Committee to investigate diluted chemo drugs

A legislative committee will investigate how watered down chemotherapy drugs were given to about 1,200 patients in Ontario and New Brunswick.

The committee will look into the apparent lack of oversight, standards and monitoring of companies which provided the diluted drugs.

Marchese Hospital Solutions, a Mississauga, Ont.-based company, was contracted to prepare the chemotherapy drugs for four hospitals in Ontario and one in New Brunswick, where 186 patients received the diluted drugs.

The committee will also probe Ontario's pharmaceutical regulations and inspection procedures, and what impact the diluted drugs may have had on cancer patients.

Some patients, including children, were given the drugs for up to a year.

The governing Liberals have appointed a pharmacy expert to review the province's cancer drug system and put together a working group that includes doctors, Cancer Care Ontario and Health Canada.

The legislative committee is expected to deliver a report within 90 days, with a possible 30-day extension.

New Brunswick Premier David Alward said that safeguards are needed to restore confidence in the health-care system,

"We need to make sure that we can give full confidence to the people of New Brunswick or Ontario or Canada ultimately that the proper system is in place, so that they can have full confidence in it," he told The Canadian Press.

"We have a very good system. But we can't afford, in any way, to take chances that it's not working the way it's supposed to."

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Committee to investigate diluted chemo drugs