Pharma company funding for patient advocacy groups needs to be transparent

As a first step in determining whose interests patient groups align with, we need more transparency about the source of their revenue. (Shutterstock)

Patient groups should be playing a central role in Canada’s health-care system, advocating for their members by promoting the visibility of their conditions, pushing for more rapid and accurate diagnoses and lobbying for the introduction and funding of new treatments and drugs that may help relieve their members’ symptoms and extend their lives.

However, all of this requires resources. In the past, groups could turn to the federal government for funding, but that option dried up in the late 1980s and early 1990s.