Just in time for Christmas, here is some good news to cheer us all up a little! However, this is the sort of Christmas present that comes with the advisory "batteries not included", and all of us will have to provide the energy to make this gift work. The Globe and Mail reported on December 4 that the CPSO will have its complaints and disciplinary activities subjected to an independent review. Correspondence from the Ministry itself has confirmed this. This means, that the stream of demands for such an investigation of the CPSO from patients' groups and persecuted doctors practicing cutting-edge complementary medicine has finally become a flood that can no longer be ignored. However, the CPSO are trying to get their hand into the selection process of the person to be placed in charge of their investigation.

1. The Ontario Chelation Patients Organization (OCPO tel.519-941-5912) finally got some satisfaction from the CPSO after years of demanding that chelation therapy be permitted for cardiovascular disease. The CPSO had decided in its infinite wisdom that chelation therapy was not backed by science and that Ontario doctors were not allowed to use it. Which medical journals the CPSO reads is, of course a mystery, since chelation therapy is internationally established as the safest and most successful treatment for cardiovascular disease as well as some complications arising from diabetes. However, so far they have not made this known to the doctors, their membership! It was this issue (scientific fact and political dirt) that prompted MLA Roy Bressard of the Alberta Conservative government to put through Bill 209, their equivalent of Ontario's Bill 2, also known as the Kwinter Bill. Public pressure finally set in motion the usual political dance, initiated by the Ontario Ministry of Health which in November culminated in the CPSO reversing their position on chelation therapy at last. One Dr. Edward Leyton of Kingston and his group of holistic doctors had been fighting this issue with the CPSO since the early 1980's!

2. The newly formed group Victims of Health Care Abuse (tel. 613-376-6548 or 389-5599) launched their own attack on the CPSO in June, demanding at a press conference held at the Ontario Legislature that the CPSO's handling of complaints be investigated by the Ministry of Health. VOHCA's members provided evidence of having hundreds of complaints either not being addressed at all, or squashed by the CPSO. VOHCA is working on a law suit against the CPSO. Their efforts have highlighted the absurdity that doctors who actually commit serious and deadly malpractice have for years been protected by the CPSO, while doctors who work with the safest and most innovative methods have for the past two decades been prosecuted and often been deprived of their licenses in kangaroo courts such as those endured by environmental physician Dr. Jozef Krop for 10 years, and by asthma and allergy specialist Dr. Felix Ravikovich. There are many more whose ordeals are being documented in the book Dr. Krop and I are writing.

3. Doctors who specialize in the treatment of addiction know that one of the safest and most successful (also cheapest) methods is the drug methadone. The usual pattern of the CPSO's judgment emerged here also, namely: if it really works and is cost-effective, it will be forbidden. Addiction specialists endured no end of harassment until they threatened legal action recently. Again, just as with chelation therapy, the CPSO backed down at last and the ban has been eased with strategically placed political pillows strewed everywhere to ease the landing of the CPSO executives' rear ends.

4. On June 15th, supported by Dr. W. LaValley (well-known environmental doctor from Nova Scotia) and many health consumer groups, I launched a press conference held also in the Ontario Legislature. We provided the press with a copy of our letter to the Minister of Health demanding an inquiry into the disciplinary process of the CPSO; we detailed in a four-page list the manner in which the CPSO abused their mandate.

All of this ties in with Ontario MPP Monte Kwinter's effort to get Bill 2 to become law. It passed 2nd reading unanimously in October. It uses almost the identical wording of the World Health Organization treaty on human rights, the Helsinki Accord of 1989 which Canada signed, and which includes a section of medicine. That treaty states than "in the treatment of a sick person, the physician must be free to use a new diagnostic and therapeutic measure, if in his or her judgment it offers hope of saving life, reestablishing health or relieving suffering". From this flood of criticism of the CPSO, a single issue of profound importance has emerged: the CPSO, mandated to regulate medical practice in Ontario, has failed the needs of patients. The abuse of patients appears not to be worthy of their investigative powers; instead, they have attempted to suppress again and again the innovative work of the finest and the best among Ontario doctors. But then, this comes as no surprise when one considers that some CPSO council members are also associated with organizations such as Monsanto, Amasco (Imperial Tobacco), and giant pharmaceutical companies - none of which have as their top priority the prevention of disease.

Bill 2 is a legislative tool which finally provides legal protection for medical innovation and helps set a standard for medicine in general, that standard being focused on patient outcome. The CPSO went on record stating that patient outcome was far too unsophisticated a measure of medical excellence. I beg to differ, and you no doubt agree with me. And here is what you can do to provide some battery power to make this public Christmas present work:

1) Write to the committee studying Bill 2 and urge that it go for 3rd and final reading fast and be made law: Mr. T. Prins (416) 325-3509, Room 1405, Whitney Block, 99 Wellesley ST. W., Toronto, Ontario, M7A 1A2.

2) Write to the Minister of Health and demand, in the name of justice, that the public review of the CPSO be indeed public, comprehensive and, most importantly, headed by an impartial person, not by somebody chosen by the CPSO. Address: Hon. W. Whitmer, Minister of Health, Hepburn Block, 80 Grosvenor Street, 10th floor, Toronto, Ontario, M7A 2C4. (MPP Monte Kwinter told me recently that every personal letter carries the political weight of a petition signed by many.)

3) Tell the Minister that you insist on getting the chance to tell your experience with the CPSO! Feel free to contact the above mentioned organizations for advice and assistance. If you are a doctor with a CPSO story, feel free to contact me for further information.

Here is a chance to make a difference for medicine in Ontario. Don't miss it.

Helke Ferrie is a free-lance science writer; she lives in Alton, Ontario. Tel. 519-927-1049.