SAFETY OF DRUGS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31097, 28 June 1966, Page 14

SAFETY OF DRUGS

Better Trials Sought In U.K. (Special Crspdt. N.Z.PAJ LONDON, June 27. The British Consumer Council is urging the Government, which is now revising British drug laws, to assert a much stricter control on the testing, description and selling of all types of drugs. In particular, the council would like the Dunlop Committee on the safety of drugs, set up in 1963, to have stronger powers.

The council suggests that the Dunlop Committee should have consumers represented on it, and should have powers to approve clinical trials and obtain progress reports on them; to carry out toxicity tests and arrange clinical trials if the trials arranged by the drug companies are not considered satisfactory: to ensure that the consent of a patient to his inclusion in a clinical trial has been obtained; and to prohibit direct payments for a drug company to a hospital doctor, a pharmacist, or a general practitioner in connexion with the use of its drugs. According to the council "commercial pressures go against the delay involved in thorough scientific investigation,” and without objective controls clinical tests might be hurried and awkward results ignored.