How much does ventolin cost in america

That they https://www.georgemarioattard.com/how-to-get-prescribed-ventolin are ‘following the science’ has become the watchword of many politicians during the present ventolin, especially when imposing or prolonging lockdowns or how much does ventolin cost in america other liberty-restricting regulations. The scientists who advise politicians however are usually careful to add that the decision what to restrict and when is ultimately a political one. In science, as in medical practice, there is a delicate balance to be maintained between confidence in the how much does ventolin cost in america best available information, and the necessary caveat that the assumptions and calculations on which that information is based are subject to further scientific enquiry. For politicians and the public, moreover, as for patients, whether those informing them are judged to be trustworthy is a necessary consideration, a judgement determined by a variety of personal and political contingencies and circumstances.

Ethics, by contrast, unable to appeal to scientific consensus (however revisable) or political authority (however reversible), let alone a confidence-inspiring bedside manner, must rest the case for its essentially contestable assumptions and arguments being judged trustworthy, on its willingness to admit all reasoned voices (including occasionally those that question reason itself) to how much does ventolin cost in america a conversation that is potentially unending, but in the process often highly enlightening.That conversation is contributed to in this issue of the Journal by several reasoned voices, mostly on ethical aspects of the asthma treatment ventolin. Relevant to issues on which politicians claim to be ‘following the science’, but also raising fundamental ethical questions, is this month’s feature article. In Ethics of Selective Restriction of Liberty in a ventolin,1 Cameron and how much does ventolin cost in america colleagues consider ‘if and when it may be ethically acceptable to impose selective liberty-restricting measures in order to reduce the negative impacts of a ventolin by preventing particularly vulnerable groups [for example, the elderly in asthma treatment] of the community from contracting the disease’ [and thereby, for example, increasing the disease burden]. €˜Preventing harm to others when this is least restrictive option’, they argue, ‘fails to adequately accommodate the complexity of the issue or the difficult choices that must be made’.

Instead, they propose ‘a dualist consequentialist approach, weighing utility at both a population and individual level’, thereby taking account of ‘two relevant values to be promoted or maximised. Well-being and liberty’, as well as the how much does ventolin cost in america value of equality, ‘protected through the application of an additional proportionality test’. The authors then propose an algorithm to take account of the different values and variables which need to be weighed up. They conclude how much does ventolin cost in america.

€˜Selective restriction of liberty is justified when the problem is grave, the expected utility of the liberty restriction is high and significantly greater than the alternatives and the costs of the liberty restrictions are relatively small both at a population and individual level… Discrimination can be justified under these conditions when it is proportionate and limited to a very specific public health challenge’. The arguments and conclusions of the feature how much does ventolin cost in america article are discussed in the two Commentaries2 3.In asthma treatment controlled human studies. Worries about local community impact and demands for local engagement,4 Eyal and Lee review recent arguments which express ‘concern about undue usage of local residents’ direly needed scarce resources at a time of great need and even about their unintended ’ – and hence a requirement for ‘either avoiding controlled trials (CHIs) or engaging local communities before conducting CHIs’. They then examine and compare the evidence of such adverse (and some potentially positive) effects of CHIs with those of conventional field trials and argue that ‘both small and large negative effects on struggling communities are likelier in field trials than in CHIs’.

€˜Whether or not local community engagement is necessary for urgent treatment studies in a ventolin’, they conclude, ‘the case for its engagement is stronger prior to field trials than prior to controlled human studies’.In Payment of asthma treatment challenge how much does ventolin cost in america trials. Underpayment is a bigger worry than overpayment,5 Blumenthal Barby and Ubel consider the impact not on communities but on individuals, and specifically on ‘how much people should be paid for their participation in asthma treatment challenge trials’. Noting recent how much does ventolin cost in america worries about ‘incentivising people with large amounts of money’, they argue that ‘higher payment that accounts for participant time, and for pains, burdens and willingness to take risks’ constitutes neither ‘undue inducement’ (for which the remedy is strengthening informed consent processes and minimising risks) nor ‘unjust inducement’ of individuals from ‘already disadvantaged groups’. Evidence of recruitment to challenge trials worldwide suggests, on the contrary, that participants ‘come from all walks of life’.

Nor are how much does ventolin cost in america these authors convinced that ‘offering substantial payment waters down the auistic motives of those involved’. €˜auism and payment’ they argue, ‘frequently coexist. Teachers, physicians, public defenders – they all dedicate their lives to helping people. But few do without compensation.’In Money how much does ventolin cost in america is not everything.

Experimental evidence that payments do not increase willingness to be vaccinated against asthma treatment6, Sprengholz and colleagues report on an ‘experiment investigating the impact of payments and the communication of individual and prosocial benefits of high vaccination rates on vaccination intentions.’ In November 2020 over 1,000 ‘individuals from a German non-probabilistic sample’ were asked about their intentions. The ‘results revealed that none of these interventions or their combinations increased willingness to be vaccinated shortly after a treatment becomes available.’ Given that this experiment was conducted before treatments became how much does ventolin cost in america available and only in Germany, the authors suggest that these results ‘should be generalised with caution’, but that ‘decision makers’ also ‘should be cautious about introducing monetary incentives and instead focus on interventions that increase confidence in treatment safety first’.In Voluntary asthma treatment vaccination of children. A social responsibility,7 Brusa and Barilan observe a ventolin paradox. €˜while we rely on low quality evidence when harming children by school deprivation and social distancing, we insist on a remarkably high level of safety data how much does ventolin cost in america to benefit them with vaccination’.

The consequent exclusion of children from vaccination, they argue, is unjust and not in ‘the best interest of the child as a holistic value encompassing physical, psychological, social and spiritual well-being’, something which ‘there is no scientific method for evaluating’. Society, rather, ‘has the political responsibility to factor in the overall impact of the ventolin on children’s well-being’ and the ‘ultimate choice is a matter of paediatric informed consent. Moreover, jurisdictions that permit non-participation in established childhood vaccination programmes should also permit choice of treatments outside of the approved programmes.’ The authors conclude by outlining ‘a prudent and ethical scheme for gradual incorporation of minors in vaccination programmes that includes a rigorous postvaccination monitoring.’In Challenging misconceptions about clinical ethics support during how much does ventolin cost in america asthma treatment and beyond. A legal update and future considerations,8 Brierley, Archard and Cave note that the ‘asthma treatment ventolin has highlighted the lack of formal ethics processes in most UK hospitals… at a time of unprecedented need for such support’.

Unlike Research Ethics Committees (RECs), Clinical Ethics Committees (CECs) in the how much does ventolin cost in america UK have neither any ‘well-funded governing authority,’ nor the decision-making capacity over clinical questions which RECs have over research. In 2001 the ‘three central functions of CECs’ were described as ‘education, policy development and case review’. But more recently ‘the role of some was expanding’ and in 2020 how much does ventolin cost in america the UK General Medical Council ‘mentioned for the first time the value in seeking advice from CECs to resolve disagreements’. Misunderstanding of CEC’s role however began to arise when some courts appeared to ‘perceive CECs as an alternative dispute resolution mechanism’ rather than as providing ‘ethics support, with treatment decisions remaining with the clinical team and those providing their consent.’ The future role of CECs, as well as the nature of patient involvement in them, the authors conclude, will depend on a choice between the ‘flexibility and diversity of the current ethical support system’ and ‘greater standardisation, governance and funding’.Important ethical issues not directly related to asthma treatment are discussed in this issue’s remaining papers.

In Institutional conflict of interest. Attempting to crack the deferiprone mystery,9 Schafer identifies, places in historical context, and analyses ethical issues raised by the ‘ mystery’ of why between 2009 and 2015 ‘a third of patients with thalassaemia in Canada’s largest hospital were switched from first-line licensed drugs to regimens of deferiprone, how much does ventolin cost in america an unlicensed drug of unproven safety and efficacy’. He then considers ‘institutional conflict of interest’ as ‘a possible explanatory hypothesis’.The perils of a broad approach to public interest in health data research. A response to Ballantyne and Schaefer10 by Grewal and Newson and Ballantyne and Schaefer’s response In defence of a broad approach to public interest in health data research11 debate legal and philosophical aspects of whether ‘public interest’, and how narrowly or broadly this is conceived, is the most appropriate justification of consent waivers for secondary research on health information.In Do we really know how many clinical trials are conducted ethically,12 Yarborough presents evidence in support of the argument that 'research ethics committee practices need to be strengthed' and then suggests 'initial steps we could take to strengthen them'.Finally, and returning to how ‘science’ is perceived, in Lessons from how much does ventolin cost in america Frankenstein 200 years on.

Brain organoids, chimaeras and other ‘monsters’13, Koplin and Massie make a crucial observation. In ‘bioethical debates, Frankenstein is usually evoked as how much does ventolin cost in america a warning against interfering with the natural order or “playing God”’. But in the novel, Frankenstein’s ‘most serious moral error’ was made ‘not when he decided to pursue his scientific breakthrough (one which might, after all, have helped save lives), but when he failed to consider his moral obligations to the creature he created.’ Today, when, like Frankenstein, ‘modern scientists are creating and manipulating life in unprecedented ways’ such as brain organoids and chimaeras, Koplin and Massie argue, ‘two key insights’ can be drawn from Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. First, ‘if we have created an entity in order to experiment on it’ we need ‘to extend much consideration to its interests and preferences, not least because ‘scientists cannot always rely on existing regulations to anticipate moral issues associated with the creation of new kinds of organisms’.

And second how much does ventolin cost in america. €˜we should be wary of any prejudice we feel towards beings that look and behave differently from us’ and should ‘interrogate any knee-jerk intuitions we have about the moral status of unfamiliar kinds of beings.’Ethics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required.IntroductionThalassaemia is an inherited anaemia that exerts an enormous disease burden worldwide.1 Along with sickle cell disease, it is one of the two most common single gene disorders. Indeed, ‘the alpha and beta thalassaemias are the most common inherited single-gene disorders in the world…’2A newly published study by Olivieri, Sabouhanian how much does ventolin cost in america and Gallie3 analyses and assesses the comparative efficacy and safety profile of two drugs. Deferiprone (Ferriprox.

Apotex) and deferasirox how much does ventolin cost in america (Exfade. Novartis). Both of these ‘iron-chelating’ drugs remove (‘chelate’) iron deposited, as a result of transfusions, in the tissues of patients with thalassaemia.The present-day first-line chelator, deferasirox, how much does ventolin cost in america was licensed by the US FDA in 2005. The evidence for its safety and effectiveness was judged to be substantial and, accordingly, the FDA licensed it as a first-line agent.

The prime advantage of deferasirox, in comparison to deferoxamine, an older drug that was formerly the gold standard of iron-chelating therapy for thalassaemia, is that deferasirox is orally active (that is, taken in pill form), while deferoxamine is more burdensome for patients because it has to be taken parenterally (that is, via injection). Deferiprone, like deferasirox, is taken orally but how much does ventolin cost in america has not been licensed anywhere as first-line treatment. The FDA withheld market approval for deferiprone because there were/are no controlled trials demonstrating direct treatment benefit. Although the FDA did eventually approve deferiprone, in 2011, it gave approval only as a last-resort treatment for those patients in whom other chelators had been how much does ventolin cost in america tried unsuccessfully.1The data presented by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE paper indicate that the drugs differ significantly with respect to their effectiveness and safety.

This commentary explores some of the ethical issues raised by the PLOS data.Historical contextIn order to understand properly the significance of the PLOS ONE Study some historical context will be helpful. What follows is a brief sketch of that context.2In 1993 Dr Nancy Olivieri, a specialist in blood diseases at Toronto’s Hospital for how much does ventolin cost in america Sick Children (HSC or ‘Sick Kids’) and Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Toronto (U of T), signed a contract with Apotex, a generic drug company, to continue studies of deferiprone, the early promise of which she had already reported in the literature. Olivieri’s thalassaemia research was initially supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada, but now she sought additional funding to extend her clinical trials. Apotex contributed this additional funding, thereby obtaining worldwide patents on the still-experimental drug.Despite early promise, by 1996 Olivieri’s research began to indicate that deferiprone might be inadequately effective in many patients, posing risks of potentially serious harm.

Olivieri communicated to Apotex her intention to inform patients of this unexpected risk how much does ventolin cost in america and she proposed also to amend the study’s consent forms. She wished to continue amended studies of the drug, and to publish her findings.Apotex responded to Olivieri that they disagreed with her interpretation of the data and the company’s CEO threatened her with ‘all legal remedies’ should she inform patients or publish her findings. In issuing these threats, Apotex relied on a confidentiality clause in a legal contract Olivieri had signed with Apotex how much does ventolin cost in america in 1993. This contract prohibited disclosure ‘to any third party’ without the express permission of Apotex.3Despite the objections raised by Apotex, Olivieri saw it as her professional duty to disclose her findings.

The Research Ethics Board how much does ventolin cost in america (REB) of Sick Kids Hospital reached the same conclusion. In compliance with instructions from the Hospital’s REB, Olivieri duly informed both her patients and the regulatory authorities.When Olivieri later identified a second risk—that liver damage progressed during deferiprone exposure—Apotex issued additional legal warnings. Olivieri nevertheless proceeded to inform her patients of this additional risk and published her findings.Since patient safety, research integrity and academic freedom were all at stake in this dispute, Olivieri appealed for assistance, repeatedly, to senior officials at both the U of T and Sick Kids Hospital. Neither the how much does ventolin cost in america University nor the Hospital provided the support she requested.

In the words of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry on the Case Involving Dr Nancy Olivieri, the HSC, the U of T, and Apotex Inc4:The HSC and the U of T did not provide effective support either for Dr Olivieri and her rights, or for the principles of research and clinical ethics, and of academic freedom, during the first two and a half years of this controversy.Instead, both the University and the Hospital ‘took actions that were harmful to Dr. Olivieri’s interests and professional reputation and disrupted her work’.4 how much does ventolin cost in america The harmful actions included firing Olivieri from her position as Director of the Hemoglobinopathy Program at Sick Kids Hospital and referring her for discipline to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO).Only later did it emerge that, during this period of conflict, the U of T was negotiating with Apotex for a major donation towards building the University’s proposed new molecular medicine building. Some speculated that the University’s failure to support Olivieri may not have been unconnected from its desire to appease a wealthy corporate donor. This speculation was reinforced when it was discovered that the then President of the University, Robert Prichard, had secretly lobbied the government of Canada how much does ventolin cost in america for changes in drug patent law, changes that would favour Apotex.4Apotex proceeded to sue Olivieri for defaming both the company and their drug.

She sued the company for defaming her.The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the U of T Faculty Association (UTFA), to whom Olivieri appealed for assistance after being rebuffed by the U of T and HSC, viewed the underlying issue as one of academic freedom. Both CAUT and UTFA provided support, including legal advice, to Olivieri.Thus began what is widely acknowledged to be the greatest scandal in Canadian academic history. Commissions of inquiry, books and how much does ventolin cost in america articles (both scholarly and popular) proliferated, not to mention newspaper and television stories. John le Carré’s novel The Constant Gardener and the Hollywood movie based on the book both appeared to draw heavily on the Olivieri-Apotex scandal.

