- Not surprising: Canadians find Stephen Harper's constant politicization of everything - including awards for volunteers - to be improper. Even less surprising: Stephen Harper couldn't care less.
- Meanwhile, the Cons' continued silencing of scientists is similarly predictable. But the reason this time looks to be particularly noteworthy:
The Privy Council Office also nixed a Fisheries Department news release about Miller's study, saying the release "was not very good, focused on salmon dying and not on the new science aspect," according to documents obtained by Postmedia News under the Access to Information Act.So there may yet be hope for meaningful scientific research to be approved for public consumption - as long as it's billed as "New Research Triumph for Glorious Leader!" rather than promoted based on its actual content.
[Update: pogge has more.]
- Simon Houpt's review of how negative advertising has backfired in the corporate sector is well worth a read. But I'd think it's particularly worth wondering whether it's still possible for the same to happen in politics - or whether voters have simply become so accustomed to it that they no longer assign enough penalty or negative association to parties who go negative for the usual distaste to apply.
- Finally, Ryan Meili takes the case for a Crown drug manufacturer to the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Interesting article about the SaskPharm proposal. But the province already tried to do a similar thing - it's called the Standing Order Contract, whereby many of the top selling generic drugs were provided to the province under a unique brand name, which pharmacies were required to purchase, and where the province had negotiated the price. The problem is supply and demand - the drug market in Saskatchewan is actually not big enough to manufacture each of these, so what they did was relabel product from another generic company. This program is currently being phased out, and instead all generic drugs will only be reimbursed at 45% of the brand name cost. So while it's an interesting idea, I don't see a provincial generic drug manufacturer ever happening.
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