Lives. Drug. Money.

You (The Ottawa Citizen) very well identified the problem with Health Canada endorsing and backing up the monopoly on sale of life-saving drug Thalidomide, without which many patients die. Even worse is denying of hope for the patients who need the drug. And knowing that some businesses make extra high profit on this makes me shiver.

My mother died of MM half a year ago. Because of skyrocketed prices of Thalidomide, we could not even consider using it, which was what our doctors recommended. We used everything else doctors could do: several severe long chemotherapies, two marrow transplant surgeries. These very painful treatments helped somewhat, though inflicted complete loss of appetite and reduced immune system practically to zero. In less than two years of such a courageous fight against the disease my mother died, at the age of 61.

The case of the journalist O’Neill, covered by your newspaper, showed that in Canada both the mechanism for reporting major problems (through the media) and the mechanism for rectifying these problems (through the government) exist. This makes us, Canadian citizen, proud of our country. Here we have the case of another very important problem. Will it be resolved? And when? These are the questions.

In particular, in my opinion, if Health Canada is so keen on “safety and effectiveness” of the drug ministered in Canada, it should have a warning statement for the patients who purchase a non “FDA-controlled substance”, rather than denying years of life and perhaps the last hope of these patients by prohibiting other sources of the drug supply.

Finally, so many thanks to all doctors like Dr. Bormanis for their praiseworthy devoted efforts to prolong their patients’ lives, despite all obstacles…