An inquiry into the dispute commissioned by Sick Kids Hospital (the Naimark Inquiry)5 absolved Apotex of wrongdoing but suggested that Olivieri was seriously at fault.5 She was charged with research misconduct and how much does ventolin cost in america failures of patient care and was referred first to the Hospital’s Medical Advisory Council and subsequently to the disciplinary committee of the CPSO. Unsurprisingly, these widely publicised referrals were prejudicial to Olivieri’s reputation.The CAUT then commissioned an independent inquiry.6 The 540-page CAUT report on the Olivieri/Apotex affair4 gave a markedly different account of the scandal from that offered by the hospital-commissioned Naimark Report. A few excerpts from the CAUT report will convey its central findings:Apotex how much does ventolin cost in america issued more legal warnings to deter Dr. Olivieri from communicating this second unexpected risk of L1 (deferiprone) to anyone.

However, she was legally and ethically obligated to communicate the risk to those taking or prescribing the drug as there were potential safety implications for patients, and she fulfilled these obligations despite the legal warnings.Apotex acted against the public interest in issuing legal warnings to Dr. Olivieri to deter her from communicating about risks of L1.Apotex’s legal warnings violated Dr how much does ventolin cost in america. Olivieri’s academic freedom.7Shortly after the CAUT report absolved Olivieri of misconduct, the CPSO published the findings of its inquiry. The CPSO report how much does ventolin cost in america exonerated Olivieri of all misconduct charges.

Indeed, their report concluded that her conduct had been ‘commendable’.6 This favourable verdict did not, however, bring an end to litigation.In 2004, 8 years after the first legal threats had been issued, Apotex signed a mediated settlement with Olivieri. Nevertheless, litigation how much does ventolin cost in america continued for another 10 years. Those unfamiliar with the workings of the law may wonder how it is possible for litigation to continue for such a long period after a mediated settlement. Litigation continued because Apotex alleged that Olivieri had violated their agreement.

Olivieri insisted that she was in compliance with the terms how much does ventolin cost in america of the settlement. Court decisions were appealed by both parties. A final how much does ventolin cost in america settlement was not reached between Olivieri and Apotex until 2014.8 Shades of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Charles Dicken’s novel Bleak House.The HSC settled its dispute with Olivieri in 2006 and, although her research programme at the Hospital continued, she ceased to provide clinical care to HSC patients.

From 1997 to 2009, Olivieri served as how much does ventolin cost in america Director of the University Health Network (UHN) Hemoglobinopathy Program. She continued, as she had since 1997, to assist in the clinical care of UHN patients with thalassaemia and to enrol them in her research studies. In March 2009, however, Olivieri was dismissed by UHN from her how much does ventolin cost in america position as Director. No reason was given for her dismissal (Personal communication.

Olivieri, 2019).The PLOS ONE Study data3 show that, after Olivieri’s dismissal from her position as Director, the UHN thalassaemia Clinic began almost immediately to switch patients to (unlicensed) deferiprone. Olivieri has described how her UHN research work, from this time forward, was marginalised (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2018-12-20-GallieOlivieri-to-SmithHodges.pdf).Meanwhile, Freedom of Information (FOI) how much does ventolin cost in america requests filed by Olivieri after her dismissal revealed that Apotex was supplying unrestricted educational grants to UHN’s thalassaemia programme as well as providing research support. The FOI requests filed by Olivieri also revealed that Apotex was strategising with the programme’s new director about how best to obtain licensing for deferiprone from the regulator (Health Canada).9 With this dramatic background as historical context, we commence our discussion of the ethical implications of the PLOS ONE paper.Findings of the PLOS ONE paperIn their 2019 PLOS ONE study Olivieri et al conclude, based on a retrospective review of patient data at Toronto’s UHN, that deferiprone is inadequately effective and associated with serious toxicity. Their review also confirms that, by contrast, deferasirox is effective and associated with relatively few adverse effects.3Olivieri et al report that ‘[b]etween 2009 and 2015, a third of patients transfused and managed in Canada’s largest transfusion programme were switched from first-line, licensed drugs to regimens of unlicensed deferiprone’.3 This finding raises how much does ventolin cost in america the ethically troubling question.

How and why were so many locally transfused patients at UHN treated over such a long time period with an unlicensed drug of unproven safety and efficacy?. This ethical how much does ventolin cost in america concern is followed immediately by another related concern. Why did the UHN thalassaemia programme continue to treat large numbers of its patients with deferiprone—despite ongoing evidence of inadequate effectiveness and serious (and often irreversible) adverse effects?. 3To recapitulate.

The PLOS ONE paper demonstrates that a substantial how much does ventolin cost in america proportion of UHN patients with thalassaemia was switched, between the years 2009 and 2015, from first-line licensed therapies (deferasirox or deferoxamine) to deferiprone. During this entire period, deferiprone was unlicensed in Canada. To this day in every jurisdiction in which deferiprone has been licensed it how much does ventolin cost in america has been licensed only as ‘last resort’ therapy. The ethical concern is to explain and to explore possible justifications for how and why so many patients at one particular thalassaemia treatment centre were prescribed a drug whose safety and efficacy were unproven in face of availability of licensed effective drugs.

The urgency of the how much does ventolin cost in america concern derives partly from the paper’s finding that those patients who were switched to deferiprone displayed evidence of increases in body iron and experienced the harms associated with body iron increase.3 This finding raises a second troubling ethical question. Why were patients not switched back to a first-line licensed therapy after they began to experience serious adverse effects from treatment with unlicensed deferiprone?. How and why?. In a sustained effort to discover answers to these questions, Olivieri and Gallie have been how much does ventolin cost in america in communication since 2015, by email and in personal meetings, with senior officials at UHN.

Olivieri and Gallie report, however, that no definitive answers have yet been provided to any of their questions. FOI requests were filed but they, too, how much does ventolin cost in america failed to produce definitive answers. (Olivieri and Gallie to Smith &. Porter, 2019, https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019-04-23-OlivieriGallie-to-SmithPorter.pdf).10 I, too, wrote to the CEO/President of UHN and to the Chief of Medical Staff, in an attempt to discover answers to a number of the ethical questions how much does ventolin cost in america posed in this commentary.

The hospital, however, has not responded to any of my questions.11Olivieri and Gallie have recently posted documentation of their correspondence with senior UHN administrators (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/). In September 2019 the UHN administration responded to the PLOS ONE paper by revealing that it had conducted a ‘Review of chelation practice in the red blood cell disorders program at UHN’. However, as Olivieri and Gallie document on the web, the hospital’s ‘Review’ does how much does ventolin cost in america not address any of the safety concerns flagged in the PLOS ONE paper (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Letter-to-Smith-and-Hodges-2-12-19.pdf). Nor does the ‘Review’ address any of the ethical concerns raised here.Despite UHN’s apparent reluctance to provide the information requested, here’s what we know or can reasonably infer.

Deferiprone was unlicensed in Canada during the relevant period, that is, from how much does ventolin cost in america 2009 to 2015. €˜Unlicensed’ is different from ‘off-label’, the latter referring to a drug that has been licensed but is being provided for an indication other than that for which it is approved. Prescription of how much does ventolin cost in america any unlicensed drug to Canadian patients can be accomplished only in one of two mutually exclusive ways. Either through Health Canada’s ‘Special Access Program (SAP)’ or via an REB approved clinical trial.

It has to be one or the other since, as Health Canada’s Guidance Document7 makes clear, patients cannot be simultaneously treated through SAP and in a research trial.12 Under the SAP, the treating physician must confirm to Health Canada that ‘conventional therapies have failed, or are unsuitable or unavailable’. Although some of the UHN patients’ records indicate that how much does ventolin cost in america deferiprone was released under the SAP, Olivieri et al report that they ‘could identify no explanation for a proposed switch to deferiprone that was supported by evidence of failure of licensed therapy prescribed as recommended’3. Indeed, the authors write that many patients appear to have been switched to deferiprone despite optimal responses, or improvements during treatment with first-line therapies. Here’s the relevant paragraph from their PLOS ONE article:Deferiprone was prescribed to 41 study patients between 2009 how much does ventolin cost in america and 2015.

We could identify in the electronic medical records no explanation for a proposed switch to deferiprone that was supported by evidence of failure of licensed therapy prescribed as recommended. There was no indication how much does ventolin cost in america that any patient switched to deferiprone over these 6 years had ‘failed’ therapy with either deferoxamine or deferasirox. Many patients were recorded as tolerant of at least one and (in most), both licensed first-line chelating agents. Some had sustained minor adverse events during deferasirox that had resolved by the time deferiprone was prescribed.3In other words, according to the data found in UHN patient records, there is no evidence that the patients with thalassaemia who were switched to deferiprone met Health Canada’s eligibility criteria under SAP.

Since deferiprone is licensed only as a ‘last resort’ therapy, its employment to treat patients who can tolerate either of the first-line therapies might improperly expose those patients to risks of serious medical harms, up to and including death.On the other hand, one should also consider the alternate possibility that, over the 6-year period studied by Olivieri et al, how much does ventolin cost in america deferiprone was prescribed as part of a clinical trial. In favour of this hypothesis, one notes that the UHN physician primarily responsible for the widespread prescribing of deferiprone during the relevant time period claimed, in 2011, that deferiprone was provided to patients under a study approved by the REB of the UHN.8 UHN physicians also made this identical claim in a publicly available letter to the US FDA.9 Moreover, in response to an FOI application filed by Olivieri, UHN claimed that deferiprone was provided at UHN during a clinical trial (the data of which are protected from scrutiny under FOI laws), and not under SAP (the data of which are not protected from scrutiny under FOI). However, Olivieri et al have been unable to find how much does ventolin cost in america any record of registration for such a trial, as required by Canadian Clinical Trial guidelines.13 Requests to the UHN administration for confirmation that a clinical trial existed remain unanswered.14 My own efforts to find some registration record for this putative clinical trial of deferiprone have been equally unsuccessful.15Two core ethical principles. Harm-minimisation and informed consentIf the deferiprone used to treat UHN patients with thalassaemia was obtained from Apotex as part of a randomised clinical trial, responsibility for approving the trial would fall to the UHN’s REB.

In Canada, both researchers and REBs are governed by the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS) ‘Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans’.10 The 1998 version of this policy statement (TCPS1) and the subsequent 2010 version (TCPS2), both applicable to research trials during this period, stipulate that clinical trials must be designed so that how much does ventolin cost in america harm to research subjects will be minimised.16 For example, TCPS1 specifies, in section 1.5, that ‘Research subjects must not be subjected to unnecessary risks of harm’. TCPS2, under the rubric ‘Core Principles’, requires similarly that clinical trials must ‘ensure that participants are not exposed to unnecessary risks’.Data presented by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE Study indicate that UHN patients exposed to unlicensed deferiprone, either as monotherapy or in combination with low dose of a first-line chelator (‘combination therapy’), experienced significant harms as a result of poor iron control, but very few if any compensating benefits.We provide new evidence of inadequate reduction in hepatic iron, a 17% incidence of new diabetes and new liver dysfunction in 65% of patients, many who were challenged and rechallenged with deferiprone despite elevated liver enzymes developed during previous exposure. We identified no evidence of ‘cardio-protective’ effect during deferiprone therapy.3In light of PLOS ONE Study data indicating serious adverse events (SAEs) for patients switched to deferiprone from first-line drugs one is led to question why the study protocol did not, in anticipation of such a contingency, provide for a resumption of how much does ventolin cost in america licensed therapy for patients doing poorly on the unlicensed drug. Moreover, the investigators were obliged to report adverse events to the hospital’s REB.

Were the adverse events so reported?. And if they were then why did the UHN REB not seek to protect patient safety by insisting that licensed therapy be resumed for how much does ventolin cost in america deferiprone-harmed patients?. In an effort to establish whether the deferiprone ‘clinical trial’ satisfied the TCPS harm-minimisation principle, I made inquiries about how the adverse findings described by the PLOS ONE paper were reported to the hospital’s REB and also how they were reported to the regulatory authorities, that is, Health Canada and the US FDA. But my queries, like those made previously by Olivieri and Gallie, have not succeeded in eliciting this ethically relevant information.17 Neither UHN nor its thalassaemia clinic responded to my letters how much does ventolin cost in america of inquiry.

It is known, however, from a publicly available 2011 document, that physicians in the UHN thalassaemia clinic strongly supported the market approval of deferiprone by the FDA.18 This support is difficult to reconcile with the toxicities recorded in UHN patient records. So, a final verdict on the issue of whether the UHN deferiprone ‘clinical trial design’ violated how much does ventolin cost in america the TCPS harm-minimisation principle cannot be reached until those involved in conducting and monitoring clinical trials at UHN make available the relevant information. An independent public inquiry may be necessary to achieve the necessary degree of accountability.Reference has been made, above, to the TCPS core ethical requirement of harm-minimisation, applicable in Canada both to researchers and to REBs. It is important to note, however, that TCPS2, like its predecessor, TCPS1 (and, indeed, like virtually every postwar code of research ethics) also stipulates as a second ‘core principle’ that ‘Researchers shall provide to prospective participants, or authorised third parties, full disclosure of all information necessary for making an informed decision’.19 Moreover, as the then-current TCPS guidelines make clear, ‘consent is an ongoing process’.

So, assurance should be given to prospective participants that they ‘will be given in a timely manner throughout the course of how much does ventolin cost in america the research project, information that is relevant to their decision to continue or withdraw from participation’.20 (My emphasis). Finally, TCPS2 imposes on researchers the additional ethical requirement that they disclose to research subjects ‘information concerning the possibility of commercialisation of research findings, and the presence of any real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest on the part of the researchers, their institutions or the research sponsors’.21 There is also an expectation that conflicts of interest will be disclosed to the REB. Whether there was adequate disclosure of Apotex funding either to research subjects or to the UHN REB is still unknown.Thus, in order to assess the ethical adequacy of the putative UHN thalassaemia clinical trial one must inquire whether UHN patients/subjects were given adequate risk information when they were first enrolled, subsequently, when they were switched from treatment with deferasirox or deferoxamine to treatment with deferiprone how much does ventolin cost in america and then, finally, when they experienced SAEs. That is, in order to know whether the putative deferiprone clinical trial conformed to established principles of research ethics, one would need to know whether patients/research subjects understood that they were being switched from licensed first-line drugs of proven efficacy to an unlicensed and unproven third-line drug.

One would also need to know whether the deferiprone ‘research subjects’ were informed about conflicts of interest how much does ventolin cost in america arising from Apotex donations (A) to the UHN. (B) To the hospital’s thalassaemia programme,22 as well as the hoped-for commercialisation of deferiprone via Health Canada and FDA licensing.If there was a failure to obtain ongoing informed consent and/or a failure to disclose conflicts of interest (to patients and to the REB) then this would constitute a violation of research ethics. Unfortunately, my attempts to elicit the clinical trial’s consent to research information from the UHN and its thalassaemia clinic met with as little success as earlier attempts made by the PLOS ONE authors.23REB review. Safety monitoringAlthough every clinical trial requires safety monitoring, those trials which involve non-negligible risk of significant harm to patients/subjects require especially rigorous safety monitoring.24 Because the exposure of deferiprone to UHN patients posed risks of organ how much does ventolin cost in america dysfunction and death, the need for safety monitoring was exigent.

