Dramatic story of teen’s death worthy, but not well told

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This article was published 26/04/2009 (6042 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Death by Prescription
A Father Takes on His Daughter’s Killer —
the Multi-Billion-Dollar Pharmaceutical Industry
By Terence Young
Key Porter, 374 pages, $33

Reviewed by Duncan McMonagle
 

As a backbench Conservative member of the House of Commons, Terence Young’s primary duty is to vote unfailingly to prop up Stephen Harper’s minority government.
But Young, who was elected last October in the tony Toronto suburb of Oakville, is one of those rare MPs who seek office for more than just political gain.
Driven by the death in 2000 of his 15-year-old daughter Vanessa, Young intends to “raise holy hell” and to crusade for the creation of an independent drug-safety agency.
Death by Prescription, a heartfelt account of his education about the abuses of prescription drugs, is an element of his crusade.
Young’s enemy is Big Pharma, a term he employs for a small group of global companies that make billions of dollars every year by manufacturing medicines that Young sees as frequently dangerous or at least ineffective.
Government agencies, including Health Canada, nominally license prescription drugs and control the activities of the pharmaceutical companies.
But Young argues that the companies outsmart regulators around the world and overwhelm busy doctors through high-powered marketing campaigns that encourage frequent prescriptions.
The companies’ lust for profit drives them to hide dangerous side-effects of their drugs, he argues. “It’s not what Big Pharma tells you that can kill you, it’s what they don’t.”
Classic examples of dangerous prescription drugs that caused deaths and deformities are Vioxx and thalidomide. Regulators stopped the sale of those drugs only after international outcries. But thalidomide is still available in Canada to treat a few serious medical conditions.
Vanessa was killed by Prepulsid, prescribed to control her occasional vomiting, a symptom of mild bulimia. One day Vanessa, described by one her doctors as a picture of health, collapsed in front of her father and died.
It turns out that Prepulsid sometimes disrupts heart rhythms, and that young women are particularly vulnerable to its effects.
Five months later, perhaps because of 80 other deaths, Canadian regulators banned Prepulsid.
The short version of Young’s crusade is that he successfully agitated for an inquest into Vanessa’s death and has settled a lawsuit against drug manufacturer Johnson and Johnson. He is also involved in a snail-paced class-action lawsuit that he predicts the company will eventually settle.
For the longer version, check out Death by Prescription. A couple of warnings, though.
Young recites the story the way he learned it, step by plodding step. Sometimes that means documenting the elevators he rides to his appointments and listing what he and his companions eat at a dinner meeting. Not shy of repetition, he even begins one section, “To remind the reader….”
The publisher allows the occasionally awkward sentence to slip through, and also invents the community of Wickler, Man. Note to Torontonians: It’s Winkler.
Likewise, you would expect a member of Parliament to know that the title of our national anthem is O Canada, not Oh Canada.
The drama in this book, especially in the second half, is often concealed under verbiage. A couple of graphic elements could solve that problem.
Here’s one of Young’s most compelling discoveries: Johnson and Johnson calculated that strengthening the warning on a drug label could cost $250 million in sales. Now that’s a relationship that cries out for a graph: lost sales vs. wording changes.
Readers may well wish that the book included photos, at least one of Vanessa.
The diagnosis on Death by Prescription: Young’s cause is worthy even if his tale is not particularly well told.

Duncan McMonagle teaches journalism at Red River College.