Manufacturer recalls lot of cortisone skin treatment due to mould contamination

From the Winnipeg Free Press:
GlaxoSmithKline is voluntarily recalling one lot of its product Emo-Cort 2.5 per cent Lotion, a product used to treat eczema, dermatitis and other skin irritations, due to contamination.

GSK is asking wholesalers, pharmacies and hospitals to immediately stop selling Lot No. 5R6 of the hydrocortisone lotion.

Health Canada said in a release Friday that the recall follows a consumer complaint to the company regarding a brown substance in the product. Testing of samples of the lot showed the product has been contaminated with mould.

Because of the potential risk of local or more widespread infection from the mould to consumers with weakened immune systems, GSK has put all Emo-Cort products at its manufacturing facility on hold pending an investigation. ...more

Grapevine doctor defends using bargain IUDs

From WFAA (TX):
Commercials tout the Mirena-brand intrauterine device as one of the easiest long-term birth control devices on the market.

That's how one North Texas woman felt about her IUD — until the day she heard from her doctor's office, Women's Integrated Healthcare in Grapevine.

"The first thing she said to me was, 'The Mirena that I had inserted a year-and-a-half previous was purchased in Canada,'" said the patient, who prefers to remain anonymous. "When she told me that, I thought, 'That's wrong; that's really wrong to do that and potentially cause harm.'"

An FDA-approved Mirena IUD in the United States costs about $700 wholesale to physicians. But on the Internet, IUDs imported from Canada can be purchased for as little as $200.

Women's Integrated Healthcare charged the patient News 8 spoke to more than $1,800 for inserting the bargain-priced Canadian product. ...more

Approval of new drug heralds 'momentous' advance in stroke prevention

From the Montreal Gazette:
In what Canadian doctors are calling a "momentous" advance, Health Canada has approved the first anti-clotting drug for stroke prevention since the introduction of warfarin more than half a century ago.

Pradax, or dabigatran, is expected to change practice for the treatment of atrial fibrillation, or AF, a potentially life-threatening heart rhythm disorder that causes the heart to quiver and beat chaotically. About a quarter-million Canadians suffer from AF, and the absolute numbers will grow as the population ages. One in four people over age 40 will develop AF, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation.

A Canadian-led international trial published this summer involving more than 18,000 patients from 44 countries found that dabigatran was superior to warfarin for reducing the risk of stroke, and also for reducing bleeding complications.

For the study, patients randomly received either dabigatran or warfarin. Two doses of dabigatran — 100 mg twice daily, or 150 mg twice daily — were tested. The higher dose of dabigatran reduced the risk of stroke by 34 per cent compared to warfarin. There was also a significant drop in the risk of bleeding into the brain, the most feared complication of warfarin. ...more

Natural product companies targeting kids’ market

From the Globe and Mail:
When Health Canada ruled in 2008 that children under age 6 should not be given over-the-counter cough and cold remedies, it probably didn’t realize it was creating a whole new market for medications aimed at kids.

Companies that use certain active ingredients in over-the-counter medications, such as dextromethorphan (used in cough remedies) and brompheniramine maleate (used in cold meds), now must carry labels indicating they are not to be given to children under age 6.

But the recent ruling, made because there is little proof that these products work in children and evidence they can cause rare side effects or lead to overdose, doesn’t apply to makers of natural or homeopathic medicine.

Now, many of those companies are rushing to fill the void and attract a following from confused parents looking for ways to help their sick children in the wake of Health Canada’s restrictions on traditional remedies.

The makers of COLD-FX, a Canadian natural health product designed to help boost the immune system to prevent or reduce cold and flu symptoms, are launching a clinical trial in hopes of potentially marketing their product to children. ...more

Nasal mist flu vaccine launched in Canada

From CTV News:
A nasal mist flu vaccine was launched in Canada on Thursday, giving an alternative to those who get squeamish by the very idea of a needle.

The nasal mist has been available in the United States for seven years, and now will be available without a prescription in pharmacies.

Dr. Earl Rubin, director of McGill Pediatric Infectious Diseases Residency Program, has been going to the U.S. for the last five years to get the vaccines for his children, who are deathly afraid of needles.

But he says the less intrusive nasal vaccine has other benefits as well.

"Studies have shown that the intra nasal live attenuated vaccine is more effective in children than the traditional intramuscular or killed vaccine," Rubin told CTV Montreal's Cindy Sherwin. ...more

Is there such a thing as a safe diet drug?