As the TCPS1 and TCPS2 both make clear, those who conduct research have an obligation to monitor and protect the safety of their research subjects.Moreover, it is now widely recognised that individuals closely involved with the design and conduct of a trial may not be able to be fully objective in reviewing interim data for any emerging concerns.25 Hence the importance of REBs, part of whose role is to provide safety monitoring initially and, for ongoing trials, over the entire period of the trial. In order to assess the adequacy of the safety monitoring for the UHN ‘deferiprone trial’ one would need to know whether the hospital’s REB was provided with regular and accurate reports of SAEs and what actions this REB took in response to those reports.It has become common practice in North America ‘that for any controlled trial of any size that will compare rates of how much does ventolin cost in america mortality or major morbidity’, a data safety monitoring board (DSMB) will be established.26,11 12 A DSMB is constituted by a panel of independent (and otherwise unbiased) individuals with expertise pertinent to reviewing trial data on a regular ongoing basis. Its role is to advise the sponsors regarding the safety of trial subjects and to recommend early termination where indicated, for example, on grounds of patient safety.27Since there are no specifically Canadian requirements with respect to the establishment of DSMBs, Canadian REBs tend to follow FDA guidelines. Those guidelines recommend that a DSMB should be established when the study end point is such that a highly favourable or unfavourable result how much does ventolin cost in america at an interim analysis might ethically require termination of the study.

Advance information suggesting the possibility of serious toxicity with the study treatment is another a priori reason for safety concern that would justify the establishment of a DSMB.12For reasons given above, the UHN deferiprone trial appears to have been a prime candidate for the establishment of a DSMB. But it is not known whether the study’s research protocol, purportedly submitted for approval to the hospital’s REB, included a DSMB. Nor is it known how much does ventolin cost in america whether a DSMB was established and reported regularly to the trial’s sponsors. Data on the toxicity of deferiprone, provided by Olivieri et al from their retrospective study of UHN patient records, suggest that had a DSMB existed for this putative clinical trial the trial might, on grounds of patient safety, have been a candidate for premature cancellation.

Lacunae in our knowledge of the safety monitoring provisions of the deferiprone ‘clinical trial’ make it difficult to reach any firm conclusion how much does ventolin cost in america as to whether the ‘trial’ met prevailing safety monitoring requirements.The apparent unwillingness of the UHN to answer questions relating to safety monitoring might mean that an inquiry is needed to fill in our knowledge gaps and thereby make ethical evaluation possible. For the findings of such an inquiry to be minimally credible it should be carried out by individuals who possess the requisite scientific/medical expertise and who are independent of the hospital and its thalassaemia clinic and who are demonstrably impartial. An inquiry carried out, for example, by how much does ventolin cost in america someone whose research has been funded by Apotex and/or by an expert with close professional and personal ties to one or more of the physicians in the UHN thalassaemia clinic would not satisfy the hospital’s duty of accountability for patient safety.Ethical concernsA RecapitulationThe serious complications experienced by deferiprone-exposed UHN patients, as described by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE article, raise a number of ethically important questions. How could an unlicensed drug of unproven efficacy and safety—a drug that has been questioned by regulatory agencies such that it is licensed only as a “last resort” therapy—have been administered to so many patients over a period of so many years when two licensed drugs, both proven adequately safe and effective and licensed as first-line therapies, were available?.

How did UHN physicians gain access to deferiprone from Health Canada when there is little evidence in UHN patient records that the deferiprone-exposed patients satisfied Health Canada’s criteria for Special Access?. Why was how much does ventolin cost in america a putative UHN REB-approved research study involving deferiprone not registered as a clinical trial?. Did the trial design include a DSMB, to protect patient safety and, if not, why not?. Were SAEs reported to the how much does ventolin cost in america UHN REB and to regulators, as required?.

Were deferiprone-treated UHN patients with thalassaemia adequately informed of the unlicensed status, unproven efficacy and reported toxicities of deferiprone?. Were deferiprone-exposed patients informed how much does ventolin cost in america of harms they themselves had sustained during deferiprone from this exposure?. 28 Did the evidence of systematic treatment failure, as outlined in the PLOS ONE paper, raise red flags for thalassaemia clinic physicians and for the REB of UHN?. And if serious problems were flagged what actions were taken to protect patient safety?.

Institutional conflict of interestThe literature on biomedical conflicts of interest tends to focus on the ways in which financial support of individual researchers by the pharmaceutical industry can adversely affect both research integrity and patient safety.13–16 But similar ethical problems arise at the macro level when institutions, such as hospitals and clinics, depend on drug company funding to support patient care and clinical research.13 15 Notable scandals associated with how much does ventolin cost in america institutional conflicts of interest include the David Healy/Eli Lilly scandal at Toronto’s Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH),13 the Aubrey Blumsohn/Proctor and Gamble scandal at Sheffield University (UK)17 and the Carl Elliott/Janssen Pharmaceuticals scandal at the University of Minnesota.17 The underlying pattern in each of these scandals involves (A) a biomedical researcher who is concerned about patient safety coming into conflict with (B) a pharmaceutical company which funds both the researcher’s hospital and university and (C) a failure by the institutions involved vigorously to defend patient safety and research integrity when doing so might offend a wealthy sponsor.It should not be assumed that corporate influence on university medical centres is necessarily exerted by means of threats or other direct forms of intervention. The mere presence of corporate funding can be sufficient to produce a corporate-friendly result. This point how much does ventolin cost in america is illustrated by a recent STAT article, a propos the financial support which Purdue Pharma provided to Massachusetts General Hospital. The very title of the article encapsulates the ethical problem of institutional conflict of interest.

€˜Purdue Pharma cemented ties with universities and hospitals to expand opioid sales, documents contend’.18 how much does ventolin cost in america Nor should it be supposed that the problem of institutional conflict of interest arises exclusively in the context of biomedical research. A recent Guardian article on the Mobil Oil Corporation describes how ‘Oil giant Mobil sought to make tax-exempt donations to leading universities … to promote the company’s interests and undermine environmental regulation, according to internal documents from the early 1990s obtained by the Guardian’.19As mentioned above, deferiprone, whose safety and efficacy are the central concern of Olivieri et al’s PLOS ONE paper, is manufactured by Apotex. When we seek to understand why deferiprone was so frequently prescribed to UHN patients, from 2009 to 2016, despite its being unlicensed and despite evidence of poor patient outcomes,3 it may be relevant to note that Apotex provided substantial funding to the UHN thalassaemia clinic.29 Moreover, a publicly displayed UHN banner lists ‘Apotex Inc – Barry and Honey Sherman’ as having donated between $1 million and $5 million how much does ventolin cost in america to the hospital itself.30As every biomedical researcher understands, correlation is not causation. Nevertheless, the correlation between industry funding of hospitals, on the one hand, and industry-friendly decisions made by researchers and administrators at those hospitals, on the other, is worth pondering.

Physicians and researchers who speak or write critically of drugs manufactured by wealthy donor companies may find that their careers are jeopardised. Nancy Olivieri’s dismissal from two Apotex-funded teaching hospitals illustrates this phenomenon as does the termination of psychiatrist David Healy from Toronto’s CAMH.13 Healy’s appointment as Head of the CAMH Mood Disorders Clinic was rescinded how much does ventolin cost in america almost immediately after he gave a public lecture at the hospital—a lecture in which he called for further research into the potentially adverse effects of Eli Lilly’s antidepressant drug, Prozac. Healy was particularly concerned about SSRI-induced suicidal ideation. After his lecture the hospital decided how much does ventolin cost in america that he was not ‘a good fit’ with their programme and terminated his appointment.

Shortly thereafter the hospital opened its Eli Lilly wing.13UHN, like every other research and teaching hospital in Canada, receives most of its funding, directly or indirectly, from governments.20 ,31 Nevertheless, UHN, again like other hospitals, faces ongoing pressure to find additional sources of revenue to support both patient care and clinical research.32 The pharmaceutical industry is a prime source of much-needed ‘top-up’ financial support for Canadian hospital research and clinical care.21 Hospital administrators, researchers and clinicians are thereby placed, willy nilly, in a conflict-of-interest situation. Because of funding exigencies, hospitals and other healthcare institutions, how much does ventolin cost in america like individual physicians and researchers, have a strong vested interest in pleasing corporate sponsors and encouraging their ongoing support. Moreover, institutional administrators, not unlike individual researchers and clinicians, typically experience a need to express their gratitude to donors by returning kindness for kindness and benefit for benefit. Thus, both the need for ongoing corporate sponsorship and the need to reciprocate for past corporate generosity create for hospital administrators (as well as for researchers and clinicians who work within hospitals) a conflict-of-interest situation in which their decision making may be skewed, consciously or unconsciously, in favour of the benefactors’ products.13 15 16 21Here’s an example of the manner in which an institutional conflict-of-interest situation can potentially bias the judgement of hospital administrators.

Hospitals are required to exercise their disinterested how much does ventolin cost in america judgement in the appointment of medical and scientific staff and in the ethical monitoring of research. This moral obligation follows directly from their fundamental commitment to promote and defend patient safety and research integrity. To illustrate how much does ventolin cost in america. UHN’s website, under the heading Purpose, Values and Principles, declares that ‘[o]ur Primary Value and above all else.

The needs of patients come first’.22 It would be difficult to find any hospital whose how much does ventolin cost in america Mission Statement did not proclaim a similar commitment to the primacy of patient well-being. In a similar vein, the UHN website, under the heading Information for Patients, subheaded Our Mission, declares. €˜We believe that health equity is achieved when each person is. Enabled to choose the best care how much does ventolin cost in america and treatment based on the most current knowledge available’.From this fundamental commitment, it follows that healthcare institutions are obliged rigorously to monitor the quality of care provided to their patients and research subjects.

As an important element of protecting patient safety, hospitals are required to appoint the most qualified and competent candidates to clinical and research positions. But, as noted above, conflicts of interest are a risk factor for bias, conscious or unconscious, in personnel decisions.22 So, when a research hospital depends on corporate donations there is how much does ventolin cost in america a risk that physicians and researchers may be appointed to key positions because they are known to be sympathetic to the donors’ product(s) rather than because they are the best qualified and the most competent. Contrariwise, physicians and researchers believed to be unsympathetic to the donors’ products are at risk of losing their jobs or of not being hired in the first place. The cases of Olivieri, Healy and Blumsohn illustrate this point.13 17As explained above, we know from the extensive literature on conflict of how much does ventolin cost in america interest that when research and clinical care are funded by industry there is a marked tendency for both to favour the sponsors’/donors’ products.13 15 16 18 Significantly, the UHN itself explicitly recognises the danger to patient safety posed by systemic biases.

Its Mission Statement commits the hospital to ensuring that every patient is ‘[m]ade aware of existing systemic biases to support the best possible health decisions’.22 Unfortunately, it is not possible at present to ascertain whether UHN conformed to this ethical commitment in the case of its deferiprone research/treatment clinic. In order to make such an ethical determination we would need to know the mechanism by which the UHN thalassaemia clinic gained access to deferiprone and whether the clinic provided information about systemic bias to patients with thalassaemia and to the hospital’s REB.ConclusionsHospitals worldwide proclaim that their primary commitment is to meet the needs of their patients. Institutional codes of ethics how much does ventolin cost in america and mission statements insist that patient needs come first. Indeed, meeting ‘patient needs’ is agreed to be the fundamental value to which all other hospital goals should be subordinated.

Toronto’s UHN how much does ventolin cost in america declares unequivocally that it shares this value. €˜[t]he needs of patients come first’.22Although patients have many and various needs, the need for safety must be counted as the sine qua non. If the need for safety is how much does ventolin cost in america not met then other needs become irrelevant.The findings of Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE paper raise many troubling questions about the safety of patients in UHN’s thalassaemia clinic. One would expect that when top UHN officials became aware of the PLOS ONE data they would immediately have recognised the ethical red flags.

Hospitals are ethically obliged both to investigate thoroughly possible safety failures and to rectify any problems identified.Over a period of several years, both before and after the publication of their research findings, Drs Olivieri and Gallie communicated regularly with UHN officials (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/). Multiple safety how much does ventolin cost in america concerns were brought to the hospital’s attention. Numerous questions were asked by the PLOS ONE authors and specific concerns were raised. To date, how much does ventolin cost in america the hospital has not definitively addressed these issues.

I posed a series of ethically salient questions to these same hospital officials (see online supplementary appendix A). My queries were how much does ventolin cost in america ignored. There was no response from UHN.Supplemental materialIf a healthcare institution such as UHN claims that patient safety is its top priority then when safety issues are raised, it necessarily incurs an obligation of accountability. It would, for example, scarcely be adequate for a hospital, such as UHN, unilaterally to investigate alleged failures, declare that there has been no violation of patient care standards, and then to stonewall all further inquiries, whether those inquiries originate from its own medical staff, as was the case with Olivieri and Gallie, or from outside scholars, as was the case with me.When an unlicensed drug is prescribed to hospital patients, over a period of years, as happened in the UHN thalassaemia programme, it is surely the hospital’s obligation to answer questions about how and why this extraordinary practice occurred.

When hospital records reveal that patients switched from licensed to unlicensed medication, have experienced serious harms, up to and including death, it is surely the hospital’s obligation to answer in a conscientious how much does ventolin cost in america and complete manner all the ethically troubling questions that have been identified. This obligation of accountability is owed both to patients and to staff. Thus far, UHN has not been willing to accept the implications of its own mission statement (https://www.uhn.ca/corporate/AboutUHN/Quality_Patient_Safety).The PLOS ONE Study by Olivieri Sabouhanian and Gallie spurs us to inquire whether the benefits which accrue to society from corporate sponsorship of healthcare institutions may, on balance, be outweighed how much does ventolin cost in america by the associated harms. Admittedly, for governments committed to constraining public expenditures, the transfer of substantial healthcare costs to private corporations represents a benefit for public finances.

But, as we have seen, when one considers this financial benefit, one ought also to take into account the spectrum of negative consequences potentially generated by institutional conflicts of interest. The price for our continued acceptance of corporate funding of scientific research and clinical care may be the erosion of public trust. Arguably, it would be preferable if our research hospital were to aim instead for the complete elimination of systemic biases.Data availability statementAll data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary informationEthics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required.AcknowledgmentsThe author thanks the editors of JME and two JME reviewers for their criticisms of and suggestions for change to an earlier version of this paper..

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Media AdvisoryFriday, March 25, 2022What The amygdala — a brain structure enlarged in two-year-old children diagnosed with can you get ventolin over the counter australia autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — begins its accelerated growth between 6 and 12 months of age, suggests a study http://markgrigsby.net/where-to-get-viagra funded by the National Institutes of Health. The amygdala is involved in processing emotions, such as interpreting facial expressions or feeling afraid when exposed to a threat. The findings indicate that therapies to reduce the symptoms of ASD might can you get ventolin over the counter australia have the greatest chance of success if they begin in the first year of life, before the amygdala begins its accelerated growth. The study included 408 infants, 270 of whom were at higher likelihood of ASD because they had an older sibling with ASD, 109 typically developing infants, and 29 infants with Fragile X syndrome, an inherited form of developmental and intellectual disability. The researchers conducted MRI scans of can you get ventolin over the counter australia the children at 6, 12 and 24 months of age.

