were life-threatening, but Health Canada appears not to know which drug categories are responsible. Hence, doctors are clueless as to what drugs to avoid and what substitutes are safer. Under the law, all medical treatment requires informed consent, but Canadian patients and their doctors are uninformed and our consent is meaningless.

Terence Young (Conservative MP, Oakville – see my article, May 2009), whose teenage daughter died from taking the drug Prepulsid (which everybody was kept in the dark about), was amazed by a sign on a look-out point in St. Johns, NFL, which informed people enjoying the ocean view not to go beyond a certain point, because eight people had been killed by rogue waves. “That is the sort of warning every drug package should have,” he said. He further commented that all highway projects in Canada require a thorough analysis of how many accidents occurred in the area involved, and that the design must include appropriate plans to avoid such accidents in future. “Why are we not doing that with drugs? The government has the capacity to act responsibly through the ministries of transport, so there is no reason why Health Canada cannot do so, too.”

But of course, drugs are commodities whose sales must be increased every quarter. Check out the 2010 CPS: that’s the annually updated drug information compendium available online and found in every pharmacy and doctor’s office. It lists the significant risks of serious harm or death from the most frequently used drugs (e.g. almost all antidepressants, most cholesterol-lowering drugs, most high blood pressure meds, many drugs for diabetes, and those used for modifying behaviour like ADHD, etc.). Would you take an arthritis medication if the box informs you that about 150,000 people have died from it in the past 10 years (like Vioxx)?

MP Young is relieved that the government will finally begin collecting real data on real causes of death in real Canadians, instead of relying in crisis after crisis on nebulous extrapolation from data collected by the FDA on Americans. Without measurable data collection there can be no communication to doctors and the public.

The Recent History of Bill C-6

When a government starts offering protection in heart-rending propaganda style citing especially children, you can be certain they are hiding something. DDT and fluoride were peddled as making the world safe for children but the military’s unwillingness to use DDT was hidden; this conflict resulted in Rachel Carson’s first book. With fluoride touted as a healthy dental product rather than the hazardous waste from phosphate fertilizer manufacture which it actually is, the fertilizer industry is protected from the expense of disposing of this by-product as toxic waste. Likewise, Bill C-6 was advertised as protecting babies from Bisphenol A and toxic toys, which is not what the Bill is really about. The hidden agenda in Bill C-6 was the loss of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms which were snuck into this Bill under the guise of protecting public health.

Presenting the public with a scary vision of unidentified harm posed by natural health products, while totally avoiding reference to the tens of thousands of really scary products we all live with daily, Bill C-6 was all generalities based on no verifiable data; and it vowed to smite all who were responsible and punish them with $5 million fines to cause their extinction forever.

A case in point – by October 2009, the natural health products (NHP) industry had come under attack in blatantly illegal ways ­– including raids at gunpoint. The Canadian Coalition for Health Freedom provided documented case histories of these assaults on natural health product distributors, which had occurred over the previous 6 months, to the Senate. This is highly significant because Health Canada was acting already as if C-6 was in place, and as if amendments had already been made to the Food and Drugs Act. Passing C-6 would have legalized Health Canada’s then out-of-control behaviour.

The famous architect, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) coined the expression “God is in the details,” which is often misquoted as the Devil being in the details. In fact, the Devil is in the generalities. So the careful attention to detail which the Senate showed when it objected to C-6 was a godly exercise unmasking the destructive generalities and misinformation which was that Bill’s true nature. Bill C-6, and its predecessor C-52, were “full of sound and fury signifying nothing”.

The public opposition to Bill C-6 was unprecedented in Canada’s 142-year history: more than 600,000 e-mails, faxes and letters of outrage and corrective analysis were received by MPs and Senators in just a few weeks. Virtually every constitutionally anchored civil right and legal safeguard in our Criminal Code was to be eliminated by C-6, the most important civil right being the presumption of innocence. All this to protect the public from hazardous products which the government itself systematically allowed onto the market over decades.

As Friends of Freedom International pointed out correctly, C-6 even ignored the Constitution Act, which defined federal and provincial jurisdictions back in 1867. Bill C-6 combines criminal and administrative penalties even though the federal government has no jurisdiction over products, only over crime. Senator Romeo Dallaire observed, “as legislators, our primary responsibility is to ensure that this legislation conforms to the rule of law.”  Senator George Furey said that if C-6 passed, “we would be living in a police state.” Senator Celine Hervieux-Payette found that even criminals do not experience the total loss of human rights, as proposed by C-6, concluding: “We do not do this in Canada.” Senator Day did not believe that this Bill would ever stand up in a Canadian court, when challenged.

Furthermore, C-6 had no substance: it neither protects nor serves prevention. While Europe gave itself the so-called REACH treaty under which some 65,000 chemicals have to be examined for human and environmental safety, our C-6 had a laughable little list of items of antique vintage appended to the many pages of punitive bluster that make up its bulk. Given Health Canada’s recent admission of ignorance, C-6 has become absurd; there are no data on which to base all that sound and fury. So what was the point of C-6 anyway?

The only hint we have comes from its preamble which explicitly grants foreign governments, and multi-national corporations and institutions like Codex and the World Trade Organization, the same powers over Canadians as if they were part of our own elected government. Senator Elaine McCoy was astounded at this “totalitarian” bill which “gives the minister … the ability to take the word of a foreign government on which to base decisions in Canada!”

Then, Prime Minister Harper prorogued parliament and C-6 died on the order papers. Now, as we read in the newspapers, the government is “quietly reworking” C-6 in “consultations with stakeholders.” (Vancouver Sun, May 12).

