July 7, 2024 from Western Standard
Since the introduction of Vanessa’s Law in 2014, the reporting of serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in Canadian hospitals has experienced a substantial increase. Named in memory of Vanessa Young, a schoolgirl who tragically died from a prescription medication, the law has significantly changed the landscape of drug safety reporting.
According to a recent Department of Health report, mandatory reporting requirements for serious ADRs in hospitals, which began in December 2019, have led to a dramatic rise in the number of reported cases. Prior to this mandate, hospitals reported only 1.3% of all serious ADRs. This number surged to 9% following the new regulations.
The report, titled Evaluation Of The Pharmaceutical Drugs Program, highlights that since the enactment of Vanessa’s Law, a total of 16,520 serious ADRs have been reported by Canadian hospitals, with 678 of these cases resulting in fatalities. This increase is part of a broader trend where the total number of annual ADR reports has escalated from 4,000 in the mid-1990s to over 80,000. Notably, serious ADRs have jumped from 1,500 to more than 60,000 annually.
Vanessa’s Law, officially known as Bill C-17, was designed to enhance drug safety and expand the government’s powers to remove prescription drugs that pose an “imminent risk of injury to health.” The law was prompted by the death of Vanessa Young in 2000 due to heart failure after taking Prepulsid, a drug that was withdrawn from the market five months later. The law aims to prevent such tragedies by ensuring that serious ADRs are reported and addressed promptly.
Vanessa’s parents stated that they were not warned that the drug prescribed to the daughter was responsible for 80 other deaths. Her father, Terence Young, who was an MP at the time, sponsored the Act saying that “the drug industry representatives who infest Parliament Hill love to talk about when doctors make errors or patients take too much of a drug. What they never talk about is when a drug used the right way kills or injures a patient.”
The report also reveals that Canada is the world’s ninth-largest prescription drug market, with total sales, including non-patented and over-the-counter medicines, rising by 35% from 2011 to 2019, reaching $29.9 billion.
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