OTTAWA – Health Canada’s chief medical adviser says there is no scientific explanation to suggest a link between the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine and blood clots.
Dr. Supriya Sharma says Health Canada has a “really low threshold” for adverse events that could trigger a pause in the use of a vaccine and wouldn’t hesitate to do so if something warranted it.
But she says the science is not there to suggest the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine could be the reason some patients in Europe developed blood clots after they received it.
“There’s not a good biological explanation about why a vaccine of this type, injected into a muscle, would cause that kind of adverse event,” said Sharma, in an interview with The Canadian Press.
Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Bulgaria are among almost a dozen European nations that paused the use of Oxford-AstraZeneca’s vaccine this week – either entirely or specific batches of it – after reports of some patients developing blood clots afterward. None of them said there was evidence of a link, but that the pause was out of an abundance of caution pending a review.
Austria stopped using a doses from a batch of the vaccine earlier this week after two reports of blood clots, but experts there concluded neither was related to the vaccine. Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said Friday he would be willing to get the shot himself to show how much trust he has in it.
Many other countries, including Germany, France, Poland, Nigeria, the United Kingdom and Canada, are sticking with AstraZeneca injections, citing a lack of any evidence showing a link.
The vaccine has been authorized in 74 countries, and by the World Health Organization, and 16 million doses have been injected in the U.K. and Europe alone.
Canada approved it Feb. 26, and the first 500,000 doses were distributed to provinces this week, just as the blood-clot concerns began to go public.
Lucilia Pato, who got her first dose Friday morning at the Junction Chemist in west Toronto, said news that some European countries had stopped using AstraZeneca’s vaccine for now initially gave her pause.
“I was (worried) when I heard about it yesterday but this morning I heard positive things about it, so you know what, I was willing to take my chance,” she said.
The European Medicines Agency, which regulates new drugs for the European Union, said in a statement Thursday it was not suspending its authorization for AstraZeneca’s vaccine.
“There is currently no indication that vaccination has caused these conditions, which are not listed as side-effects with this vaccine,” the EMA said.
Sharma said reviews of adverse events are normal following the release of a new drug or vaccine.
“Once the vaccines are used in the wild, and by millions of people, these things will come up,” she said. “So we’re already in a system where we’re expecting things to pop up and that’s why we have these vigilance systems to be able to detect it.”
Sharma said the first question always to be asked is if there is something scientific to explain a link between an adverse event and a vaccine.
“And when we’re looking at the AstraZeneca vaccine, as an example, there’s not in this case,” she said.
She said regulators also ask whether the number of patients experiencing the effect is higher than what might normally be seen in the population and whether there is some other factor common to all the patients with the issue.
The answer to each question here is also no.
Finally, Sharma said regulators will consider the possibility of a manufacturing mistake with a particular batch. While there is no evidence of that in Europe either, Canada’s doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine are also not coming from the same source as Europe’s.
The doses of the vaccine currently being used in Canada were produced at the Serum Institute of India.
Canada has authorized four distinct vaccines for COVID-19, and almost 2.8 million doses have been injected.
Sharma said thus far, none has produced “adverse events” in Canada that were either unexpected or more frequent than expected.
She said Health Canada won’t be slow to act on safety concerns. The people making these decisions are aware it’s not just Canadians as a whole, but themselves and their loved ones who will be getting the same vaccines.
“These are our fathers, brothers, sisters, mothers,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re doing the best for all of them as well.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 12, 2021.
HALIFAX – Ottawa is negotiating a $500-million bailout for Nova Scotia’s privately owned electric utility, saying the money will be used to prevent a big spike in electricity rates.
Federal Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson made the announcement today in Halifax, saying Nova Scotia Power Inc. needs the money to cover higher costs resulting from the delayed delivery of electricity from the Muskrat Falls hydroelectric plant in Labrador.
Wilkinson says that without the money, the subsidiary of Emera Inc. would have had to increase rates by 19 per cent over “the short term.”
Nova Scotia Power CEO Peter Gregg says the deal, once approved by the province’s energy regulator, will keep rate increases limited “to be around the rate of inflation,” as costs are spread over a number of years.
The utility helped pay for construction of an underwater transmission link between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, but the Muskrat Falls project has not been consistent in delivering electricity over the past five years.
Those delays forced Nova Scotia Power to spend more on generating its own electricity.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