Helpful Complications

The trend towards making everything into a commodity and reducing public debate to the most ineffectual level is worldwide, thus catering to multinational corporate interests instead of local needs and civic society values. Governments are less and less “for and by the people” and more and more for and by the market forces. However, given that we do have such things as constitutions and criminal codes, bills of right, and something resembling the exercise of free speech, we must use them and not cave in.

Friends of Freedom International, an organization chaired by Trueman Tuck and Dr. Carolyn Dean, started pointing to the data void at Health Canada back in 2005 when testifying before parliamentary committees. Earlier this year, Tuck and his group decided to visit all those parliamentarians, regardless of party affiliation, who are also lawyers (about 70 of them) – to discuss the nuts and bolts of Bill C-6. The idea was that these politicians are more likely to get the point if approached personally – and many did get it: legislation based on nothing makes Parliament into a nudist show of toothless would-be emperors.

Given that Health Canada is supposed to oversee drugs and food as well as hazardous products, everything of importance to public health is in its area of administration, but “You can’t regulate what you can’t quantify”, observed Tuck. He submitted to the government a list of what is needed, starting with a proposed Human Health and Safety Act that includes a National Poison Control Centre and a Death Registry that gives meaningful information. His proposal insists on the need for legislation like the USA ’s Dietary Supplements Health Education Act (DSHEA) which oversees natural health products but not synthetic, patented drugs. 

Given the public uproar against C-6 and its previous versions, the government has no choice but to listen, especially since the perception of what is hazardous has recently undergone a tectonic shift affecting food biotechnology, the cancer industry, and natural medicine.

Canada hosted the 38th Codex session on food labeling this year in Quebec City, May 3-7.  Present were 251 delegates from 61 countries and 25 international organizations, including Canada’s feisty Health Freedom International. For almost two decades, the European Union tried to silence member states which refused to have biotechnology foods forced down their throats; this was done by appointing a single biotech-friendly person to speak on behalf of all 27 EU countries, pretending that universal consensus existed. That tactic backfired and eight countries declared themselves GMO-free zones. Hence, this year’s Codex meeting began with the acknowledgment that each EU country is now understood to have its own views on GMO foods. Amazingly, many countries were “of the opinion that work on this [GMO labeling] issue should be discontinued  … having been discussed for almost two decades without consensus, and [that] sufficient international consensus does not exist.” Battle fatigue is setting in at Codex and the nation state is making a comeback.

In April the U.S. President’s Cancer Panel released its annual report. The New York Times reported that this “Mount Everest of the medical mainstream” acts effectively as the “mission control of scientific and medical thinking” for cancer research and policy worldwide. About a decade ago this panel opined that nutrition and environment have little or nothing to do with cancer causation and are mostly irrelevant to treatment. This year, the Cancer Panel came up with a report I did not think I would live long enough to see in print. Not only are the causes of cancer identified as stemming from environmental toxins and pesticide-and-hormone-contaminated foods, but the advice given for prevention of cancer starts with switching to organic foods and elaborates on the need for avoidance of just about everything that our industrialized economy relies on for its wealth – including everything I have reported on over the years in Vitality. This report guides research and practice; there is no turning back. Frankly, I am still in shock.

In May, the U.K.-based Alliance for Natural Health (which won important court decisions in favour of natural health products and freedom of choice in healthcare and food for Europe ), visited the Chinese government. China’s ancient medical tradition is being endangered by the efforts of Codex and its Big Pharma friends who have worked hard for decades to impose synthetic drugs and Western-style science on the whole world. The Chinese authorities officially expressed their full support for the Alliance of Natural Health’s efforts to protect freedom of choice among diverse medical traditions and China’s rejection of Codex policy. Indeed, China is so annoyed with Codex arrogance that it is supporting a non-governmental organization, which by definition represents dissent against established authority. The irony is rich (see press releases www.alliance-natural-health.org        

Does Bill C-6 Have a Future in Canada?

Returning a new version of C-6 in Canada means contending with a Canadian public that has proven itself to stand on guard for our constitutional rights, whenever Parliament fails to do so. It also means facing the fact that the public refuses to be bulldozed into the sort of compliance that defines us all as nothing but mindless consumers. The multinational corporations that fixed our GMO dinners, told us drugs are good for our lawns and bodies, and tells government how to deprive us of informed consent are experiencing a backlash of global proportions. They would be wise to study the ethical principles informing highway engineering, before the roadkill piles up to obstruct traffic everywhere. 

As for coming back with a new version of C-6 in Canada, the time has come to get the facts right – and to get the facts first. Those are found in the 2010 President’s Cancer Panel Report. A “modernized” Hazardous Products Act must reflect reality – as outlined there.

Chopra, S. Corrupt to the Core – Memoirs of A Health Canada Scientist, Kos 2008

Ferrie, H. What Part of No! Don’t They Understand? Rescuing Food and Medicine from Government Abuse, Kos 2008, download free www.kospublishing.com

To refresh your memory on bill C-6 read my Vitality article of October 2009 (just click on the Archives section at vitalitymagazine.com)

President’s Cancer Panel Annual Report 2010, available through 301-451-9399 or download from http://pcp.cancer.gov

Schapiro, M. Exposed (a full discussion of Europe’s REACH treaty), Chelsea Green, 2007

Smith, R. & Lourie, B. Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health, Knopf 2009 (see my review in Vitality September 2009)

Weirich, P. ed. Labeling Genetically Modified Food: The Philosophical and Legal Debate, Oxford 2007