Little comfort level with cancer numbers, MD tells inquiry
An Eastern Health physician who was asked to explain mistaken breast cancer tests to the public in 2006 has testified he struggled with understanding it all himself.
Dr. Oscar Howell was assigned to speak at controversial media briefings in December 2006 on flawed hormone receptor testing, about three months after he took on the job of vice-president of medical services.
However, Howell told the Cameron inquiry on Friday that he had trouble understanding the information he had been given.
"The math wasn't working for me," Howell, who returns to the stand on Monday, told Justice Margaret Cameron.
The inquiry has already been told that Eastern Health decided to not fully disclose what it knew about hundreds of erroneous test results, and downplayed the significance of the rate of error in the testing while explaining the problem to reporters.
The authority said at the time that the rate of error was as low as 10 per cent, even though an affidavit that would be filed the next winter with Newfoundland Supreme Court over a class action lawsuit would disclose an error rate of about 42 per cent.
As well, the inquiry has been told that Eastern Health gave the public a different — and more selective — set of numbers in the December 2006 briefing than what it showed the previous month to Tom Osborne, the minister of health at the time.
Howell told the inquiry that was a mistake.
"As I reflect back on this now, why in the name of God we just did not — what we should have done is that same document that we handed to the minister, we should have given out in the media briefing," he testified.
Howell told the inquiry that there had been a "tremendous discussion about [how he could not] talk about the error rate."
Rather than focusing on the error rate, Eastern Health focused on the 117 breast cancer patients who might benefit from a change in treatment.
Howell told the inquiry that concerns about legal proceedings led Eastern Health to hold back some details.
He said he found the weeks leading up to the briefings "very confusing" and wondered why the authority did not want to reveal more.
"I remember saying, like, 'I don't trust any of these numbers,' " Howell said. "There just doesn't seem to be any clarity around numbers here for me."
Cameron asked Howell to outline more about the "discomfort" he felt while talking publicly at the time about the hormone receptor tests, which are used to help guide treatment for breast cancer patients.
"I had no problem with talking to the public, talking to the media, but when I do it, I like to have a firm grasp of the material and a confidence in the material," said Howell, adding that he had come fairly late to a "very detailed, complex" issue.
"I just did not have the heart and soul confidence to be a good speaker on this, and I would prefer to have been there with the passion and belief that what I was being told that now was going to be attributed to me was correct."
Howell said former chief executive officer George Tilley asked him to appear at the media briefings and handle interviews on the hormone receptor issue.