The family of a 15-year-old Manitoba girl who died after using a narcotic pain patch says a pamphlet giving patients clearer information about the drug might have saved her life.

Randy Whitter, whose daughter Tiffany died in October 2003, criticizes Health Canada for not making sure patients know enough about powerful drugs to keep them safe.

Tiffany's doctor prescribed the Duragesic pain patch, an opioid medication, to help ease the pain of a bad headache because she couldn't swallow traditional pain relievers. She was suffering from mononucleosis and had a sore throat.

The girl was also running a fever, however, and that dramatically increased how much of the narcotic her body absorbed from the patch. Her breathing became shallow, and she suffered brain damage and died.

"If I knew then even a third of what I know now about this drug, there is no way that I would have allowed that patch to be given to her," said her father, who lives in Winkler, Man.

Whitter later discovered that the information provided to doctors clearly warns against prescribing the patch for people with a fever and for those who have never used opioid medications before. It warns that Duragesic can cause life-threatening respiratory depression.

But the information provided to patients when a prescription for the patch is filled isn't nearly so clear about the risks. It warns of "suppressed breathing" only under the heading of overdose.

Whitter blames both the doctor and Health Canada, which approves the wording of dangerous-drug information given out when people have their prescriptions filled.

Pharmacist questions system too

Sana Sukkari, a pharmacist at Joseph Brandt Memorial Hospital in Burlington, Ont., has seen many examples of Health Canada-approved patient drug information that minimize or ignore the risks of certain prescription drugs.

"If you review and authorize, why on earth, [in] one case after the other, are you authorizing incomplete, dangerous information to be given as patient information leaflets. Why is this happening?"

Health Canada said it has made great strides in improving drug information for patients. For example, it plans to make all the information available on its website in the new year, said Dr. Robert Peterson, the director general of Health Canada's Therapeutic Products directorate.

"Those products approved by Health Canada will have a good deal of regulated, contemporary and important information," he said.

That said, he added that it's up to doctors to prescribe safely, and up to patients to ask questions about what they're getting.

"Health Canada has not gone to the extent where we are intruding into the doctor-patient relationship in order to provide other information," Peterson said.