HEALTH PROMOTION PARTY OF CANADA MEDIA RELEASE

HEALTH PROMOTION PARTY OF CANADA MEDIA RELEASE Monday June 21, 2010 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE MP TONY CLEMENT MUST THINK HIS CONSTITUENTS ARE STUPID Huntsville – One thing Member of Parliament (MP) Tony Clement has learned as former Ontario Minister of Health, federal Minister of Health and currently Industry Minister, is how to twist numbers to mislead Canadians. In a Toronto Star article on June 17, 2010 titled "STAR INVESTIGATION: Your Tax Dollars at Work", Les Whittington reported that in the constituency of Parry Sound Muskoka, the "average family income of $73,000 is in line with the average for the whole country". In his response on Moose FM radio in Muskoka on June 18, 2010, Mr. Clement suggested that the Toronto Star article is wrong and that the average median yearly income for families in Muskoka is just over $61,000 and just over $53,000 in Parry Sound. Mr. Clement must think his constituents are stupid. Both ways of presenting data are correct. The "average" and "median" are different statistical measures. Average is calculated by adding up the total family income and dividing it by the number of families. Median is the midpoint of family incomes. For example, if 1000 families studied for annual income levels are arranged in order from lowest to highest, the midpoint is the income of the 500th family. It seems that Mr. Clement might have learned how to do this from big chemical drug pharmaceutical companies (big pharma) since he owned 25% of a pharmaceutical company when he was appointed federal Minister of Health by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2006. There is growing evidence that big pharma often publishes only favourable statistics when it comes to reporting on prescription drug safety by paying off scientists. A recent example is Dr. Charles Nemeroff, former Chair of Psychiatry at Emory University and recently appointed Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Miami. In hundreds of reports and articles published in peer-reviewed medical journals over the last several years, Dr. Charles Nemeroff did not present negative findings about the potentially lethal side effects of the popular antidepressant Paxil. According to an article published in the New York Times on October 3, 2008, Dr. Nemeroff disclosed to Emory University officials that he was paid less than $35,000 by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the manufacturer of Paxil, from 2000 to 2006 while conducting United States government funded clinical trials on Paxil. He actually received more than $960,000 from GSK during this period. In a June 16, 2010 Letter-to-the-Editor of the Miami Herald, Dr. John Nardo, a former faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry at Emory University, stated that Dr. Nemeroff was "a well-paid frontman for a number of drug manufacturers" and that it is now revealed that "many of his articles were ghost-written by the drug companies". Dr. Nardo considers Dr. Nemeroff to be "the poster child for what`s wrong with academic medicine" in the United States. With this June 18 attempt by Mr. Clement to mislead his constituents by twisting statistics, and his efforts since he was appointed Industry Minister in 2008 to buy off voters by funnelling what the Toronto Star reported on June 17, 2010 was nearly $100 million into his riding over the last few years, he is quickly becoming the poster child for what`s wrong with politics in Canada. The mandate of the Health Promotion Party (HPPC) is to help Canadians maintain and enhance their physical, mental, social, and spiritual health through public education and advocacy to prevent illnesses, disorders and diseases. The HPPC is in the process of registering as a federal political party. Its national office and first candidate will be in Parry Sound Muskoka. -30- For more information, please contact: David Carmichael Leader, HPPC (705) 349-8889 www.healthpromotionparty.ca

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