From the Globe and Mail:
A few years after it hit the market, the diet drug Meridia was being investigated by health authorities globally for links to more than two dozen deaths and hundreds of adverse reactions. But those authorities, including Health Canada, concluded that Meridia, the brand name of the drug sibutramine, was safe enough to remain on the market and be prescribed to treat obesity.

Seven years later, Abbott Laboratories, the company that sells Meridia, has voluntarily pulled it off the market in Canada and the U.S. after a major study published last month, funded by the company, found that it raises a patient’s risk of stroke, heart attack and cardiovascular death.

Two generic versions, called Apo-sibutramine and Nova-sibutramine, have also been pulled off Canadian shelves.

The study, which last more than three years, also found that patients lost, on average, less than 10 pounds on sibutramine, which acts on the serotonin system to make an individual feel full.

Abbott Laboratories stands by Meridia, maintaining that the benefits outweigh the risks as long as the appetite suppressant is given to people without pre-existing cardiovascular disease and patients are monitored closely for increased blood pressure or pulse rate.

However, some medical experts and advocates see Meridia as an example of deep-rooted problems in the drug-safety system that urgently need to be fixed. There is concern that such health issues could arise again, as other companies look to create new appetite-suppressing prescription drugs. ...more

Trade deal would include increased protection for brand-name drugs

From the National Post:
Canada’s pharmaceutical industry and the European Union have been quietly lobbying for changes that could give brand-name drugs several years more patent protection here — and potentially add hundreds of millions of dollars to Canadian medication costs annually.

The EU has reportedly proposed the measures be included in a landmark free-trade agreement now being negotiated between the jurisdictions, with the fifth round starting last week in Ottawa.

The changes would delay the entry of cheaper, generic copies of medication onto the market, but brand-name companies and some provinces say the measures are needed to restore fairness to the complex patent system, and generate more drug research in Canada. ...more

Pharmacy tobacco sales snuffed

From the Saskatoon Star Phoenix:
Saskatchewan pharmacies will stop selling tobacco products as of April 1, 2011, Health Minister Don McMorris said Monday.

McMorris released the province's tobacco reduction strategy as he opened a two-day symposium that brings together health officials from across Saskatchewan.

He later told reporters the government is delaying the ban on pharmacy tobacco sales by several months.

"A lot of pharmacies have to change the design of the store and we're giving them time to do that," McMorris told reporters Monday. "We had thought that we would be able to implement this by the first of January. That was tight for them. Not that (pharmacies) are opposed to the legislation, they just need time to make structural changes." ...more

Mention in Drugstore Canada

Canada Pharmacy News has been featured in the latest edition of Drugstore Canada. I will like to the online version shortly. To those of you who have found this site from the article - welcome! There has been a lack of posts lately but this will change this week. Look for daily updates starting this evening.

Weight loss drug pulled from Canadian shelves

From the Montreal Gazette:
The prescription diet pill market in Canada just got slimmer.

The manufacturer of the weight-loss drug Meridia announced yesterday it is voluntarily pulling its product off the Canadian market, the same day the company withdrew its diet pill in the U.S. at the request of American drug regulators over an increased risk of heart attack and stroke in some people.

The move leaves Canadians looking for prescription weight loss drugs with just one possible option -orlistat, sold under the brand name Xenical, which prevents dietary fat from being absorbed by the intestines.

Meridia's removal comes seven years after Health Canada concluded in 2003, after a yearlong safety review, that the drug's benefits outweighed the risks.

The drug (sibutramine), which works on the brain to make people feel fuller, has already been pulled from markets in Europe and has faced questions in the U.S. since the consumer group Public Citizen petitioned the FDA unsuccessfully to have the drug banned in 2002. The group charged health regulators knew of the potential for heart problems before Meridia was introduced to the U.S. market in 1998. ...more

Doctors over-prescribe, test: report

From the National Post:
Swayed by pharmaceutical sales reps and less than fully versed on new technology, family doctors may be prescribing drugs improperly and ordering too many expensive diagnostic tests, warns a new federal-provincial report.

Governments must give such primary-care physicians the tools to make better decisions if they want to corral spiralling health-care costs, says the Health Council of Canada in a report to be released on Monday.

"Our research points to inappropriate prescribing of drugs and over-use of diagnostic imaging," says the report, Decisions Decisions. "If there is no change in how family physicians are supported in their role as gatekeeper, we can expect a surge in health service use."

