PharmAware Blog

Hundreds of patients in Canada’s Newfoundland and Labrador province with breast cancer were given inaccurate results of oestrogen and progesterone receptor hormone testing in a wholesale failure of accountability and oversight at all levels of the healthcare system, an inquiry found this week.

In the report Justice Margaret Cameron made 60 recommendations to ensure that what went wrong will not happen again, including more training for physicians, mandatory continuing education for laboratory technologists, and better record keeping.

The health authority at the centre of the scandal has announced that it has hired a new chief executive officer, Vickie Kaminski, a veteran administrator accustomed to the glare of publicity.

BMJ 13/3/9 http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/338/mar09_2/b952

Aid agencies have condemned the Dutch government’s seizure of a shipment of antiretroviral drugs destined for sub-Saharan Africa, which they say flouts world trade rules and will put patients’ lives at risk.

Oxfam International, Health Action International, and the World Health Organization say that the 50 kg consignment of abacavir should be released immediately, before the health of hundreds of Nigerian patients with AIDS or infected with HIV is affected.

Dutch customs seized the drugs on their way from India in November at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, on suspicion that they might be counterfeit or have breached local intellectual property rights.

BMJ 13/3/9 http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/338/mar11_1/b1002