A growing number of doctors and health workers are calling on the provincial government to restore funding for a renowned pharmaceutical watchdog based out of UBC.

In an open letter addressed to Premier Christy Clark and Health Minister Terry Lake, health-care professionals highlight the Therapeutics Initiative’s accomplishments and criticize the B.C. Liberals’ decision to defund the research group.

“The Therapeutics Initiative should be proudly held up as a model to be strengthened in British Columbia and replicated nationally,” the letter reads. “Instead, without any official explanation to the TI, your government has suspended the TI’s funding.”

It concludes: “We ask you to show your government’s commitment to safe and effective drug prescribing in British Columbia, and to ensuring the health and safety of all citizens. We urge your government to restore funding to the Therapeutics Initiative immediately.”

A petition launched to coincide with the letter’s publication has so far garnered more than 1,100 signatures.

The campaign is led by Canadian Doctors for Medicare, an advocacy group that campaigns for health-care reform.

A number of prominent names appear among those who have signed the petition.

“The Therapeutics Initiative has been, not just British Columbia's, but Canada's best example of evidence-based health care,” wrote Dr. David L. Sackett, a pioneer of clinical epidemiology. “If you kill it, it will hurt patients, increase health care costs, and severely tarnish your image as a caring, thoughtful government.”

Dr. John Yudkin, notable for his contributions to clinical pharmacology, described the Therapeutics Initiative as a vital service. “The loss of the Therapeutics Initiative will lead to worse prescribing, greater costs, and greater hazards for Canadian patients and those who pay the health care bills,” he wrote.

The number of statements of support continues to grow on the petition’s website.

Under the leadership of then Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid, the B.C. Liberal government eliminated funding for the Therapeutics Initiative in April 2013 (at the time, the group's annual budget had already been reduced to $550,000). That was the culmination of a series of cuts that began under former premier Gordon Campbell.

In 2008, the B.C. Liberal government created a panel stacked in favour of the pharmaceutical industry and tasked it with a mandate to instruct the Ministry of Health on how it should reform B.C.’s PharmaCare program. The PTF suggested the Therapeutics Initiative be stripped of its two primary functions: drug-submission review and education.

More recently, in June 2012, the ministry blocked researchers’ access to a database that served as the Therapeutics Initiative’s primary source of information for pharmaceutical drug use in B.C.

Since late August 2013, the B.C. Ministry of Health has refused eight requests submitted by the Straight for an interview on the topics of the Therapeutics Initiative and a Ministry investigation related to researchers’ access to data.