February 10, 2017 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Reuters
A leading drugmaker ramped up its lobbying in Canada fivefold last year, urging government officials to enact a rule that would give it an effective monopoly on long-acting narcotic painkillers.
January 23, 2017 – Anna Mehler Paperny, Reuters
As deaths from powerful painkillers continue to rise, Canada is pursuing unprecedented measures to curb their use, including requiring cigarette-style warning stickers on every prescription, Health Minister Jane Philpott told Reuters.
Photo by Michelle Siu for the Globe and Mail
Tuesday, March 6, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
A Northern Ontario coroner says the province’s doctors and pharmacists need to take extra care in switching patients from OxyContin to other opioids, following the death of a man whose doctor changed his prescription and gave him an incorrect dose.
Photo by Michelle Siu for the Globe and Mail
Saturday, February 18, 2012 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
The epicentres of Canada’s prescription pill problem have said they’ll only pay for the leading brand of potent painkillers under special circumstances – one of the most dramatic steps taken in years to tackle the country’s fastest-growing addiction.
Purdue Pharmaceuticals, which manufactures OxyContin, is replacing it with a drug that’s supposed to be less prone to abuse. But some provinces have decided that’s not good enough.
Toby Talbot/The Associated Press
Friday, August 12, 2011 – Globe and Mail
ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY
Starting in November, the Ontario government will have the ability to collect information on who’s prescribing how many pills to whom, and where those prescriptions are getting filled.
Regulations attached to the province’s planned prescription database, which has been in the works for months, passed cabinet Wednesday. That means that this fall in theory – and this winter in practice, because that’s when the database will be fully functional – the province can start tracking prescriptions and, eventually, clamp down on what Health Minister Deb Matthews calls an urgent problem with over-prescribed narcotics.
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