Heart Institute Gets $300,000 from Bayer
Keon Says Using Drug-Company Money Sign of New Reality
By Sharon Kirkey
Ottawa Citizen Health Writer
February 21, 1996
Ottawa Citizen
In a sign of the times–and of things to come–the University of Ottawa Heart Institute has entered into a partnership with a major drug company to study heart disease.
Bayer Inc. makers of Aspirin, is giving the Heart Institute $300,000 for a three-year study to determine whether work-based programs to reduce smoking and other risk factors for heart disease can help keep workers healthy and out of hospital.
With government research grants drying up, hospital researchers and private drug companies are forging ever-closer ties. And while some may be uneasy with the relationship, the director of the Heart Institute isn’t.
Dr. Wilbert Keon says he isn’t concerned that the institute could appear to be endorsing Bayer’s products. In addition to Aspirin, Bayer also makes Adalat, a popular calcium channel blocker used to treat heart disease.
“When I, as a medical scientist working with the Medical Research Council 25 years ago, first proposed that we should have university industry collaboration, the howls that went up around the table were unbelievable,” Keon says.
They said “you can’t do this, you’re selling your soul, the company will run your research. That’s absurd.”
Keon says the reality is that hospitals can’t keep placing ever-increasing demands on governments, and that money for new programs and research has to come from other sources.
The Heart Institute is already involved in 75 different research studies with various drug companies, and recently joined with Nortel, Bell Northern Research and Bell Canada to develop a tele-medicine system that will link doctors at the hospital with physicians in remote areas.
Little spent on prevention
Dr. William Dafoe, director of the Heart Institute’s prevention and rehabilitation centre, says the fact remains that only one per cent of provincial health-care budgets is spent on preventing heart disease.
Yet the cost to society is enormous. In 1993, Canadian taxpayers spent $8.3 billion treating cardiovascular diseases.
Downsizing in the federal public service, hospitals and other industries is taking a huge toll on health.
“All of these people are under stress, trying to cope. And there’s virtually nothing being done in terms of professional advice to these people on how to cope with all of this,” Keon said.
The money will be used essentially to take the institute’s successful Heart Check program into local businesses. Over six years, the Heart Check centre has screened more than 8,000 area residents for risk factors for heart disease.
How, Heart Check staff will screen employees of a company for risk factors and then determine what programs could help.