They found that the 58 infants who went on to develop ASD had a normal-sized amygdala at 6 months, but an enlarged amygdala at 12 months and 24 months. Moreover, the faster the rate of amygdala overgrowth, the greater the severity of ASD symptoms at 24 months. The infants with Fragile X syndrome had a distinct pattern can you get ventolin over the counter australia of brain growth. They had no differences in amygdala growth but enlargement of another brain structure, the caudate, which was linked to increased repetitive behaviors. The research team, part of the NIH Autism Centers of Excellence Infant Brain Imaging Study network, was led by Mark Shen, Ph.D., can you get ventolin over the counter australia of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Infant Brain Imaging Study.

The study appears in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Funding was provided by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Institute can you get ventolin over the counter australia of Mental Health. The authors suggested that difficulty processing sensory information during infancy may stress the amygdala, leading to its overgrowth. ASD is a complex developmental disorder that affects how a person behaves, interacts with others, communicates and learns. Who Alice Kau, Ph.D., of the NICHD Intellectual can you get ventolin over the counter australia and Developmental Disabilities Branch, is available for comment.

Article Shen, MD. Subcortical brain development in can you get ventolin over the counter australia autism and fragile X syndrome. Evidence for dynamic, age-and disorder-specific trajectories in infancy. American Journal of Psychiatry. 2022.

DOI. About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov. NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®###Children in the Greater Philadelphia area face a number of environmental threats to their health, including lead poisoning, asthma from air pollution, and exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals. Now, with funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Penn Medicine have come together to address these hazards and protect children who live in the region’s most vulnerable communities.The Philadelphia Regional Center for Children's Environmental Health (PRCCEH) is a new children's center that will provide the infrastructure to integrate expertise from the two institutions, along with colleagues from Drexel University, Temple University, Thomas Jefferson University, Lehigh University, Franklin &. Marshall College, Villanova University and University of Delaware.

This is the first time that the region has been awarded funding for a Center for Children’s Environmental Health.“The center is an outgrowth of research from Penn’s Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET), its long-term collaborators, and its community partners. It has long been a vision to bring such a center to the region,” said CEET Director Trevor Penning, PhD.The mission of the center is threefold. To disseminate children's environmental health knowledge to health care providers, community members, and policy makers. To develop, test and implement new programs. And to engage researchers and community partners to make policy, practice, and behavioral changes to reduce environmental exposures in early life.

It will be led by directors Rebecca Simmons, MD, a professor of Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a neonatologist at CHOP, and Aimin Chen, MD, PhD, a professor of Epidemiology at Penn, along with deputy director Marilyn Howarth, MD, director of the Community Engagement Core in CEET.“This center will build on years of extensive research in environmental toxicology and pediatric health at both Penn and CHOP to make real, positive change in the lives of children throughout the region,” said Simmons. €œWe already have many established connections within communities throughout Philadelphia, Delaware, and other counties, and this grant will allow us to strengthen and expand on those partnerships.”The center will focus on four primary research and translation areas. Asthma prevention, lead exposure and harm reduction, air pollution, and reduction of exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals. Building on CHOP’s Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP) — a program designed by its Medical Director Tyra Bryant Stephens, MD, that has supported families of children with asthma in Philadelphia for more than 20 years — the center will expand the initiative to the city of Chester, providing education and supplies to help families mitigate asthma triggers in the home, with the goal of improving asthma outcomes in children.Research from CEET has exposed a significant disparity in elevated blood lead levels in children, depending on zip code. Projects at the new center will expand on this research and apply evidence-based solutions to reduce lead poisoning in children.

Past research from this group has also revealed that the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden Metropolitan Statistical Area is among the 25 worst for air pollution in the U.S., which has motivated the PRCCEH to address solutions to this dangerous health hazard. Finally, studies at Penn, CHOP, and other institutions worldwide show an increasing disease burden from endocrine disrupting chemicals — compounds found in household products and the environment that have been linked to preterm birth, obesity and diabetes, and neurodevelopmental disorders.The center’s programmatic, evidence-based solutions will be implemented throughout the region through collaboration with numerous community groups and nonprofits, including Children First, The Chester Environmental Partnership, Women for a Healthy Environment, Clean Water Action, and the Philadelphia Healthy Schools Initiative. This project is supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (1P2CES033428-01)..

Media AdvisoryFriday, March 25, 2022What The amygdala — a brain structure enlarged in two-year-old children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) — begins its accelerated growth between 6 and 12 months of age, suggests how much does ventolin cost in america a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The amygdala is involved in processing emotions, such as interpreting facial expressions or feeling afraid when exposed to a threat. The findings indicate how much does ventolin cost in america that therapies to reduce the symptoms of ASD might have the greatest chance of success if they begin in the first year of life, before the amygdala begins its accelerated growth.

The study included 408 infants, 270 of whom were at higher likelihood of ASD because they had an older sibling with ASD, 109 typically developing infants, and 29 infants with Fragile X syndrome, an inherited form of developmental and intellectual disability. The researchers conducted MRI scans of the children at 6, 12 and 24 months how much does ventolin cost in america of age. They found that the 58 infants who went on to develop ASD had a normal-sized amygdala at 6 months, but an enlarged amygdala at 12 months and 24 months.

Moreover, the faster the rate of amygdala overgrowth, the greater the severity of ASD symptoms at 24 months. The infants how much does ventolin cost in america with Fragile X syndrome had a distinct pattern of brain growth. They had no differences in amygdala growth but enlargement of another brain structure, the caudate, which was linked to increased repetitive behaviors.

The research team, part of the NIH Autism Centers of Excellence Infant Brain Imaging Study network, was led by how much does ventolin cost in america Mark Shen, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Infant Brain Imaging Study. The study appears in the American Journal of Psychiatry. Funding was provided by NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health how much does ventolin cost in america and Human Development (NICHD), National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and National Institute of Mental Health.

The authors suggested that difficulty processing sensory information during infancy may stress the amygdala, leading to its overgrowth. ASD is a complex developmental disorder that affects how a person behaves, interacts with others, communicates and learns. Who Alice Kau, Ph.D., of the NICHD Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Branch, how much does ventolin cost in america is available for comment.

Article Shen, MD. Subcortical brain how much does ventolin cost in america development in autism and fragile X syndrome. Evidence for dynamic, age-and disorder-specific trajectories in infancy.

About the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). NICHD leads research and training to understand human development, improve reproductive health, enhance the lives of children and adolescents, and optimize abilities for all. For more information, visit https://www.nichd.nih.gov.About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health®###Children in the Greater Philadelphia area face a number of environmental threats to their health, including lead poisoning, asthma from air pollution, and exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals. Now, with funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Penn Medicine have come together to address these hazards and protect children who live in the region’s most vulnerable communities.The Philadelphia Regional Center for Children's Environmental Health (PRCCEH) is a new children's center that will provide the infrastructure to integrate expertise from the two institutions, along with colleagues from Drexel University, Temple University, Thomas Jefferson University, Lehigh University, Franklin &. Marshall College, Villanova University and University of Delaware.

This is the first time that the region has been awarded funding for a Center for Children’s Environmental Health.“The center is an outgrowth of research from Penn’s Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology (CEET), its long-term collaborators, and its community partners. It has long been a vision to bring such a center to the region,” said CEET Director Trevor Penning, PhD.The mission of the center is threefold. To disseminate children's environmental health knowledge to health care providers, community members, and policy makers.

To develop, test and implement new programs. And to engage researchers and community partners to make policy, practice, and behavioral changes to reduce environmental exposures in early life. It will be led by directors Rebecca Simmons, MD, a professor of Pediatrics in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a neonatologist at CHOP, and Aimin Chen, MD, PhD, a professor of Epidemiology at Penn, along with deputy director Marilyn Howarth, MD, director of the Community Engagement Core in CEET.“This center will build on years of extensive research in environmental toxicology and pediatric health at both Penn and CHOP to make real, positive change in the lives of children throughout the region,” said Simmons.

€œWe already have many established connections within communities throughout Philadelphia, Delaware, and other counties, and this grant will allow us to strengthen and expand on those partnerships.”The center will focus on four primary research and translation areas. Asthma prevention, lead exposure and harm reduction, air pollution, and reduction of exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals. Building on CHOP’s Community Asthma Prevention Program (CAPP) — a program designed by its Medical Director Tyra Bryant Stephens, MD, that has supported families of children with asthma in Philadelphia for more than 20 years — the center will expand the initiative to the city of Chester, providing education and supplies to help families mitigate asthma triggers in the home, with the goal of improving asthma outcomes in children.Research from CEET has exposed a significant disparity in elevated blood lead levels in children, depending on zip code.

Projects at the new center will expand on this research and apply evidence-based solutions to reduce lead poisoning in children. Past research from this group has also revealed that the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden Metropolitan Statistical Area is among the 25 worst for air pollution in the U.S., which has motivated the PRCCEH to address solutions to this dangerous health hazard. Finally, studies at Penn, CHOP, and other institutions worldwide show an increasing disease burden from endocrine disrupting chemicals — compounds found in household products and the environment that have been linked to preterm birth, obesity and diabetes, and neurodevelopmental disorders.The center’s programmatic, evidence-based solutions will be implemented throughout the region through collaboration with numerous community groups and nonprofits, including Children First, The Chester Environmental Partnership, Women for a Healthy Environment, Clean Water Action, and the Philadelphia Healthy Schools Initiative.

This project is supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (1P2CES033428-01)..

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IntroductionThalassaemia is an inherited generic ventolin prices anaemia that http://knittedmilk.co.uk/categories/food/michelin-star-simon-hulstone-creates-three-dishes-from-his-award-winning-restaurant-the-elephant-in-torquay/ exerts an enormous disease burden worldwide.1 Along with sickle cell disease, it is one of the two most common single gene disorders. Indeed, ‘the alpha and beta thalassaemias are the most common inherited single-gene disorders in the world…’2A newly published study by Olivieri, Sabouhanian and Gallie3 analyses and assesses the comparative efficacy and safety profile of two drugs. Deferiprone (Ferriprox generic ventolin prices. Apotex) and deferasirox (Exfade.

Novartis). Both of these ‘iron-chelating’ drugs remove (‘chelate’) iron deposited, as a result of transfusions, in the tissues of patients with thalassaemia.The present-day first-line chelator, deferasirox, was licensed by the US FDA in 2005. The evidence for its safety and effectiveness was judged to be substantial and, accordingly, the FDA licensed it as a first-line agent. The prime advantage of deferasirox, in comparison to deferoxamine, an older drug that was formerly the gold standard of iron-chelating therapy for thalassaemia, is that deferasirox is orally active (that is, taken in pill form), while deferoxamine is more burdensome for patients because it has to be taken parenterally (that is, via injection).

Deferiprone, like deferasirox, is taken orally but has not been licensed anywhere as first-line treatment. The FDA withheld market approval for deferiprone because there were/are no controlled trials demonstrating direct treatment benefit. Although the FDA did eventually approve deferiprone, in 2011, it gave approval only as a last-resort treatment for those patients in whom other chelators had been tried unsuccessfully.1The data presented by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE paper indicate that the drugs differ significantly with respect to their effectiveness and safety. This commentary explores some of the ethical issues raised by the PLOS data.Historical contextIn order to understand properly the significance of the PLOS ONE Study some historical context will be helpful.

What follows is a brief sketch of that context.2In 1993 Dr Nancy Olivieri, a specialist in blood diseases at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (HSC or ‘Sick Kids’) and Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Toronto (U of T), signed a contract with Apotex, a generic drug company, to continue studies of deferiprone, the early promise of which she had already reported in the literature. Olivieri’s thalassaemia research was initially supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada, but now she sought additional funding to extend her clinical trials. Apotex contributed this additional funding, thereby obtaining worldwide patents on the still-experimental drug.Despite early promise, by 1996 Olivieri’s research began to indicate that deferiprone might be inadequately effective in many patients, posing risks of potentially serious harm. Olivieri communicated to Apotex her intention to inform patients of this unexpected risk and she proposed also to amend the study’s consent forms.

She wished to continue amended studies of the drug, and to publish her findings.Apotex responded to Olivieri that they disagreed with her interpretation of the data and the company’s CEO threatened her with ‘all legal remedies’ should she inform patients or publish her findings. In issuing these threats, Apotex relied on a confidentiality clause in a legal contract Olivieri had signed with Apotex in 1993. This contract prohibited disclosure ‘to any third party’ without the express permission of Apotex.3Despite the objections raised by Apotex, Olivieri saw it as her professional duty to disclose her findings. The Research Ethics Board (REB) of Sick Kids Hospital reached the same conclusion.

In compliance with instructions from the Hospital’s REB, Olivieri duly informed both her patients and the regulatory authorities.When Olivieri later identified a second risk—that liver damage progressed during deferiprone exposure—Apotex issued additional legal warnings. Olivieri nevertheless proceeded to inform her patients of this additional risk and published her findings.Since patient safety, research integrity and academic freedom were all at stake in this dispute, Olivieri appealed for assistance, repeatedly, to senior officials at both the U of T and Sick Kids Hospital. Neither the University nor the Hospital provided the support she requested. In the words of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry on the Case Involving Dr Nancy Olivieri, the HSC, the U of T, and Apotex Inc4:The HSC and the U of T did not provide effective support either for Dr Olivieri and her rights, or for the principles of research and clinical ethics, and of academic freedom, during the first two and a half years of this controversy.Instead, both the University and the Hospital ‘took actions that were harmful to Dr.

Olivieri’s interests and professional reputation and disrupted her work’.4 The harmful actions included firing Olivieri from her position as Director of the Hemoglobinopathy Program at Sick Kids Hospital and referring her for discipline to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO).Only later did it emerge that, during this period of conflict, the U of T was negotiating with Apotex for a major donation towards building the University’s proposed new molecular medicine building. Some speculated that the University’s failure to support Olivieri may not have been unconnected from its desire to appease a wealthy corporate donor. This speculation was reinforced when it was discovered that the then President of the University, Robert Prichard, had secretly lobbied the government of Canada for changes in drug patent law, changes that would favour Apotex.4Apotex proceeded to sue Olivieri for defaming both the company and their drug. She sued the company for defaming her.The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the U of T Faculty Association (UTFA), to whom Olivieri appealed for assistance after being rebuffed by the U of T and HSC, viewed the underlying issue as one of academic freedom.

Both CAUT and UTFA provided support, including legal advice, to Olivieri.Thus began what is widely acknowledged to be the greatest scandal in Canadian academic history. Commissions of inquiry, books and articles (both scholarly and popular) proliferated, not to mention newspaper and television stories. John le Carré’s novel The Constant Gardener and the Hollywood movie based on the book both appeared to draw heavily on the Olivieri-Apotex scandal. An inquiry into the dispute commissioned by Sick Kids Hospital (the Naimark Inquiry)5 absolved Apotex of wrongdoing but suggested that Olivieri was seriously at fault.5 She was charged with research misconduct and failures of patient care and was referred first to the Hospital’s Medical Advisory Council and subsequently to the disciplinary committee of the CPSO.

Unsurprisingly, these widely publicised referrals were prejudicial to Olivieri’s reputation.The CAUT then commissioned an independent inquiry.6 The 540-page CAUT report on the Olivieri/Apotex affair4 gave a markedly different account of the scandal from that offered by the hospital-commissioned Naimark Report. A few excerpts from the CAUT report will convey its central findings:Apotex issued more legal warnings to deter Dr. Olivieri from communicating this second unexpected risk of L1 (deferiprone) to anyone. However, she was legally and ethically obligated to communicate the risk to those taking or prescribing the drug as there were potential safety implications for patients, and she fulfilled these obligations despite the legal warnings.Apotex acted against the public interest in issuing legal warnings to Dr.

