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As prescription opioids are blamed for fuelling a crisis that has killed thousands of Canadians, five pharmaceutical companies including Purdue Pharma have heeded a call from the federal government to stop marketing those painkillers.
Health Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor had asked for drug makers to voluntarily suspend their promotional activities relating to opioids while Health Canada develops policies aimed at restricting the marketing and advertising, expected in 2019.
The other four pharmaceutical companies that have agreed to stop advertising have not been publicly identified.
Purdue’s introduction of OxyContin in 1996 is seen as the root of the current crisis, as the company promoted the drug as safer and less addictive than other opioids.
In February, Purdue’s parent company stopped promoting prescription painkillers in the United States, where it has previously acknowledged misleading marketing and paid more than US$600-million to settle criminal and civil charges. A growing number of American states and cities have filed lawsuits against the company for deceptive marketing.
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TODAY’S HEADLINES
Canadians are looking for their own way to hit back back against Donald Trump’s trade war. A majority of respondents to a new poll conducted for The Globe and Mail by Nanos Research said they were likely, or somewhat likely, to avoid travelling to the United States or to boycott American stores and products.
Congress members in Illinois are warning that the Trump administration’s tariffs on Canadian newsprint are jeopardizing American newspapers that are already in financial danger.
The Conservatives out-fundraised the Liberals in 2017, new Elections Canada data show.
Quebec shipbuilder Chantier Davie Canada Inc. has been taken to court over allegedly unpaid bills, a charge the company denies. The ship at issue has been a source of controversy, and is linked to the removal of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman from his post as the military’s second-in-command.
Ontario’s newly elected premier, Doug Ford, has already set work dismantling some of the previous government’s policies. In just a few days, Mr. Ford’s Progressive Conservative government has frozen new measures on police oversight, ticket scalping and vaping, while also firing Ontario’s new chief scientist.
Mr. Ford’s campaign promise to cancel cap and trade is prompting the federal government to…
