Senate drug safety bill passes Posted by Liz at 05/11/07 10:51 AM

Both parties worked together in the passage of the Senate bill. This bill would give the FDA new authorities over industry, let's just hope they will use them.

Disappointingly, some amendments that would have strengthened the bill were voted down, by very narrow margins. Two, offered up by Senator Grassley, would have strengthened the clinical trials disclosure piece of the bill and the other would have given the head of the Office of Drug Safety more authority. Hopefully, the House will pass a stronger bill, and really get the industry running scared. HR 1561 by Reps. Waxman and Markey would make more clinical trial results available more quickly (than what's in the Senate bill) and would allow for a three-year advertising moratorium on new drugs with safety issues.

In this Senate bill, the industry has more of an opportunity to skate around making many of their trial results public. This is a loophole that will hopefully get fixed in the House.

comments (2)

1 Posted by Jamie at 05/16/07 01:34 PM

I wonder if you could post the names of the Senators who narrowly kept the bill from being stronger. That way when someone searches the Internet for their Senator's name they could find out what their Senator is REALLY doing.

Thanks for your good work on this issue.

2 Posted by Carla Herwitz at 05/30/07 12:06 AM

I think that using the FDA to control how medicines are used, which was the Senate bill that passed while it seemed like a good idea was actually a benefit to big pharma once again. It stops doctors from prescribing drug combinations that might help, for instance, kids with brain disfunctions like autism and that is a limit that a good physician does not need, nor a good pharmacist. To put the FDA in charge of more when it's not even dealing well with food and drug problems that already exist will turn out to be bad, because it's Bush's FDA and as such does little or nothing to help us. Sort of like FEMA in New Orleans after Katrina. This government is not in the business of actually doing anything; it's all about spin here and killing overseas.