Olivieri to deter her from communicating about risks of L1.Apotex’s legal warnings violated Dr. Olivieri’s academic freedom.7Shortly after the CAUT report absolved Olivieri of misconduct, the CPSO published the findings of its inquiry. The CPSO report exonerated Olivieri of all misconduct charges. Indeed, their report concluded that her conduct had been ‘commendable’.6 This favourable verdict did not, however, bring an end to litigation.In 2004, 8 years after the first legal threats had been issued, Apotex signed a mediated settlement with Olivieri.

Nevertheless, litigation continued for another 10 years. Those unfamiliar with the workings of the law may wonder how it is possible for litigation to continue for such a long period after a mediated settlement. Litigation continued because Apotex alleged that Olivieri had violated their agreement. Olivieri insisted that she was in compliance with the terms of the settlement.

Court decisions were appealed by both parties. A final settlement was not reached between Olivieri and Apotex until 2014.8 Shades of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Charles Dicken’s novel Bleak House.The HSC settled its dispute with Olivieri in 2006 and, although her research programme at the Hospital continued, she ceased to provide clinical care to HSC patients. From 1997 to 2009, Olivieri served as Director of the University Health Network (UHN) Hemoglobinopathy Program.

She continued, as she had since 1997, to assist in the clinical care of UHN patients with thalassaemia and to enrol them in her research studies. In March 2009, however, Olivieri was dismissed by UHN from her position as Director. No reason was given for her dismissal (Personal communication. Olivieri, 2019).The PLOS ONE Study data3 show that, after Olivieri’s dismissal from her position as Director, the UHN thalassaemia Clinic began almost immediately to switch patients to (unlicensed) deferiprone.

Olivieri has described how her UHN research work, from this time forward, was marginalised (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2018-12-20-GallieOlivieri-to-SmithHodges.pdf).Meanwhile, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests filed by Olivieri after her dismissal revealed that Apotex was supplying unrestricted educational grants to UHN’s thalassaemia programme as well as providing research support. The FOI requests filed by Olivieri also revealed that Apotex was strategising with the programme’s new director about how best to obtain licensing for deferiprone from the regulator (Health Canada).9 With this dramatic background as historical context, we commence our discussion of the ethical implications of the PLOS ONE paper.Findings of the PLOS ONE paperIn their 2019 PLOS ONE study Olivieri et al conclude, based on a retrospective review of patient data at Toronto’s UHN, that deferiprone is inadequately effective and associated with serious toxicity. Their review also confirms that, by contrast, deferasirox is effective and associated with relatively few adverse effects.3Olivieri et al report that ‘[b]etween 2009 and 2015, a third of patients transfused and managed in Canada’s largest transfusion programme were switched from first-line, licensed drugs to regimens of unlicensed deferiprone’.3 This finding raises the ethically troubling question. How and why were so many locally transfused patients at UHN treated over such a long time period with an unlicensed drug of unproven safety and efficacy?.

This ethical concern is followed immediately by another related concern. Why did the UHN thalassaemia programme continue to treat large numbers of its patients with deferiprone—despite ongoing evidence of inadequate effectiveness and serious (and often irreversible) adverse effects?. 3To recapitulate. The PLOS ONE paper demonstrates that a substantial proportion of UHN patients with thalassaemia was switched, between the years 2009 and 2015, from first-line licensed therapies (deferasirox or deferoxamine) to deferiprone.

During this entire period, deferiprone was unlicensed in Canada. To this day in every jurisdiction in which deferiprone has been licensed it has been licensed only as ‘last resort’ therapy. The ethical concern is to explain and to explore possible justifications for how and why so many patients at one particular thalassaemia treatment centre were prescribed a drug whose safety and efficacy were unproven in face of availability of licensed effective drugs. The urgency of the concern derives partly from the paper’s finding that those patients who were switched to deferiprone displayed evidence of increases in body iron and experienced the harms associated with body iron increase.3 This finding raises a second troubling ethical question.

Why were patients not switched back to a first-line licensed therapy after they began to experience serious adverse effects from treatment with unlicensed deferiprone?. How and why?. In a sustained effort to discover answers to these questions, Olivieri and Gallie have been in communication since 2015, by email and in personal meetings, with senior officials at UHN. Olivieri and Gallie report, however, that no definitive answers have yet been provided to any of their questions.

FOI requests were filed but they, too, failed to produce definitive answers. (Olivieri and Gallie to Smith &. Porter, 2019, https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019-04-23-OlivieriGallie-to-SmithPorter.pdf).10 I, too, wrote to the CEO/President of UHN and to the Chief of Medical Staff, in an attempt to discover answers to a number of the ethical questions posed in this commentary. The hospital, however, has not responded to any of my questions.11Olivieri and Gallie have recently posted documentation of their correspondence with senior UHN administrators (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/).

In September 2019 the UHN administration responded to the PLOS ONE paper by revealing that it had conducted a ‘Review of chelation practice in the red blood cell disorders program at UHN’. However, as Olivieri and Gallie document on the web, the hospital’s ‘Review’ does not address any of the safety concerns flagged in the PLOS ONE paper (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Letter-to-Smith-and-Hodges-2-12-19.pdf). Nor does the ‘Review’ address any of the ethical concerns raised here.Despite UHN’s apparent reluctance to provide the information requested, here’s what we know or can reasonably infer. Deferiprone was unlicensed in Canada during the relevant period, that is, from 2009 to 2015.

€˜Unlicensed’ is different from ‘off-label’, the latter referring to a drug that has been licensed but is being provided for an indication other than that for which it is approved. Prescription of any unlicensed drug to Canadian patients can be accomplished only in one of two mutually exclusive ways. Either through Health Canada’s ‘Special Access Program (SAP)’ or via an REB approved clinical trial. It has to be one or the other since, as Health Canada’s Guidance Document7 makes clear, patients cannot be simultaneously treated through SAP and in a research trial.12 Under the SAP, the treating physician must confirm to Health Canada that ‘conventional therapies have failed, or are unsuitable or unavailable’.

Although some of the UHN patients’ records indicate that deferiprone was released under the SAP, Olivieri et al report that they ‘could identify no explanation for a proposed switch to deferiprone that was supported by evidence of failure of licensed therapy prescribed as recommended’3. Indeed, the authors write that many patients appear to have been switched to deferiprone despite optimal responses, or improvements during treatment with first-line therapies. Here’s the relevant paragraph from their PLOS ONE article:Deferiprone was prescribed to 41 study patients between 2009 and 2015. We could identify in the electronic medical records no explanation for a proposed switch to deferiprone that was supported by evidence of failure of licensed therapy prescribed as recommended.

There was no indication that any patient switched to deferiprone over these 6 years had ‘failed’ therapy with either deferoxamine or deferasirox. Many patients were recorded as tolerant of at least one and (in most), both licensed first-line chelating agents. Some had sustained minor adverse events during deferasirox that had resolved by the time deferiprone was prescribed.3In other words, according to the data found in UHN patient records, there is no evidence that the patients with thalassaemia who were switched to deferiprone met Health Canada’s eligibility criteria under SAP. Since deferiprone is licensed only as a ‘last resort’ therapy, its employment to treat patients who can tolerate either of the first-line therapies might improperly expose those patients to risks of serious medical harms, up to and including death.On the other hand, one should also consider the alternate possibility that, over the 6-year period studied by Olivieri et al, deferiprone was prescribed as part of a clinical trial.

In favour of this hypothesis, one notes that the UHN physician primarily responsible for the widespread prescribing of deferiprone during the relevant time period claimed, in 2011, that deferiprone was provided to patients under a study approved by the REB of the UHN.8 UHN physicians also made this identical claim in a publicly available letter to the US FDA.9 Moreover, in response to an FOI application filed by Olivieri, UHN claimed that deferiprone was provided at UHN during a clinical trial (the data of which are protected from scrutiny under FOI laws), and not under SAP (the data of which are not protected from scrutiny under FOI). However, Olivieri et al have been unable to find any record of registration for such a trial, as required by Canadian Clinical Trial guidelines.13 Requests to the UHN administration for confirmation that a clinical trial existed remain unanswered.14 My own efforts to find some registration record for this putative clinical trial of deferiprone have been equally unsuccessful.15Two core ethical principles. Harm-minimisation and informed consentIf the deferiprone used to treat UHN patients with thalassaemia was obtained from Apotex as part of a randomised clinical trial, responsibility for approving the trial would fall to the UHN’s REB. In Canada, both researchers and REBs are governed by the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS) ‘Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans’.10 The 1998 version of this policy statement (TCPS1) and the subsequent 2010 version (TCPS2), both applicable to research trials during this period, stipulate that clinical trials must be designed so that harm to research subjects will be minimised.16 For example, TCPS1 specifies, in section 1.5, that ‘Research subjects must not be subjected to unnecessary risks of harm’.

TCPS2, under the rubric ‘Core Principles’, requires similarly that clinical trials must ‘ensure that participants are not exposed to unnecessary risks’.Data presented by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE Study indicate that UHN patients exposed to unlicensed deferiprone, either as monotherapy or in combination with low dose of a first-line chelator (‘combination therapy’), experienced significant harms as a result of poor iron control, but very few if any compensating benefits.We provide new evidence of inadequate reduction in hepatic iron, a 17% incidence of new diabetes and new liver dysfunction in 65% of patients, many who were challenged and rechallenged with deferiprone despite elevated liver enzymes developed during previous exposure. We identified no evidence of ‘cardio-protective’ effect during deferiprone therapy.3In light of PLOS ONE Study data indicating serious adverse events (SAEs) for patients switched to deferiprone from first-line drugs one is led to question why the study protocol did not, in anticipation of such a contingency, provide for a resumption of licensed therapy for patients doing poorly on the unlicensed drug. Moreover, the investigators were obliged to report adverse events to the hospital’s REB. Were the adverse events so reported?.

And if they were then why did the UHN REB not seek to protect patient safety by insisting that licensed therapy be resumed for deferiprone-harmed patients?. In an effort to establish whether the deferiprone ‘clinical trial’ satisfied the TCPS harm-minimisation principle, I made inquiries about how the adverse findings described by the PLOS ONE paper were reported to the hospital’s REB and also how they were reported to the regulatory authorities, that is, Health Canada and the US FDA. But my queries, like those made previously by Olivieri and Gallie, have not succeeded in eliciting this ethically relevant information.17 Neither UHN nor its thalassaemia clinic responded to my letters of inquiry. It is known, however, from a publicly available 2011 document, that physicians in the UHN thalassaemia clinic strongly supported the market approval of deferiprone by the FDA.18 This support is difficult to reconcile with the toxicities recorded in UHN patient records.

So, a final verdict on the issue of whether the UHN deferiprone ‘clinical trial design’ violated the TCPS harm-minimisation principle cannot be reached until those involved in conducting and monitoring clinical trials at UHN make available the relevant information. An independent public inquiry may be necessary to achieve the necessary degree of accountability.Reference has been made, above, to the TCPS core ethical requirement of harm-minimisation, applicable in Canada both to researchers and to REBs. It is important to note, however, that TCPS2, like its predecessor, TCPS1 (and, indeed, like virtually every postwar code of research ethics) also stipulates as a second ‘core principle’ that ‘Researchers shall provide to prospective participants, or authorised third parties, full disclosure of all information necessary for making an informed decision’.19 Moreover, as the then-current TCPS guidelines make clear, ‘consent is an ongoing process’. So, assurance should be given to prospective participants that they ‘will be given in a timely manner throughout the course of the research project, information that is relevant to their decision to continue or withdraw from participation’.20 (My emphasis).

Finally, TCPS2 imposes on researchers the additional ethical requirement that they disclose to research subjects ‘information concerning the possibility of commercialisation of research findings, and the presence of any real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest on the part of the researchers, their institutions or the research sponsors’.21 There is also an expectation that conflicts of interest will be disclosed to the REB. Whether there was adequate disclosure of Apotex funding either to research subjects or to the UHN REB is still unknown.Thus, in order to assess the ethical adequacy of the putative UHN thalassaemia clinical trial one must inquire whether UHN patients/subjects were given adequate risk information when they were first enrolled, subsequently, when they were switched from treatment with deferasirox or deferoxamine to treatment with deferiprone and then, finally, when they experienced SAEs. That is, in order to know whether the putative deferiprone clinical trial conformed to established principles of research ethics, one would need to know whether patients/research subjects understood that they were being switched from licensed first-line drugs of proven efficacy to an unlicensed and unproven third-line drug. One would also need to know whether the deferiprone ‘research subjects’ were informed about conflicts of interest arising from Apotex donations (A) to the UHN.

(B) To the hospital’s thalassaemia programme,22 as well as the hoped-for commercialisation of deferiprone via Health Canada and FDA licensing.If there was a failure to obtain ongoing informed consent and/or a failure to disclose conflicts of interest (to patients and to the REB) then this would constitute a violation of research ethics. Unfortunately, my attempts to elicit the clinical trial’s consent to research information from the UHN and its thalassaemia clinic met with as little success as earlier attempts made by the PLOS ONE authors.23REB review. Safety monitoringAlthough every clinical trial requires safety monitoring, those trials which involve non-negligible risk of significant harm to patients/subjects require especially rigorous safety monitoring.24 Because the exposure of deferiprone to UHN patients posed risks of organ dysfunction and death, the need for safety monitoring was exigent. As the TCPS1 and TCPS2 both make clear, those who conduct research have an obligation to monitor and protect the safety of their research subjects.Moreover, it is now widely recognised that individuals closely involved with the design and conduct of a trial may not be able to be fully objective in reviewing interim data for any emerging concerns.25 Hence the importance of REBs, part of whose role is to provide safety monitoring initially and, for ongoing trials, over the entire period of the trial.

In order to assess the adequacy of the safety monitoring for the UHN ‘deferiprone trial’ one would need to know whether the hospital’s REB was provided with regular and accurate reports of SAEs and what actions this REB took in response to those reports.It has become common practice in North America ‘that for any controlled trial of any size that will compare rates of mortality or major morbidity’, a data safety monitoring board (DSMB) will be established.26,11 12 A DSMB is constituted by a panel of independent (and otherwise unbiased) individuals with expertise pertinent to reviewing trial data on a regular ongoing basis. Its role is to advise the sponsors regarding the safety of trial subjects and to recommend early termination where indicated, for example, on grounds of patient safety.27Since there are no specifically Canadian requirements with respect to the establishment of DSMBs, Canadian REBs tend to follow FDA guidelines. Those guidelines recommend that a DSMB should be established when the study end point is such that a highly favourable or unfavourable result at an interim analysis might ethically require termination of the study. Advance information suggesting the possibility of serious toxicity with the study treatment is another a priori reason for safety concern that would justify the establishment of a DSMB.12For reasons given above, the UHN deferiprone trial appears to have been a prime candidate for the establishment of a DSMB.