The council's head stressed the group is not attacking the competency of the doctors Canadians visit most often, but issuing a "call for action" to help them better assess a barrage of new medications and technologies. ...more

Canada weighs tighter rules on Avandia diabetes drug

From the Globe and Mail:
Popular diabetes drug Avandia is being pulled off the market in Europe and will face tighter restrictions in the U.S. because of fears patients who take it face an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke and other cardiovascular problems.

The decision is a blow to GlaxoSmithKline Inc., the company that sells Avandia, the brand name of the diabetes drug rosiglitazone.

It also raises questions about further regulatory restrictions in Canada. Health Canada said in 2007 that, because of the potential for cardiovascular problems, Avandia shouldn’t be taken on its own unless patients can’t tolerate other diabetes drugs. Similar restrictions were announced Thursday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

But the European Medicines Agency, which evaluates drugs in the European Union, recommended suspending Avandia’s market authorizations and said it would no longer be available there in the next few months.

In July, Health Canada said it was continuing to review the safety of Avandia and that it was closely monitoring developments in the U.S. The department issued a public advisory in July saying it would take “the appropriate regulatory action necessary” pending the outcome of safety investigations in other countries. ...more

Stricter controls on the way for methadone in B.C.

From CTV News:
.C.'s pharmacists will face stricter controls on their methadone supplies, and the province's pharmacy watchdog says even more rules could be on the way to stop kickback schemes and scams.

Starting in October, pharmacists will have to keep records of all narcotics in their possession to better report theft of the drugs and keep track of methadone use, according to B.C.'s College of Pharmacists.

"This policy change adds more rigour and structure to what many pharmacists were doing in the first place," said the college's deputy registrar Suzanne Solven.

She said the policy came into being as a result of increased concerns about thefts from pharmacies, but that the rules would work in tandem with anti-kickback regulations that have been announced already.

Other rules could be on their way after the college completes a review of methadone practices by the end of the year, she added.

Methadone is a daily medication that satisfies cravings for addicts and keeps them away from hard drugs. ...more

Bismarck Pharmacist Creates Gel to Help Chemo Patients

From KFVR-TV (ND):
A Bismarck pharmacist has been receiving phone calls from physicians all over the world after he created a special gel to relieve pain some patients experience after undergoing chemotherapy.

Mike Riepl is a personalized medication specialist. He created the gel for one patient of his and couldn`t have guessed it would help people across the globe.

Riepl has spent many hours in his pharmacy lab. Mixing chemicals to help people feel better is nothing new to him.

"I was talking to a patient who had gone through chemotherapy, and sometimes chemo will damage the nerve endings or the nerves in the hands and the feet," explained Riepl. "She was complaining she was having a burning sensation, pins and needles. She asked if there was anything that would help."

Riepl talked to the woman`s physician, and then decided to come up with a new solution to help the patient. He created BAK gel, which stands for its three main ingredients, baclofen, amitriptyline and ketamine. ...more

Feeling the effects of a drug shortage

From the Ottawa Citizen:
Claudia McKeen's pharmacy fills 200 to 300 prescriptions a day, but she has to scramble for a couple of dozen of those because her suppliers keep running out of stock.

"There's no penicillin right now in Canada," she said Wednesday -- at least, none of the 300-milligram tablets, a standard size, which stopped coming a few weeks ago. That means a call to each doctor who prescribes it. Would amoxicillin be OK instead? The same goes for a host of drugs. Warfarin, a blood thinner, is now in short supply. So is hepatitis B vaccine; adults have to get two pediatric doses instead of a single shot.

"It's just craziness." Next week, who knows what will run out? There's seldom any warning.

McKeen owns the Glebe Apothecary on Bank Street. There have always been occasional drug shortages, but for the past year it has become much worse, she says.

"We're dispensing things in quarter-tablets because we can't get the right strength. It's a nuisance and a massive headache. It's a big, big concern and a time-waster. I think it's a very bad situation." McKeen warns shortages will likely cause more drug errors. Some of her older customers have trouble keeping track of their drugs already. If she substitutes three small blue pills for one big red pill, they'll have more trouble, she says. ...more

OxyContin cure often worse than ailment

From the Calgary Herald:
Sometimes armed, and always desperate, Cory Alan Sharlow terrorized pharmacists across the city during a series of brazen robberies last fall.

His pattern was wellplanned and predictable: Steal a car. Rob a pharmacist. Make his getaway.

