OTTAWA DRUG SCANDAL THREATENS ALL OF US

A SCANDAL IS brewing in Ottawa, a scandal far more important than the
question of how a sex-crazed U.S. president handled his videotaped grand
jury testimony.

The Ottawa scandal, unrolling in an obscure Sparks St. hearing room before a
public service grievance tribunal, involves government stonewalling,
allegations of cover-up and an all-too-cozy relationship between the
powerful multinational drug industry and those federal officials who purport
to regulate it.

If the complainants at that hearing - six scientists employed by the federal
Health Protection Branch - are correct, it is a scandal which puts the
health of all Canadians at risk.

The scientists claim that they were pressured to approve unsafe drugs. They
claim the pressure came from their superiors who, in turn, were responding
to demands from the big drug companies.

In particular, they say they were pushed to give favourable reviews of
controversial drugs used on animals. One was the genetically engineered
growth hormone, recombinant bovine somatrotopin (rBST), which is used in the
United States to increase milk production but which, mainly because of
opposition from many dairy farmers, has not yet been approved for use in
Canada.

Another was the growth hormone Revalor-H, which is used to fatten cattle and
which has been approved for Canadian use.

It should be noted that many people eat beef. Others drink milk.

The essence of the scientists' claims is that not enough attention is being
paid to these basic facts of human diet. They argue that the government is
pushing them to approve products which eventually may work their way into
the food chain and injure humans.

In the case of Revalor-H, researchers found the growth hormone altered some
of the animals' internal organs. What they weren't able to find out was
whether drug residues in these animals could also harm people.

In the case of rBST, the researchers warned again that the long-term effects
of the drug were simply unknown. They pointed out that certain side-effects
of rBST - particularly the possibility that it might increase production of
another hormone linked to cancer - argued for caution.

All of this is troubling. Even more troubling is how the six scientists'
worries have been handled.

In one case, senior officials ordered an internal report on rBST rewritten
to remove the critical parts.

According to testimony at the public service tribunal, researchers in the
branch's bureau of veterinary medicine were told they would be shipped off
to where they would ``never be heard from again'' unless they approved
controversial drugs.

One researcher, Dr. Margaret Haydon, testified that senior managers warned
she might be sued by Hoechst Canada Inc., the manufacturer of Revalor-H, if
she didn't approve the drug. When that drug was finally approved, her boss
wrote Hoechst promising to ``make up for the rough time (it) had with
Revalor-H when we review (its) next submission.''

The grievance tribunal hearing itself, while technically public, is being
conducted in a oddly minimalist manner. There are no transcripts of the
evidence and reporters present say they can't hear all the questions and
answers.

The six scientists themselves have been ordered not to speak to the press.

Even a Senate committee looking into the issue has been stonewalled.

In June, health officials refused to give the committee an uncensored copy
of the internal report criticizing the branch's handling of rBST.

Senators were able to get at some of the disturbing evidence only after one
of their researchers filed an access-to-information request.

Throughout, the government's attempts to deal with the health branch
controversy have only raised more questions.

It has ordered two allegedly independent reviews of rBST. But one review is
being done by an organization, the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association,
already on record as favouring the legalization of rBST.

The other is being carried out by the Royal College of Physicians and
Surgeons.

As The Star's Laura Eggertson revealed yesterday, one of the members of that
committee - nutritionist RE9jeanne Gougeon - is a former consultant for
Monsanto Canada, the manufacturer of rBST.

She, too, is on record calling for the legalization of the growth hormone.

Already, Health Canada is under investigation by the RCMP fraud squad for
its approval - over the objections of its own scientists - of the Meme
breast implant in the 1980s.

This latest controversy, which has been curiously downplayed in the media,
raises equally disturbing questions. With its starry-eyed attitude toward
biotechnology, its naive trust of private industry and its helter-skelter
approach to deregulation, the federal government is placing the health of
the people at risk.

That is the scandal.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Tuesdays.

Checked-by: Don Beck