Winter 2020 (Volume 30, Number 4)
Update from the Therapeutics Committee
By Rosie Scuccimarri, MD, FRCPC
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The last nine months have been very busy for the
Therapeutics Committee with many requests and
tight deadlines responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The committee drafted and approved a number of
position statements for the CRA, including one endorsing
the ACR statement on COVID-19, another on practical
recommendations and finally one on hydroxychloroquine
supply. We supported a letter penned to Minister Patty Hajdu
with regard to the hydroxychloroquine shortage. The
committee endorsed a Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS)
practice point on the paediatric inflammatory multisystem
syndrome temporally associated with COVID-19. We continue
to monitor ongoing issues related to the COVID-19
pandemic.
Conjointly with the CRA Pediatric and Stakeholder
Committees, the Therapeutics Committee drafted and approved
the CRA position statement on access to citrate-free
adalimumab, and we continue to actively follow this
issue. A cannabidiol addendum was made to the Medical
Cannabis position statement, which was approved by the
CRA Board. The committee drafted a Medical Cannabis information
sheet for patients and allied health professionals.
It is currently being edited to the appropriate reading
level for patients by an outside agency. Our committee is
still working on a position statement on stem cell therapy
for osteoarthritis. We have currently drafted and approved
a position statement on the safety of hydroxychloroquine
in the treatment of rheumatic diseases, which should be
circulated shortly.
I would like to thank the Therapeutics Committee members
for their dedication over a particularly challenging
year dealing with COVID-19. They have been engaged and
responsive to a number of emerging and urgent issues in
2020, and their guidance and advocacy has benefitted not
only CRA members but the wider rheumatology community.
Rosie Scuccimarri, MD, FRCPC
Chair, CRA Therapeutics Committee
Associate Professor, Department of Pediatrics,
McGill University
Pediatric Rheumatologist, Montreal Children's Hospital
Montreal, Quebec
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