His motive was less complex, but always the same: to get the OxyContin his body craved.

The plan worked so well he robbed 10 pharmacies in a month, until he was caught and later jailed.

Police and addictions experts say Sharlow's case typifies the danger and desperation of addicts driven to get their fix of OxyContin, the brand name given an opioid painkiller that dispenses the drug, oxycodone, through time release. When crushed, the high dosage is released at once, producing a euphoric feeling.

"They find themselves cheating, lying, exaggerating (and) violating their own sense of ethics with the end of satisfying the habit," says Dr. David Hodgins of the University of Calgary's addictive behaviours lab. ...more

Insomnia and anxiety medications increase mortality risk by 36%: Canadian study

This is a decent enough article except when it comes to listing the drugs in the table. Ambien - not available in Canada. Lunesta - not available in Canada. Rozerem - not available in Canada. Sonata - was called Starnoc in Canada but has been discontinued. Silenor - not available under this name. No mention of Imovane at all, which is easily the most prescribed sleeping pill in this country. Memo to the reporter: check more than one source and make sure one of them is Canadian.

From the National Post:
A new comprehensive Canadian study that looks at 12 years’ worth of Statistics Canada data has concluded that taking medications to treat insomnia and anxiety increases mortality risk by 36%.

Genevieve Belleville, a professor at Université Laval‘s School of Psychology, published her finding in the September edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

Belleville arrived at these results through analysis of over 14,000 Canadians in Statistics Canada’s National Population Health Survey. The data includes information on the social demographics, lifestyle and health of Canadians age 18 to 102, surveyed every two years between 1994 and 2007. She also considered the possibility that depression, alcohol and tobacco consumption, physical health and physical activity level could contribute to mortality rates and controlled for these factors.

Respondents who reported having used medication to treat insomnia or anxiety at least once in the month preceding the survey had a mortality rate of 15.7%. Respondents who reported not having used such medications had a rate of 10.5%. ...more

Lack of training for Canadian doctors contributing to narcotics crisis: report

From the Toronto Star:
Canadian doctors are woefully undertrained in pain management and addiction, a shortfall that is contributing to Ontario’s prescription narcotics crisis, says the body that regulates the province’s doctors.

Medical schools in this country devote a meagre 16 hours on average to proper pain education, half of the training nurses receive and less than one fifth the time that veterinary schools devote to the subject.

In a sweeping set of recommendations aimed at stemming epidemic abuse of narcotics like OxyContin, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is urging beefed-up academic training in pain relief and addiction.

“Pain management training in its present format in undergraduate education, particularly for physicians, is insufficient,” said Dr. Stephen Wetmore, who headed the report’s education working group.

“Physicians receive less pain management training than virtually any other health care provider,” he said. ...more

Diabetes could cost Ontario $7B a year by 2020: report

From the National Post:
More than one in 10 Ontarians could be living with diabetes by 2020, costing the province $7-billion a year in health care and lost productivity, a new report reveals.

The study, released on Wednesday morning by the Canadian Diabetes Association, urges the Ontario government to rethink how it fights the epidemic.

According to the report, the number of Ontarians with diabetes has nearly doubled since 2000, from 546,000 to more than 1.1 million, and is on track to grow over the next decade to 1.9 million.

That means 12% of all Ontarians could be diagnosed with the disease by 2020.

Diabetes already costs Ontario $4.9-billion annually, mostly in lost productivity ($2.8-billion) and long-term disability claims ($998-million). Another $1-billion is spent on hospital visits, doctors’ fees and medications. ...more

Next Front In Border Debate: IUDs

From the National Post:
In an unusual twist on the cross-border trade in medical products, doctors in the United States are coming under fire for ordering much cheaper, but apparently identical, versions of IUD birth-control devices from Canada.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says it has not approved the Canadian products, so cannot guarantee their safety. Critics argue the agency is only propping up inflated, U.S. prices, underscoring the high cost of health products generally in the U.S. system.

Meanwhile, one practitioner faces fraud and other criminal charges for importing Canadian IUDs, and some state governments have mounted high-profile crackdowns, ordering doctors to stop using the devices.

"Anybody who takes a look at this scenario can see the problem," said Erin Cassinelli Couch, an Arkansas lawyer who represents the specialist awaiting trial on federal charges.

"You have a private corporation that sets the price quite a bit higher than they set for the same product in other countries, and they've gotten the U.S. government to limit purchases to that company and at that price." ...more