From Helke Ferrie

[Guest guest]

Poster's Comment: Helke says this is from her via Kos Publishing, and will

appear in 3 newspapers in Tony Clements's riding as a full-page ad! The url

to Kos Publishing is at the end of this article.

 

 

October 6, 2008

Dear Residents,

I am a medical science writer and my work has for many years focused on the

impact of environment, food, and politics on medicine. Consequently, I am

familiar with the policies of several federal and provincial Ministers of

Health, including the Honorable Tony Clement. The prospect of his return to

office,

possibly again as Minister of Health, is to me so alarming that I would like

the undecided voter to consider the following facts (sources available in my

articles on _www.vitalitymagazine.com_ (http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/) ).

Last month, the Euro-Canada Health Care Index compared the health care

performance of the 29 European Union member countries and Canada. Canada placed

23rd of those 30 countries in overall performance and came last in cost

efficiency because of Canada’s profligate spending on ever-more expensive

(and

ever-less useful and ever-more lethal) drugs and business-model hospitals. The

report from the Winnipeg-based Frontier Centre for Public Policy stated that

Canadians are forced to “rely on a sclerotic, inefficient and remarkably

stingy

systemâ€. As for patients’ rights and access to information, Canada was as

bad as Poland.

While it is true that health ministers (Liberal and Conservative) previous

to Mr. Clement did their level best to wreck our once excellent health care

and the safety regulations for our food production system, there is no doubt in

my mind that Mr. Clement has done more in two years to further the ruination

and near-bankruptcy of Medicare and the dismantling of food and drug safety

regulations than his colleagues did in a decade.

I arrived at this judgment through the careful consideration of the damning

reports and opinions on Health Canada published in many venues (and also part

of current federal court cases ongoing and pending against the government)

by Canada’s veterinarians, public service unions such as the 340,000 member

Union of Public and General Employees, the even larger CUPE, the country’s

health and safety inspectors, the Ontario Secondary School Teachers, the Public

Service Alliance of Canada, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, the

Canadian Union of Postal Workers, the National Farmers Union,

practitioners, professors of public health at several Canadian universities,

the Canadian Medical Association, NGO’s, such as Council of Canadians, the

Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, the Canadian Health Coalition, the

groups representing naturopathic, nutritional, and environmental medicine.

The current food safety crisis due to listeriosis is in the opinion of these

organizations entirely due to the fact that federal safety programs have

experienced a 30% decline in funding between 2006 and 2007. When the federal

election was called, several government bills were poised to completely

eliminate all independent oversight and leave all safety issues in the hands of

the

food producers themselves with no independent accountability at all. (An

parallel bill was also before the House which would have eliminated safety

oversight for the aviation industry; when India tried that, their domestic

airlines became known as “flying coffins†and the policy was reversed

following

many aviation disasters.)

Mr. Clement has the nickname “two-tier Tony†in the Canadian Medical

Association Journal because of his willingness to privatize Medicare. Also, the

recently revised Canada Food Guide was critiqued as being hardly in line with

current nutritional science, and thereby doing little if anything to prevent

the exponential increase in chronic disease due to these nutrient-poor foods.

So far, Mr. Clement and his party have shown their support for the food and

drug industry, but not for public health.

Death from the side-effects of correctly prescribed medications has become

one of the leading causes of death in the country (annually 20,000 reported

cases; actual number is thought to be at least double). This development is

primarily due to the constant political interference with Health Canada

scientists ordered to ignore the Food and Drugs Act, a policy started under

Mulroney

and followed under Harper. Conning us into believing that this excellent

safety-oriented Act requires “modernizationâ€, Mr. Clement introduced bill

C-51 in April which would have given us “progressive licensing†of drugs:

i.e.

human safety tests would have been done on the general population first,

instead of within clinical trials, and if the industry considered the death toll

manageable, the drug would get Health Canada’s marketing approval. The US and

Canada tried this for the first time with the vaccine Gardasil (supposedly

against cervical cancer, but it works only on certain genital warts, none of

which cause cancer) which has in a two years caused a death and adverse event

toll exceeding all other vaccines combined. These population-wide toxicity

tests would have become the norm had bill C-51 passed; it is now awaiting

re-introduction should the Conservatives form the government again.

C 51 would also have cleared the way for direct-to-consumer advertising of

prescription drugs, which in the US caused a drug sale increase of 46% in the

first year and propelled deaths from side effects from fourth to the leading

cause of death, according to Johns Hopkins Medical School research.

According to Sections 10 and 18 of C 51, control over medical research would

have effectively been removed from the universities and placed into the

hands of the Minister of Health who would have had sole power to decide what

research may or may not be done and to shut down any ongoing clinical trials

without any requirement for an independent consultation process with people who

actually know something about medicine.

Finally, the very definition of “government†changed mysteriously. Section

30.7 of C-51 would have included as part of the definition of Canada’s

government: foreign governments, foreign regulatory agencies, and foreign

corporations – whom we did not elect, on whose boards we do not sit, and

whose

activities are not under the scrutiny of our MPs or media.

For all the facts about Mr. Clement’s activities and the Harper

administration’s record on health issues, I refer you to my book, What Part

of No! Don’t

They Understand? Rescuing Food and Medicine from Government Abuse – A

Manifesto, published in June of this year; available on a non-profit basis and

to

Dr. Shiv Chopra’s Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of A Health Canada Scientist

(_www.kospublishing.com_ (http://www.kospublishing.com/) or 519-927-1049).

Mr. Clement’s boss, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, has been quoted as saying

that the right-wing Conservative movement in the US is his “light†and “

inspirationâ€. I leave it to you to consider if in things medical this is the

way

for us to be inspired - and if through our vote we would like to consent

to expire accordingly.

Helke Ferrie

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ABOUT KOS PUBLISHING

At this url, you will find information about Kos Publishing and Helke

Ferrie. When you arrive there, on the lefthand side you will see a link

called

'About Kos' - click on it.

_http://www.kospublishing.com/_ (http://www.kospublishing.com/)

At this url, you will find information about Kos Publishing and Helke

Ferrie.