Opinion | Editorials, Opinion Pieces Address FDA Regulation Practices - Kaisernetwork.org

Opinion | Editorials, Opinion Pieces Address FDA Regulation Practices - Kaisernetwork.org: "Daily Health Policy Report
Opinion | Editorials, Opinion Pieces Address FDA Regulation Practices
[Nov 29, 2004]
Several editorials and opinion pieces recently addressed FDA's prescription drug monitoring system. Following are summaries.
Editorials

Akron Beacon Journal: Concerns that FDA 'can no longer adequately monitor' new prescription drugs for 'adverse side effects after [they] are on the market' lends 'merit' to the 'growing call to create a separate office that would monitor drugs,' a Beacon Journal editorial states. 'Ultimately, the financial health of drug companies lies in public confidence about the safety of their drugs,' the editorial concludes (Akron Beacon Journal, 11/29).


Atlanta Journal-Constitution: '[P]ublic confidence' in FDA is 'eroding,' and the 'tentative steps outlined' by the agency for reforms 'seem insufficient to convince doctors and the public that [it] is capable of effectively monitoring unexpected health and safety problems once ... drugs are in patients' hands,' according to a Journal-Constitution editorial. The editorial states, 'Congress should consider creating an agency independent of [FDA] to keep watch over an industry that now seems more interested in selling directly to consumers than to physicians' (Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11/24).


Bergen Record: The 'only way to restore confidence in the FDA and to safeguard the public's health' is for Congress to 'create a board independent of both the FDA and the pharmaceutical industry to monitor the safety of drugs after they are approved,' the Record states in an editorial (Bergen Record, 11/28).


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Fixing the FDA

Google Search:: "A nation of hypochondriacs?
San Francisco Chronicle, CA - 1 hour ago
Merck's recall of its arthritis pain drug, Vioxx, because of elevated risks of heart attack and stroke has obscured another important issue that Congress, in ...

Scientist says FDA called journal to block Vioxx article
USA Today, VA - 9 hours ago
By Rita Rubin, USA TODAY. Just days before a medical journal was to publish a Food and Drug Administration-sponsored study that raised ...

Assessing the FDA's Approval Process
NPR (audio), D.C. - 23 hours ago
Description: NPR's Scott Simon talks with a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. David Kessler, about the FDA's complications with the ...

An ailing FDA needs a cure
San Francisco Chronicle, CA - Nov 28, 2004
IT'S HARD TO SEE how the country's drug safety agency will emerge unscathed from a string of failures -- nor should it. Devastating ...

States show FDA how to track safety of prescription drugs
News-Leader.com, MO - Nov 27, 2004
A dozen states were heeding safety questions about Vioxx two years ago, long before the FDA and drug-maker Merck & Co. acknowledged ...

FDA plans biotech food, crop guidelines
AZ Central.com, AZ - Nov 27, 2004
WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration is publishing draft guidelines that would encourage companies to submit voluntary safety evaluations of ...

An FDA warning
Boston Globe, MA - Nov 27, 2004
IF THE US Food and Drug Administration had a truly effective system for monitoring adverse reactions to newly approved prescription drugs, the time between ...

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