78% of Canadians support coverage to include medically necessary prescription drugs

Polls show that most Canadians cherish the underpinning ethics of our medicare system: that healthcare should be allocated on the basis of need not ability to pay. But polls also show that Canadians want more from the system.

The list of potential improvements is long. Public opinion and research evidence point to areas such as improving primary healthcare, reducing wait times and being more proactive about health promotion and disease prevention.

Drug-buying plan expected to save provinces and territories $100 million

OTTAWA—Provincial and territorial governments expect to save up to $100 million in health-care spending by combining their purchasing power to drive down the cost of six commonly used generic drugs.

More savings could be on the way as the provinces and territories plan to continue discussions with brand-name pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the federal government has signalled a willingness to come on board with the new drug-buying program.

Bureaucrats concerned with drug-shortage plan later backed by minister

TORONTO - The federal health minister opted to let drug makers voluntarily alert doctors and pharmacists of medication shortages despite concerns from her own department that the approach could put Canada's drug supply at risk, documents show.

Records obtained by The Canadian Press indicate civil servants at Health Canada warned in February of last year a voluntary-notice system was "susceptible to bad company behaviour" that could see firms neglect to report every shortage. An outline comparing voluntary versus mandatory approaches cautioned there would be no way to punish manufacturers who fail to report production gaps, which leave health practitioners scrambling to get drugs to their patients.

Heart disease drug 'combats racism'

Volunteers given the beta-blocker, used to treat chest pains and lower heart rates, scored lower on a standard psychological test of "implicit" racist attitudes.

They appeared to be less racially prejudiced at a subconscious level than another group treated with a "dummy" placebo pill.

Scientists believe the discovery can be explained by the fact that racism is fundamentally founded on fear.

Propranolol acts both on nerve circuits that govern automatic functions such as heart rate, and the part of the brain involved in fear and emotional responses. The drug is also used to treat anxiety and panic.

Experimental psychologist Dr Sylvia Terbeck, from Oxford University, who led the study published in the journal Psychopharmacology, said: "Our results offer new evidence about the processes in the brain that shape implicit racial bias.

Canadians are unable to afford prescription drugs

One in 10 Canadians are not able to adhere to their prescriptions due to the cost of prescription drugs, found Michael Law et al. in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. But more than just numbers, the study asked who are those one in 10 and found something truly troubling. The people in Canada who are the most unlikely to adhere to prescription medication due to cost are: those who do not have drug insurance (public or private), those who earn the lowest income ($20,000 or less), and those who are in the poorest health or have multiple conditions -- in other words, those who could benefit the most from pharmacare.

Our need for pharmacare

Two-thirds of Canadians pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs each year, which totals $4.6 billion or 17.5 per cent of total spending on prescription drugs. Almost 10 per cent of Canadians reported not filling or renewing a prescription or trying to make a prescription last longer because of out-of-pocket expenses.

While 26.5 per cent of people who reported cost-related nonadherence to prescription drugs had no drug coverage, 6.8 per cent of Canadians who did have drug insurance reported cost-related nonadherence. This meant that lacking insurance was associated with a four-fold increase in the odds of cost-related nonadherence to prescription drugs. Not having drug insurance was the largest associated factor with cost-related nonadherence. This is also the area that the study's authors found to be the most amenable to being addressed through changes to public policy.