[2]
How safe are the approximately $25 billion worth of prescription drugs that Canadians consume each year? The Health Council of Canada’s new report entitled Keeping an Eye on Prescription Drugs, Keeping Canadians Safe [3] finds that testing for safety and effectiveness takes place almost exclusively before medications are approved and that there are “few regulatory obligations once a product reaches the market.”
The report, prepared by York University researchers Mary Wiktorowicz and Joel Lexchin, assesses the Canadian post-market systems of drug surveillance - “pharmacovigilance” - and finds that there is no national system to test drugs for safety after they reach the market.
Read the article on this report by Andre Picard in the Globe and Mail: Why does drug testing stop once it's on the market? [4]