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What is this story about?

A drug (deferiprone) which was unlicensed in Canada from 2009 to 2015 was prescribed to 71 Canadian patients at the University Health Network over that period.

Why was deferiprone prescribed? Did the patients know that they were being provided with an UNLICENSED drug, and why?

Two other drugs which are licensed worldwide as effective and adequately safe, were available and free during that period.

Serious problems emerged during the unlicensed prescription of deferiprone. Attention was brought to the UHN administration about this situation.

This website chronicles that story.

For a summary of the story, click here.

For all the files documenting this story, click here.

This website contains material related to events arising from the controversy involving Barry Sherman’s company Apotex, the University of Toronto, and The Hospital for Sick Children, which began in 1995.

To this day this controversy continues in what the Toronto Star has termed “A Frightening Scandal”, about which we continue to seek answers.

Here are two clear, and frightening, analyses of the important ethical issues of this matter. The first is authored by Professor Arthur Schafer and published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, 2020. The second is an analysis by Dr. David Healy.

More documents will be placed here shortly.