But it is not known whether the study’s research protocol, purportedly submitted for approval to the hospital’s REB, included a DSMB. Nor is it known whether a DSMB was established and reported regularly to the trial’s sponsors. Data on the toxicity of deferiprone, provided by Olivieri et al from their retrospective study of UHN patient records, suggest that had a DSMB existed for this putative clinical trial the trial might, on grounds of patient safety, have been a candidate for premature cancellation. Lacunae in our knowledge of the safety monitoring provisions of the deferiprone ‘clinical trial’ make it difficult to reach any firm conclusion as to whether the ‘trial’ met prevailing safety monitoring requirements.The apparent unwillingness of the UHN to answer questions relating to safety monitoring might mean that an inquiry is needed to fill in our knowledge gaps and thereby make ethical evaluation possible.

For the findings of such an inquiry to be minimally credible it should be carried out by individuals who possess the requisite scientific/medical expertise and who are independent of the hospital and its thalassaemia clinic and who are demonstrably impartial. An inquiry carried out, for example, by someone whose research has been funded by Apotex and/or by an expert with close professional and personal ties to one or more of the physicians in the UHN thalassaemia clinic would not satisfy the hospital’s duty of accountability for patient safety.Ethical concernsA RecapitulationThe serious complications experienced by deferiprone-exposed UHN patients, as described by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE article, raise a number of ethically important questions. How could an unlicensed drug of unproven efficacy and safety—a drug that has been questioned by regulatory agencies such that it is licensed only as a “last resort” therapy—have been administered to so many patients over a period of so many years when two licensed drugs, both proven adequately safe and effective and licensed as first-line therapies, were available?. How did UHN physicians gain access to deferiprone from Health Canada when there is little evidence in UHN patient records that the deferiprone-exposed patients satisfied Health Canada’s criteria for Special Access?.

Why was a putative UHN REB-approved research study involving deferiprone not registered as a clinical trial?. Did the trial design include a DSMB, to protect patient safety and, if not, why not?. Were SAEs reported to the UHN REB and to regulators, as required?. Were deferiprone-treated UHN patients with thalassaemia adequately informed of the unlicensed status, unproven efficacy and reported toxicities of deferiprone?.

Were deferiprone-exposed patients informed of harms they themselves had sustained during deferiprone from this exposure?. 28 Did the evidence of systematic treatment failure, as outlined in the PLOS ONE paper, raise red flags for thalassaemia clinic physicians and for the REB of UHN?. And if serious problems were flagged what actions were taken to protect patient safety?. Institutional conflict of interestThe literature on biomedical conflicts of interest tends to focus on the ways in which financial support of individual researchers by the pharmaceutical industry can adversely affect both research integrity and patient safety.13–16 But similar ethical problems arise at the macro level when institutions, such as hospitals and clinics, depend on drug company funding to support patient care and clinical research.13 15 Notable scandals associated with institutional conflicts of interest include the David Healy/Eli Lilly scandal at Toronto’s Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH),13 the Aubrey Blumsohn/Proctor and Gamble scandal at Sheffield University (UK)17 and the Carl Elliott/Janssen Pharmaceuticals scandal at the University of Minnesota.17 The underlying pattern in each of these scandals involves (A) a biomedical researcher who is concerned about patient safety coming into conflict with (B) a pharmaceutical company which funds both the researcher’s hospital and university and (C) a failure by the institutions involved vigorously to defend patient safety and research integrity when doing so might offend a wealthy sponsor.It should not be assumed that corporate influence on university medical centres is necessarily exerted by means of threats or other direct forms of intervention.

The mere presence of corporate funding can be sufficient to produce a corporate-friendly result. This point is illustrated by a recent STAT article, a propos the financial support which Purdue Pharma provided to Massachusetts General Hospital. The very title of the article encapsulates the ethical problem of institutional conflict of interest. €˜Purdue Pharma cemented ties with universities and hospitals to expand opioid sales, documents contend’.18 Nor should it be supposed that the problem of institutional conflict of interest arises exclusively in the context of biomedical research.

A recent Guardian article on the Mobil Oil Corporation describes how ‘Oil giant Mobil sought to make tax-exempt donations to leading universities … to promote the company’s interests and undermine environmental regulation, according to internal documents from the early 1990s obtained by the Guardian’.19As mentioned above, deferiprone, whose safety and efficacy are the central concern of Olivieri et al’s PLOS ONE paper, is manufactured by Apotex. When we seek to understand why deferiprone was so frequently prescribed to UHN patients, from 2009 to 2016, despite its being unlicensed and despite evidence of poor patient outcomes,3 it may be relevant to note that Apotex provided substantial funding to the UHN thalassaemia clinic.29 Moreover, a publicly displayed UHN banner lists ‘Apotex Inc – Barry and Honey Sherman’ as having donated between $1 million and $5 million to the hospital itself.30As every biomedical researcher understands, correlation is not causation. Nevertheless, the correlation between industry funding of hospitals, on the one hand, and industry-friendly decisions made by researchers and administrators at those hospitals, on the other, is worth pondering. Physicians and researchers who speak or write critically of drugs manufactured by wealthy donor companies may find that their careers are jeopardised.

Nancy Olivieri’s dismissal from two Apotex-funded teaching hospitals illustrates this phenomenon as does the termination of psychiatrist David Healy from Toronto’s CAMH.13 Healy’s appointment as Head of the CAMH Mood Disorders Clinic was rescinded almost immediately after he gave a public lecture at the hospital—a lecture in which he called for further research into the potentially adverse effects of Eli Lilly’s antidepressant drug, Prozac. Healy was particularly concerned about SSRI-induced suicidal ideation. After his lecture the hospital decided that he was not ‘a good fit’ with their programme and terminated his appointment. Shortly thereafter the hospital opened its Eli Lilly wing.13UHN, like every other research and teaching hospital in Canada, receives most of its funding, directly or indirectly, from governments.20 ,31 Nevertheless, UHN, again like other hospitals, faces ongoing pressure to find additional sources of revenue to support both patient care and clinical research.32 The pharmaceutical industry is a prime source of much-needed ‘top-up’ financial support for Canadian hospital research and clinical care.21 Hospital administrators, researchers and clinicians are thereby placed, willy nilly, in a conflict-of-interest situation.

Because of funding exigencies, hospitals and other healthcare institutions, like individual physicians and researchers, have a strong vested interest in pleasing corporate sponsors and encouraging their ongoing support. Moreover, institutional administrators, not unlike individual researchers and clinicians, typically experience a need to express their gratitude to donors by returning kindness for kindness and benefit for benefit. Thus, both the need for ongoing corporate sponsorship and the need to reciprocate for past corporate generosity create for hospital administrators (as well as for researchers and clinicians who work within hospitals) a conflict-of-interest situation in which their decision making may be skewed, consciously or unconsciously, in favour of the benefactors’ products.13 15 16 21Here’s an example of the manner in which an institutional conflict-of-interest situation can potentially bias the judgement of hospital administrators. Hospitals are required to exercise their disinterested judgement in the appointment of medical and scientific staff and in the ethical monitoring of research.

This moral obligation follows directly from their fundamental commitment to promote and defend patient safety and research integrity. To illustrate. UHN’s website, under the heading Purpose, Values and Principles, declares that ‘[o]ur Primary Value and above all else. The needs of patients come first’.22 It would be difficult to find any hospital whose Mission Statement did not proclaim a similar commitment to the primacy of patient well-being.

In a similar vein, the UHN website, under the heading Information for Patients, subheaded Our Mission, declares. €˜We believe that health equity is achieved when each person is. Enabled to choose the best care and treatment based on the most current knowledge available’.From this fundamental commitment, it follows that healthcare institutions are obliged rigorously to monitor the quality of care provided to their patients and research subjects. As an important element of protecting patient safety, hospitals are required to appoint the most qualified and competent candidates to clinical and research positions.

But, as noted above, conflicts of interest are a risk factor for bias, conscious or unconscious, in personnel decisions.22 So, when a research hospital depends on corporate donations there is a risk that physicians and researchers may be appointed to key positions because they are known to be sympathetic to the donors’ product(s) rather than because they are the best qualified and the most competent. Contrariwise, physicians and researchers believed to be unsympathetic to the donors’ products are at risk of losing their jobs or of not being hired in the first place. The cases of Olivieri, Healy and Blumsohn illustrate this point.13 17As explained above, we know from the extensive literature on conflict of interest that when research and clinical care are funded by industry there is a marked tendency for both to favour the sponsors’/donors’ products.13 15 16 18 Significantly, the UHN itself explicitly recognises the danger to patient safety posed by systemic biases. Its Mission Statement commits the hospital to ensuring that every patient is ‘[m]ade aware of existing systemic biases to support the best possible health decisions’.22 Unfortunately, it is not possible at present to ascertain whether UHN conformed to this ethical commitment in the case of its deferiprone research/treatment clinic.

In order to make such an ethical determination we would need to know the mechanism by which the UHN thalassaemia clinic gained access to deferiprone and whether the clinic provided information about systemic bias to patients with thalassaemia and to the hospital’s REB.ConclusionsHospitals worldwide proclaim that their primary commitment is to meet the needs of their patients. Institutional codes of ethics and mission statements insist that patient needs come first. Indeed, meeting ‘patient needs’ is agreed to be the fundamental value to which all other hospital goals should be subordinated. Toronto’s UHN declares unequivocally that it shares this value.

€˜[t]he needs of patients come first’.22Although patients have many and various needs, the need for safety must be counted as the sine qua non. If the need for safety is not met then other needs become irrelevant.The findings of Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE paper raise many troubling questions about the safety of patients in UHN’s thalassaemia clinic. One would expect that when top UHN officials became aware of the PLOS ONE data they would immediately have recognised the ethical red flags. Hospitals are ethically obliged both to investigate thoroughly possible safety failures and to rectify any problems identified.Over a period of several years, both before and after the publication of their research findings, Drs Olivieri and Gallie communicated regularly with UHN officials (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/).

Multiple safety concerns were brought to the hospital’s attention. Numerous questions were asked by the PLOS ONE authors and specific concerns were raised. To date, the hospital has not definitively addressed these issues. I posed a series of ethically salient questions to these same hospital officials (see online supplementary appendix A).

My queries were ignored. There was no response from UHN.Supplemental materialIf a healthcare institution such as UHN claims that patient safety is its top priority then when safety issues are raised, it necessarily incurs an obligation of accountability. It would, for example, scarcely be adequate for a hospital, such as UHN, unilaterally to investigate alleged failures, declare that there has been no violation of patient care standards, and then to stonewall all further inquiries, whether those inquiries originate from its own medical staff, as was the case with Olivieri and Gallie, or from outside scholars, as was the case with me.When an unlicensed drug is prescribed to hospital patients, over a period of years, as happened in the UHN thalassaemia programme, it is surely the hospital’s obligation to answer questions about how and why this extraordinary practice occurred. When hospital records reveal that patients switched from licensed to unlicensed medication, have experienced serious harms, up to and including death, it is surely the hospital’s obligation to answer in a conscientious and complete manner all the ethically troubling questions that have been identified.

This obligation of accountability is owed both to patients and to staff. Thus far, UHN has not been willing to accept the implications of its own mission statement (https://www.uhn.ca/corporate/AboutUHN/Quality_Patient_Safety).The PLOS ONE Study by Olivieri Sabouhanian and Gallie spurs us to inquire whether the benefits which accrue to society from corporate sponsorship of healthcare institutions may, on balance, be outweighed by the associated harms. Admittedly, for governments committed to constraining public expenditures, the transfer of substantial healthcare costs to private corporations represents a benefit for public finances. But, as we have seen, when one considers this financial benefit, one ought also to take into account the spectrum of negative consequences potentially generated by institutional conflicts of interest.

The price for our continued acceptance of corporate funding of scientific research and clinical care may be the erosion of public trust. Arguably, it would be preferable if our research hospital were to aim instead for the complete elimination of systemic biases.Data availability statementAll data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary informationEthics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required.AcknowledgmentsThe author thanks the editors of JME and two JME reviewers for their criticisms of and suggestions for change to an earlier version of this paper..

IntroductionThalassaemia is an inherited anaemia that exerts an enormous disease burden worldwide.1 Along with sickle cell how much does ventolin cost in america disease, cheap ventolin pills it is one of the two most common single gene disorders. Indeed, ‘the alpha and beta thalassaemias are the most common inherited single-gene disorders in the world…’2A newly published study by Olivieri, Sabouhanian and Gallie3 analyses and assesses the comparative efficacy and safety profile of two drugs. Deferiprone (Ferriprox how much does ventolin cost in america.

Apotex) and deferasirox (Exfade. Novartis). Both of these ‘iron-chelating’ drugs remove (‘chelate’) iron deposited, as a result of transfusions, in the tissues of patients with thalassaemia.The present-day first-line chelator, deferasirox, was licensed by the US FDA in 2005.

The evidence for its safety and effectiveness was judged to be substantial and, accordingly, the FDA licensed it as a first-line agent. The prime advantage of deferasirox, in comparison to deferoxamine, an older drug that was formerly the gold standard of iron-chelating therapy for thalassaemia, is that deferasirox is orally active (that is, taken in pill form), while deferoxamine is more burdensome for patients because it has to be taken parenterally (that is, via injection). Deferiprone, like deferasirox, is taken orally but has not been licensed anywhere as first-line treatment.

The FDA withheld market approval for deferiprone because there were/are no controlled trials demonstrating direct treatment benefit. Although the FDA did eventually approve deferiprone, in 2011, it gave approval only as a last-resort treatment for those patients in whom other chelators had been tried unsuccessfully.1The data presented by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE paper indicate that the drugs differ significantly with respect to their effectiveness and safety. This commentary explores some of the ethical issues raised by the PLOS data.Historical contextIn order to understand properly the significance of the PLOS ONE Study some historical context will be helpful.

What follows is a brief sketch of that context.2In 1993 Dr Nancy Olivieri, a specialist in blood diseases at Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (HSC or ‘Sick Kids’) and Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Toronto (U of T), signed a contract with Apotex, a generic drug company, to continue studies of deferiprone, the early promise of which she had already reported in the literature. Olivieri’s thalassaemia research was initially supported by the Medical Research Council of Canada, but now she sought additional funding to extend her clinical trials. Apotex contributed this additional funding, thereby obtaining worldwide patents on the still-experimental drug.Despite early promise, by 1996 Olivieri’s research began to indicate that deferiprone might be inadequately effective in many patients, posing risks of potentially serious harm.

Olivieri communicated to Apotex her intention to inform patients of this unexpected risk and she proposed also to amend the study’s consent forms. She wished to continue amended studies of the drug, and to publish her findings.Apotex responded to Olivieri that they disagreed with her interpretation of the data and the company’s CEO threatened her with ‘all legal remedies’ should she inform patients or publish her findings. In issuing these threats, Apotex relied on a confidentiality clause in a legal contract Olivieri had signed with Apotex in 1993.

This contract prohibited disclosure ‘to any third party’ without the express permission of Apotex.3Despite the objections raised by Apotex, Olivieri saw it as her professional duty to disclose her findings. The Research Ethics Board (REB) of Sick Kids Hospital reached the same conclusion. In compliance with instructions from the Hospital’s REB, Olivieri duly informed both her patients and the regulatory authorities.When Olivieri later identified a second risk—that liver damage progressed during deferiprone exposure—Apotex issued additional legal warnings.

