LYTLE: Drug companies, medical colleges, need to be accountable

I have written elsewhere that when I was given my COVID-19 shots, I specifically asked to see the list of adverse effects and the ingredients of the inoculation.“Do you want the shot or not?” was the response from my 'care giver.' So much for informed consent, which is the basis for all medical intervention and scientific enquiry in Canada. I knew that there could be no informed consent because US courts had not yet forced Pfizer to release its Phase 2 report on the efficacy and safety of the serum. When it did release the report a month after my injection, six pages were devoted to adverse effects. So what…Preston Manning has released his Public Health Emergencies Governance Review Panel Report. Mr. Manning was mandated to look at how the Alberta government handled the COVID-19 epidemic and to make recommendations for improvement for future emergencies. From my reading, the report is both comprehensive and detailed given the panel's mandate. Congratulations and thanks are due to them all. However, I am an expert in finding fault with virtually everything so would be remiss without a few comments for further consideration.First, a remarkable characteristic of the Alberta government COVID-19 response was the degree to which it was in lockstep with most other political jurisdictions in the world. And this lockstep approach was, in turn, remarkable for how out of step it was with accepted epidemiological practice prior to March 2020. This uniformity of response is, in my view, a significant “elephant in the COVID room.”“We knew very little and had to act quickly,” is hardly an adequate response. In the first instance there was the excellent epidemiological data from the Diamond Princess cruise ship and secondly, in the crush of a pandemic emergency, throwing out policy responses based on decades of experience and inventing new ones based on nothing seems singularly illogical.There needs to be a method for breaking the fever dream of what Charles MacKay called the madness of crowds[3].Second, the Manning Report appropriately emphasizes the need for transparency in the policy approach of the government. It also wrestles with the issue of court challenges to the government edicts. As most people who challenge government fiat know, the effort is both expensive and frustrating. Generally, the courts defer to the government and what we once believed to be hallowed Charter rights are easily sold for a mess of bureaucratic potage. The Manning Report correctly points out this is a difficult nut to crack and offers several changes to how the courts might operate more efficiently when the government suspends Section 1 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which reads:"The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society."Here is my proposed solution to these two problems.Just as governments can appeal to the Supreme Court for reference decisions, I suggest that any declaration of a public health emergency be accompanied by a government defence of its assessment in a mandated, expedited, quasi-judicial hearing. The government would disclose its assumptions, data and sources, cost and benefit calculations and the conclusions which support its emergency provisions which may result in the suspension of the enumerated rights and freedoms of movement, assembly and speech among others. It must demonstrate how it will accommodate prior, informed consent before it can enact an intrusive and possibly unethical policy that tramples the Nuremberg Code. An appointed panel would hear the government’s case as well as the objections of qualified intervenors. The panel would then render a decision which informs the government of all deficiencies which must be remedied before the emergency can be proclaimed. Further, if physicians and others can lose their licences for prescribing effective treatments that do not profit large pharmaceutical companies, the licensing colleges must similarly support their positions with data and be open to challenge from qualified intervenors at the same hearing. If a licenced medical practitioner is subsequently and improperly penalized, then the colleges and their board members, jointly and severally, must pay their own defence if challenged at law by the penalized practitioner. I have found that having skin in the game diminishes sangfroid, tightens sphincters and makes you pay attention. It is my contention that if governments and licencing colleges understand the barriers to their aggressive emergency actions, they will either reduce their ambitions or prepare cases that win prior public approval. That is real transparency. We must replace, “Do it now and ask forgiveness later” with “Convince me first or don’t bother.”Madam Premier, I hope you are listening.