A very long, detailed article about Dr. Olivieri and the controversial Apotex drug trial and thalassemia drug.
‘Dr. Nancy Olivieri was in the lobby of Toronto General Hospital, waiting in line at Starbucks, when one of her former patients approached her to tell her that they were now taking deferiprone.
Olivieri was taken aback. Decades earlier, when she was just starting her career at a major nearby hospital, she had been one of the first scientists to test the drug on patients with thalassemia, a hereditary blood disease that can be life-threatening.
The trial came crashing down in the mid-’90s when Olivieri’s research led her to doubt the efficacy and safety of the medication. She went public with her concerns. The drugmaker,
Apotex, tried to muzzle her. The hospital where she worked at the time demoted her and referred unfounded concerns about her to Ontario’s medical watchdog. She was
pushed to the margins and ostracized….
…What she found alarmed her. In some cases, she said, patients were kept on deferiprone despite clear warning signs or documented past problems with the medication. With her longtime colleague and ally Dr. Brenda Gallie, she found most of the
41 patients whose records she had approval to examine suffered “significant toxicity,” including diabetes and liver dysfunction. A woman in her 30s died in 2013, “presumably of cardiac failure,” 13 months after being placed on the drug in combination with a low dose of an approved medication.
For 14 years, Olivieri has continued digging. She uncovered that the hospital clinic giving the unlicensed drug to patients was receiving money from Apotex. She also found that an internal UHN review of the care thalassemia patients received – which concluded the clinic’s use of the unlicensed drug was “justified” – overlooked what she considered to be important evidence and had discomforting ties to the drug’s maker.
Like she did decades ago, Olivieri has once again sparked a controversy that has divided doctors and raised uncomfortable questions about the influence of funding from Big Pharma inside trusted Toronto health institutions.
The Star has interviewed key players in the dispute and reviewed hundreds of pages of records, including internal hospital emails and correspondence from Apotex, obtained through Freedom-of-Information legislation (FOI). The investigation’s findings leave Olivieri and Gallie concerned about a possible whitewash.’
UHN stands by its decision to use the drug deferiprone to treat thalassemia. Hospital officials reject allegations that money from Apotex influenced patient care.
www.thestar.com