Olivieri nevertheless proceeded to inform her patients of this additional risk and published her findings.Since patient safety, research integrity and academic freedom were all at stake in this dispute, Olivieri appealed for assistance, repeatedly, to senior officials at both the U of T and Sick Kids Hospital. Neither the University nor the Hospital provided the support she requested. In the words of the Report of the Committee of Inquiry on the Case Involving Dr Nancy Olivieri, the HSC, the U of T, and Apotex Inc4:The HSC and the U of T did not provide effective support either for Dr Olivieri and her rights, or for the principles of research and clinical ethics, and of academic freedom, during the first two and a half years of this controversy.Instead, both the University and the Hospital ‘took actions that were harmful to Dr.

Olivieri’s interests and professional reputation and disrupted her work’.4 The harmful actions included firing Olivieri from her position as Director of the Hemoglobinopathy Program at Sick Kids Hospital and referring her for discipline to the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO).Only later did it emerge that, during this period of conflict, the U of T was negotiating with Apotex for a major donation towards building the University’s proposed new molecular medicine building. Some speculated that the University’s failure to support Olivieri may not have been unconnected from its desire to appease a wealthy corporate donor. This speculation was reinforced when it was discovered that the then President of the University, Robert Prichard, had secretly lobbied the government of Canada for changes in drug patent law, changes that would favour Apotex.4Apotex proceeded to sue Olivieri for defaming both the company and their drug.

She sued the company for defaming her.The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) and the U of T Faculty Association (UTFA), to whom Olivieri appealed for assistance after being rebuffed by the U of T and HSC, viewed the underlying issue as one of academic freedom. Both CAUT and UTFA provided support, including legal advice, to Olivieri.Thus began what is widely acknowledged to be the greatest scandal in Canadian academic history. Commissions of inquiry, books and articles (both scholarly and popular) proliferated, not to mention newspaper and television stories.

John le Carré’s novel The Constant Gardener and the Hollywood movie based on the book both appeared to draw heavily on the Olivieri-Apotex scandal. An inquiry into the dispute commissioned by Sick Kids Hospital (the Naimark Inquiry)5 absolved Apotex of wrongdoing but suggested that Olivieri was seriously at fault.5 She was charged with research misconduct and failures of patient care and was referred first to the Hospital’s Medical Advisory Council and subsequently to the disciplinary committee of the CPSO. Unsurprisingly, these widely publicised referrals were prejudicial to Olivieri’s reputation.The CAUT then commissioned an independent inquiry.6 The 540-page CAUT report on the Olivieri/Apotex affair4 gave a markedly different account of the scandal from that offered by the hospital-commissioned Naimark Report.

A few excerpts from the CAUT report will convey its central findings:Apotex issued more legal warnings to deter Dr. Olivieri from communicating this second unexpected risk of L1 (deferiprone) to anyone. However, she was legally and ethically obligated to communicate the risk to those taking or prescribing the drug as there were potential safety implications for patients, and she fulfilled these obligations despite the legal warnings.Apotex acted against the public interest in issuing legal warnings to Dr.

Olivieri to deter her from communicating about risks of L1.Apotex’s legal warnings violated Dr. Olivieri’s academic freedom.7Shortly after the CAUT report absolved Olivieri of misconduct, the CPSO published the findings of its inquiry. The CPSO report exonerated Olivieri of all misconduct charges.

Indeed, their report concluded that her conduct had been ‘commendable’.6 This favourable verdict did not, however, bring an end to litigation.In 2004, 8 years after the first legal threats had been issued, Apotex signed a mediated settlement with Olivieri. Nevertheless, litigation continued for another 10 years. Those unfamiliar with the workings of the law may wonder how it is possible for litigation to continue for such a long period after a mediated settlement.

Litigation continued because Apotex alleged that Olivieri had violated their agreement. Olivieri insisted that she was in compliance with the terms of the settlement. Court decisions were appealed by both parties.

A final settlement was not reached between Olivieri and Apotex until 2014.8 Shades of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce in Charles Dicken’s novel Bleak House.The HSC settled its dispute with Olivieri in 2006 and, although her research programme at the Hospital continued, she ceased to provide clinical care to HSC patients. From 1997 to 2009, Olivieri served as Director of the University Health Network (UHN) Hemoglobinopathy Program.

She continued, as she had since 1997, to assist in the clinical care of UHN patients with thalassaemia and to enrol them in her research studies. In March 2009, however, Olivieri was dismissed by UHN from her position as Director. No reason was given for her dismissal (Personal communication.

Olivieri, 2019).The PLOS ONE Study data3 show that, after Olivieri’s dismissal from her position as Director, the UHN thalassaemia Clinic began almost immediately to switch patients to (unlicensed) deferiprone. Olivieri has described how her UHN research work, from this time forward, was marginalised (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2018-12-20-GallieOlivieri-to-SmithHodges.pdf).Meanwhile, Freedom of Information (FOI) requests filed by Olivieri after her dismissal revealed that Apotex was supplying unrestricted educational grants to UHN’s thalassaemia programme as well as providing research support. The FOI requests filed by Olivieri also revealed that Apotex was strategising with the programme’s new director about how best to obtain licensing for deferiprone from the regulator (Health Canada).9 With this dramatic background as historical context, we commence our discussion of the ethical implications of the PLOS ONE paper.Findings of the PLOS ONE paperIn their 2019 PLOS ONE study Olivieri et al conclude, based on a retrospective review of patient data at Toronto’s UHN, that deferiprone is inadequately effective and associated with serious toxicity.

Their review also confirms that, by contrast, deferasirox is effective and associated with relatively few adverse effects.3Olivieri et al report that ‘[b]etween 2009 and 2015, a third of patients transfused and managed in Canada’s largest transfusion programme were switched from first-line, licensed drugs to regimens of unlicensed deferiprone’.3 This finding raises the ethically troubling question. How and why were so many locally transfused patients at UHN treated over such a long time period with an unlicensed drug of unproven safety and efficacy?. This ethical concern is followed immediately by another related concern.

Why did the UHN thalassaemia programme continue to treat large numbers of its patients with deferiprone—despite ongoing evidence of inadequate effectiveness and serious (and often irreversible) adverse effects?. 3To recapitulate. The PLOS ONE paper demonstrates that a substantial proportion of UHN patients with thalassaemia was switched, between the years 2009 and 2015, from first-line licensed therapies (deferasirox or deferoxamine) to deferiprone.

During this entire period, deferiprone was unlicensed in Canada. To this day in every jurisdiction in which deferiprone has been licensed it has been licensed only as ‘last resort’ therapy. The ethical concern is to explain and to explore possible justifications for how and why so many patients at one particular thalassaemia treatment centre were prescribed a drug whose safety and efficacy were unproven in face of availability of licensed effective drugs.

The urgency of the concern derives partly from the paper’s finding that those patients who were switched to deferiprone displayed evidence of increases in body iron and experienced the harms associated with body iron increase.3 This finding raises a second troubling ethical question. Why were patients not switched back to a first-line licensed therapy after they began to experience serious adverse effects from treatment with unlicensed deferiprone?. How and why?.

In a sustained effort to discover answers to these questions, Olivieri and Gallie have been in communication since 2015, by email and in personal meetings, with senior officials at UHN. Olivieri and Gallie report, however, that no definitive answers have yet been provided to any of their questions. FOI requests were filed but they, too, failed to produce definitive answers.

(Olivieri and Gallie to Smith &. Porter, 2019, https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/2019-04-23-OlivieriGallie-to-SmithPorter.pdf).10 I, too, wrote to the CEO/President of UHN and to the Chief of Medical Staff, in an attempt to discover answers to a number of the ethical questions posed in this commentary. The hospital, however, has not responded to any of my questions.11Olivieri and Gallie have recently posted documentation of their correspondence with senior UHN administrators (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/).

In September 2019 the UHN administration responded to the PLOS ONE paper by revealing that it had conducted a ‘Review of chelation practice in the red blood cell disorders program at UHN’. However, as Olivieri and Gallie document on the web, the hospital’s ‘Review’ does not address any of the safety concerns flagged in the PLOS ONE paper (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Letter-to-Smith-and-Hodges-2-12-19.pdf). Nor does the ‘Review’ address any of the ethical concerns raised here.Despite UHN’s apparent reluctance to provide the information requested, here’s what we know or can reasonably infer.

Deferiprone was unlicensed in Canada during the relevant period, that is, from 2009 to 2015. €˜Unlicensed’ is different from ‘off-label’, the latter referring to a drug that has been licensed but is being provided for an indication other than that for which it is approved. Prescription of any unlicensed drug to Canadian patients can be accomplished only in one of two mutually exclusive ways.

Either through Health Canada’s ‘Special Access Program (SAP)’ or via an REB approved clinical trial. It has to be one or the other since, as Health Canada’s Guidance Document7 makes clear, patients cannot be simultaneously treated through SAP and in a research trial.12 Under the SAP, the treating physician must confirm to Health Canada that ‘conventional therapies have failed, or are unsuitable or unavailable’. Although some of the UHN patients’ records indicate that deferiprone was released under the SAP, Olivieri et al report that they ‘could identify no explanation for a proposed switch to deferiprone that was supported by evidence of failure of licensed therapy prescribed as recommended’3.

Indeed, the authors write that many patients appear to have been switched to deferiprone despite optimal responses, or improvements during treatment with first-line therapies. Here’s the relevant paragraph from their PLOS ONE article:Deferiprone was prescribed to 41 study patients between 2009 and 2015. We could identify in the electronic medical records no explanation for a proposed switch to deferiprone that was supported by evidence of failure of licensed therapy prescribed as recommended.

There was no indication that any patient switched to deferiprone over these 6 years had ‘failed’ therapy with either deferoxamine or deferasirox. Many patients were recorded as tolerant of at least one and (in most), both licensed first-line chelating agents. Some had sustained minor adverse events during deferasirox that had resolved by the time deferiprone was prescribed.3In other words, according to the data found in UHN patient records, there is no evidence that the patients with thalassaemia who were switched to deferiprone met Health Canada’s eligibility criteria under SAP.

Since deferiprone is licensed only as a ‘last resort’ therapy, its employment to treat patients who can tolerate either of the first-line therapies might improperly expose those patients to risks of serious medical harms, up to and including death.On the other hand, one should also consider the alternate possibility that, over the 6-year period studied by Olivieri et al, deferiprone was prescribed as part of a clinical trial. In favour of this hypothesis, one notes that the UHN physician primarily responsible for the widespread prescribing of deferiprone during the relevant time period claimed, in 2011, that deferiprone was provided to patients under a study approved by the REB of the UHN.8 UHN physicians also made this identical claim in a publicly available letter to the US FDA.9 Moreover, in response to an FOI application filed by Olivieri, UHN claimed that deferiprone was provided at UHN during a clinical trial (the data of which are protected from scrutiny under FOI laws), and not under SAP (the data of which are not protected from scrutiny under FOI). However, Olivieri et al have been unable to find any record of registration for such a trial, as required by Canadian Clinical Trial guidelines.13 Requests to the UHN administration for confirmation that a clinical trial existed remain unanswered.14 My own efforts to find some registration record for this putative clinical trial of deferiprone have been equally unsuccessful.15Two core ethical principles.

Harm-minimisation and informed consentIf the deferiprone used to treat UHN patients with thalassaemia was obtained from Apotex as part of a randomised clinical trial, responsibility for approving the trial would fall to the UHN’s REB. In Canada, both researchers and REBs are governed by the Tri-Council Policy Statement (TCPS) ‘Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans’.10 The 1998 version of this policy statement (TCPS1) and the subsequent 2010 version (TCPS2), both applicable to research trials during this period, stipulate that clinical trials must be designed so that harm to research subjects will be minimised.16 For example, TCPS1 specifies, in section 1.5, that ‘Research subjects must not be subjected to unnecessary risks of harm’. TCPS2, under the rubric ‘Core Principles’, requires similarly that clinical trials must ‘ensure that participants are not exposed to unnecessary risks’.Data presented by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE Study indicate that UHN patients exposed to unlicensed deferiprone, either as monotherapy or in combination with low dose of a first-line chelator (‘combination therapy’), experienced significant harms as a result of poor iron control, but very few if any compensating benefits.We provide new evidence of inadequate reduction in hepatic iron, a 17% incidence of new diabetes and new liver dysfunction in 65% of patients, many who were challenged and rechallenged with deferiprone despite elevated liver enzymes developed during previous exposure.

We identified no evidence of ‘cardio-protective’ effect during deferiprone therapy.3In light of PLOS ONE Study data indicating serious adverse events (SAEs) for patients switched to deferiprone from first-line drugs one is led to question why the study protocol did not, in anticipation of such a contingency, provide for a resumption of licensed therapy for patients doing poorly on the unlicensed drug. Moreover, the investigators were obliged to report adverse events to the hospital’s REB. Were the adverse events so reported?.

And if they were then why did the UHN REB not seek to protect patient safety by insisting that licensed therapy be resumed for deferiprone-harmed patients?. In an effort to establish whether the deferiprone ‘clinical trial’ satisfied the TCPS harm-minimisation principle, I made inquiries about how the adverse findings described by the PLOS ONE paper were reported to the hospital’s REB and also how they were reported to the regulatory authorities, that is, Health Canada and the US FDA. But my queries, like those made previously by Olivieri and Gallie, have not succeeded in eliciting this ethically relevant information.17 Neither UHN nor its thalassaemia clinic responded to my letters of inquiry.

It is known, however, from a publicly available 2011 document, that physicians in the UHN thalassaemia clinic strongly supported the market approval of deferiprone by the FDA.18 This support is difficult to reconcile with the toxicities recorded in UHN patient records. So, a final verdict on the issue of whether the UHN deferiprone ‘clinical trial design’ violated the TCPS harm-minimisation principle cannot be reached until those involved in conducting and monitoring clinical trials at UHN make available the relevant information. An independent public inquiry may be necessary to achieve the necessary degree of accountability.Reference has been made, above, to the TCPS core ethical requirement of harm-minimisation, applicable in Canada both to researchers and to REBs.

It is important to note, however, that TCPS2, like its predecessor, TCPS1 (and, indeed, like virtually every postwar code of research ethics) also stipulates as a second ‘core principle’ that ‘Researchers shall provide to prospective participants, or authorised third parties, full disclosure of all information necessary for making an informed decision’.19 Moreover, as the then-current TCPS guidelines make clear, ‘consent is an ongoing process’. So, assurance should be given to prospective participants that they ‘will be given in a timely manner throughout the course of the research project, information that is relevant to their decision to continue or withdraw from participation’.20 (My emphasis). Finally, TCPS2 imposes on researchers the additional ethical requirement that they disclose to research subjects ‘information concerning the possibility of commercialisation of research findings, and the presence of any real, potential or perceived conflicts of interest on the part of the researchers, their institutions or the research sponsors’.21 There is also an expectation that conflicts of interest will be disclosed to the REB.

Whether there was adequate disclosure of Apotex funding either to research subjects or to the UHN REB is still unknown.Thus, in order to assess the ethical adequacy of the putative UHN thalassaemia clinical trial one must inquire whether UHN patients/subjects were given adequate risk information when they were first enrolled, subsequently, when they were switched from treatment with deferasirox or deferoxamine to treatment with deferiprone and then, finally, when they experienced SAEs. That is, in order to know whether the putative deferiprone clinical trial conformed to established principles of research ethics, one would need to know whether patients/research subjects understood that they were being switched from licensed first-line drugs of proven efficacy to an unlicensed and unproven third-line drug. One would also need to know whether the deferiprone ‘research subjects’ were informed about conflicts of interest arising from Apotex donations (A) to the UHN.

(B) To the hospital’s thalassaemia programme,22 as well as the hoped-for commercialisation of deferiprone via Health Canada and FDA licensing.If there was a failure to obtain ongoing informed consent and/or a failure to disclose conflicts of interest (to patients and to the REB) then this would constitute a violation of research ethics. Unfortunately, my attempts to elicit the clinical trial’s consent to research information from the UHN and its thalassaemia clinic met with as little success as earlier attempts made by the PLOS ONE authors.23REB review. Safety monitoringAlthough every clinical trial requires safety monitoring, those trials which involve non-negligible risk of significant harm to patients/subjects require especially rigorous safety monitoring.24 Because the exposure of deferiprone to UHN patients posed risks of organ dysfunction and death, the need for safety monitoring was exigent.

As the TCPS1 and TCPS2 both make clear, those who conduct research have an obligation to monitor and protect the safety of their research subjects.Moreover, it is now widely recognised that individuals closely involved with the design and conduct of a trial may not be able to be fully objective in reviewing interim data for any emerging concerns.25 Hence the importance of REBs, part of whose role is to provide safety monitoring initially and, for ongoing trials, over the entire period of the trial. In order to assess the adequacy of the safety monitoring for the UHN ‘deferiprone trial’ one would need to know whether the hospital’s REB was provided with regular and accurate reports of SAEs and what actions this REB took in response to those reports.It has become common practice in North America ‘that for any controlled trial of any size that will compare rates of mortality or major morbidity’, a data safety monitoring board (DSMB) will be established.26,11 12 A DSMB is constituted by a panel of independent (and otherwise unbiased) individuals with expertise pertinent to reviewing trial data on a regular ongoing basis. Its role is to advise the sponsors regarding the safety of trial subjects and to recommend early termination where indicated, for example, on grounds of patient safety.27Since there are no specifically Canadian requirements with respect to the establishment of DSMBs, Canadian REBs tend to follow FDA guidelines.

Those guidelines recommend that a DSMB should be established when the study end point is such that a highly favourable or unfavourable result at an interim analysis might ethically require termination of the study. Advance information suggesting the possibility of serious toxicity with the study treatment is another a priori reason for safety concern that would justify the establishment of a DSMB.12For reasons given above, the UHN deferiprone trial appears to have been a prime candidate for the establishment of a DSMB. But it is not known whether the study’s research protocol, purportedly submitted for approval to the hospital’s REB, included a DSMB.

Nor is it known whether a DSMB was established and reported regularly to the trial’s sponsors. Data on the toxicity of deferiprone, provided by Olivieri et al from their retrospective study of UHN patient records, suggest that had a DSMB existed for this putative clinical trial the trial might, on grounds of patient safety, have been a candidate for premature cancellation. Lacunae in our knowledge of the safety monitoring provisions of the deferiprone ‘clinical trial’ make it difficult to reach any firm conclusion as to whether the ‘trial’ met prevailing safety monitoring requirements.The apparent unwillingness of the UHN to answer questions relating to safety monitoring might mean that an inquiry is needed to fill in our knowledge gaps and thereby make ethical evaluation possible.

For the findings of such an inquiry to be minimally credible it should be carried out by individuals who possess the requisite scientific/medical expertise and who are independent of the hospital and its thalassaemia clinic and who are demonstrably impartial. An inquiry carried out, for example, by someone whose research has been funded by Apotex and/or by an expert with close professional and personal ties to one or more of the physicians in the UHN thalassaemia clinic would not satisfy the hospital’s duty of accountability for patient safety.Ethical concernsA RecapitulationThe serious complications experienced by deferiprone-exposed UHN patients, as described by Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE article, raise a number of ethically important questions. How could an unlicensed drug of unproven efficacy and safety—a drug that has been questioned by regulatory agencies such that it is licensed only as a “last resort” therapy—have been administered to so many patients over a period of so many years when two licensed drugs, both proven adequately safe and effective and licensed as first-line therapies, were available?.

How did UHN physicians gain access to deferiprone from Health Canada when there is little evidence in UHN patient records that the deferiprone-exposed patients satisfied Health Canada’s criteria for Special Access?. Why was a putative UHN REB-approved research study involving deferiprone not registered as a clinical trial?. Did the trial design include a DSMB, to protect patient safety and, if not, why not?.

Were SAEs reported to the UHN REB and to regulators, as required?. Were deferiprone-treated UHN patients with thalassaemia adequately informed of the unlicensed status, unproven efficacy and reported toxicities of deferiprone?. Were deferiprone-exposed patients informed of harms they themselves had sustained during deferiprone from this exposure?.

28 Did the evidence of systematic treatment failure, as outlined in the PLOS ONE paper, raise red flags for thalassaemia clinic physicians and for the REB of UHN?. And if serious problems were flagged what actions were taken to protect patient safety?. Institutional conflict of interestThe literature on biomedical conflicts of interest tends to focus on the ways in which financial support of individual researchers by the pharmaceutical industry can adversely affect both research integrity and patient safety.13–16 But similar ethical problems arise at the macro level when institutions, such as hospitals and clinics, depend on drug company funding to support patient care and clinical research.13 15 Notable scandals associated with institutional conflicts of interest include the David Healy/Eli Lilly scandal at Toronto’s Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH),13 the Aubrey Blumsohn/Proctor and Gamble scandal at Sheffield University (UK)17 and the Carl Elliott/Janssen Pharmaceuticals scandal at the University of Minnesota.17 The underlying pattern in each of these scandals involves (A) a biomedical researcher who is concerned about patient safety coming into conflict with (B) a pharmaceutical company which funds both the researcher’s hospital and university and (C) a failure by the institutions involved vigorously to defend patient safety and research integrity when doing so might offend a wealthy sponsor.It should not be assumed that corporate influence on university medical centres is necessarily exerted by means of threats or other direct forms of intervention.

The mere presence of corporate funding can be sufficient to produce a corporate-friendly result. This point is illustrated by a recent STAT article, a propos the financial support which Purdue Pharma provided to Massachusetts General Hospital. The very title of the article encapsulates the ethical problem of institutional conflict of interest.

€˜Purdue Pharma cemented ties with universities and hospitals to expand opioid sales, documents contend’.18 Nor should it be supposed that the problem of institutional conflict of interest arises exclusively in the context of biomedical research. A recent Guardian article on the Mobil Oil Corporation describes how ‘Oil giant Mobil sought to make tax-exempt donations to leading universities … to promote the company’s interests and undermine environmental regulation, according to internal documents from the early 1990s obtained by the Guardian’.19As mentioned above, deferiprone, whose safety and efficacy are the central concern of Olivieri et al’s PLOS ONE paper, is manufactured by Apotex. When we seek to understand why deferiprone was so frequently prescribed to UHN patients, from 2009 to 2016, despite its being unlicensed and despite evidence of poor patient outcomes,3 it may be relevant to note that Apotex provided substantial funding to the UHN thalassaemia clinic.29 Moreover, a publicly displayed UHN banner lists ‘Apotex Inc – Barry and Honey Sherman’ as having donated between $1 million and $5 million to the hospital itself.30As every biomedical researcher understands, correlation is not causation.

Nevertheless, the correlation between industry funding of hospitals, on the one hand, and industry-friendly decisions made by researchers and administrators at those hospitals, on the other, is worth pondering. Physicians and researchers who speak or write critically of drugs manufactured by wealthy donor companies may find that their careers are jeopardised. Nancy Olivieri’s dismissal from two Apotex-funded teaching hospitals illustrates this phenomenon as does the termination of psychiatrist David Healy from Toronto’s CAMH.13 Healy’s appointment as Head of the CAMH Mood Disorders Clinic was rescinded almost immediately after he gave a public lecture at the hospital—a lecture in which he called for further research into the potentially adverse effects of Eli Lilly’s antidepressant drug, Prozac.

Healy was particularly concerned about SSRI-induced suicidal ideation. After his lecture the hospital decided that he was not ‘a good fit’ with their programme and terminated his appointment. Shortly thereafter the hospital opened its Eli Lilly wing.13UHN, like every other research and teaching hospital in Canada, receives most of its funding, directly or indirectly, from governments.20 ,31 Nevertheless, UHN, again like other hospitals, faces ongoing pressure to find additional sources of revenue to support both patient care and clinical research.32 The pharmaceutical industry is a prime source of much-needed ‘top-up’ financial support for Canadian hospital research and clinical care.21 Hospital administrators, researchers and clinicians are thereby placed, willy nilly, in a conflict-of-interest situation.

Because of funding exigencies, hospitals and other healthcare institutions, like individual physicians and researchers, have a strong vested interest in pleasing corporate sponsors and encouraging their ongoing support. Moreover, institutional administrators, not unlike individual researchers and clinicians, typically experience a need to express their gratitude to donors by returning kindness for kindness and benefit for benefit. Thus, both the need for ongoing corporate sponsorship and the need to reciprocate for past corporate generosity create for hospital administrators (as well as for researchers and clinicians who work within hospitals) a conflict-of-interest situation in which their decision making may be skewed, consciously or unconsciously, in favour of the benefactors’ products.13 15 16 21Here’s an example of the manner in which an institutional conflict-of-interest situation can potentially bias the judgement of hospital administrators.

Hospitals are required to exercise their disinterested judgement in the appointment of medical and scientific staff and in the ethical monitoring of research. This moral obligation follows directly from their fundamental commitment to promote and defend patient safety and research integrity. To illustrate.

UHN’s website, under the heading Purpose, Values and Principles, declares that ‘[o]ur Primary Value and above all else. The needs of patients come first’.22 It would be difficult to find any hospital whose Mission Statement did not proclaim a similar commitment to the primacy of patient well-being. In a similar vein, the UHN website, under the heading Information for Patients, subheaded Our Mission, declares.

€˜We believe that health equity is achieved when each person is. Enabled to choose the best care and treatment based on the most current knowledge available’.From this fundamental commitment, it follows that healthcare institutions are obliged rigorously to monitor the quality of care provided to their patients and research subjects. As an important element of protecting patient safety, hospitals are required to appoint the most qualified and competent candidates to clinical and research positions.

But, as noted above, conflicts of interest are a risk factor for bias, conscious or unconscious, in personnel decisions.22 So, when a research hospital depends on corporate donations there is a risk that physicians and researchers may be appointed to key positions because they are known to be sympathetic to the donors’ product(s) rather than because they are the best qualified and the most competent. Contrariwise, physicians and researchers believed to be unsympathetic to the donors’ products are at risk of losing their jobs or of not being hired in the first place. The cases of Olivieri, Healy and Blumsohn illustrate this point.13 17As explained above, we know from the extensive literature on conflict of interest that when research and clinical care are funded by industry there is a marked tendency for both to favour the sponsors’/donors’ products.13 15 16 18 Significantly, the UHN itself explicitly recognises the danger to patient safety posed by systemic biases.

Its Mission Statement commits the hospital to ensuring that every patient is ‘[m]ade aware of existing systemic biases to support the best possible health decisions’.22 Unfortunately, it is not possible at present to ascertain whether UHN conformed to this ethical commitment in the case of its deferiprone research/treatment clinic. In order to make such an ethical determination we would need to know the mechanism by which the UHN thalassaemia clinic gained access to deferiprone and whether the clinic provided information about systemic bias to patients with thalassaemia and to the hospital’s REB.ConclusionsHospitals worldwide proclaim that their primary commitment is to meet the needs of their patients. Institutional codes of ethics and mission statements insist that patient needs come first.

Indeed, meeting ‘patient needs’ is agreed to be the fundamental value to which all other hospital goals should be subordinated. Toronto’s UHN declares unequivocally that it shares this value. €˜[t]he needs of patients come first’.22Although patients have many and various needs, the need for safety must be counted as the sine qua non.

If the need for safety is not met then other needs become irrelevant.The findings of Olivieri et al in their PLOS ONE paper raise many troubling questions about the safety of patients in UHN’s thalassaemia clinic. One would expect that when top UHN officials became aware of the PLOS ONE data they would immediately have recognised the ethical red flags. Hospitals are ethically obliged both to investigate thoroughly possible safety failures and to rectify any problems identified.Over a period of several years, both before and after the publication of their research findings, Drs Olivieri and Gallie communicated regularly with UHN officials (https://inthepatientsinterest.org/).

Multiple safety concerns were brought to the hospital’s attention. Numerous questions were asked by the PLOS ONE authors and specific concerns were raised. To date, the hospital has not definitively addressed these issues.

I posed a series of ethically salient questions to these same hospital officials (see online supplementary appendix A). My queries were ignored. There was no response from UHN.Supplemental materialIf a healthcare institution such as UHN claims that patient safety is its top priority then when safety issues are raised, it necessarily incurs an obligation of accountability.

It would, for example, scarcely be adequate for a hospital, such as UHN, unilaterally to investigate alleged failures, declare that there has been no violation of patient care standards, and then to stonewall all further inquiries, whether those inquiries originate from its own medical staff, as was the case with Olivieri and Gallie, or from outside scholars, as was the case with me.When an unlicensed drug is prescribed to hospital patients, over a period of years, as happened in the UHN thalassaemia programme, it is surely the hospital’s obligation to answer questions about how and why this extraordinary practice occurred. When hospital records reveal that patients switched from licensed to unlicensed medication, have experienced serious harms, up to and including death, it is surely the hospital’s obligation to answer in a conscientious and complete manner all the ethically troubling questions that have been identified. This obligation of accountability is owed both to patients and to staff.

Thus far, UHN has not been willing to accept the implications of its own mission statement (https://www.uhn.ca/corporate/AboutUHN/Quality_Patient_Safety).The PLOS ONE Study by Olivieri Sabouhanian and Gallie spurs us to inquire whether the benefits which accrue to society from corporate sponsorship of healthcare institutions may, on balance, be outweighed by the associated harms. Admittedly, for governments committed to constraining public expenditures, the transfer of substantial healthcare costs to private corporations represents a benefit for public finances. But, as we have seen, when one considers this financial benefit, one ought also to take into account the spectrum of negative consequences potentially generated by institutional conflicts of interest.

The price for our continued acceptance of corporate funding of scientific research and clinical care may be the erosion of public trust. Arguably, it would be preferable if our research hospital were to aim instead for the complete elimination of systemic biases.Data availability statementAll data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary informationEthics statementsPatient consent for publicationNot required.AcknowledgmentsThe author thanks the editors of JME and two JME reviewers for their criticisms of and suggestions for change to an earlier version of this paper..

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Spending is projected to increase to nearly $1.5 trillion in 2031, due to growth in the Medicare population and increases in health care costs.The number of Medicare beneficiaries is projected to grow from around 65 million people in 2020 to nearly 93 million people in 2060. The aging population is one factor contributing to higher Medicare spending, since spending per person is higher among older beneficiaries.Medicare Advantage plans accounted for nearly half of all Medicare spending in 2021, up from just over how much does ventolin cost in america a quarter in 2011, and the share is expected to keep growing. Payments to Medicare Advantage plans nearly tripled from $124 billion how much does ventolin cost in america to $370 billion over that timeframe.

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