ARISE SIR PAUL FLYNN MP

Drug trials shame

The self-serving MHRA have been exposed by Professor Duff's report as the Provisional Wing of the ABPI. The following Early Day Motion is now on the Commons Order Paper. The Commons Health Committee nailed the regulatory body in their report in 2005. Most people believe that our drugs are reguated by an independent body. The MHRA are financed and greatly influenced by the drugs industry. Their first reaction when this dreadful event happenned was to defend their own profits. They wrongly claimed that nothing has gone wrong.

Adverse reactions to drugs are a major killer. We need rigour and independence from the regulator. That's not what we have here. The drug Vioxx was blamed in the USA for 144,000 heart attacks and strokes. The MHRA noticed no problems here.

EDM 438 DRUG TRIALS AND THE MEDICINES AND HEALTHCARE PRODUCTS REGULATORY AGENCY 07.12.2006

Flynn, Paul That this House believes that Professor Duff's report on the TGN 1214 drugs trials proves the failures of the regulatory body the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which is funded by the pharmaceutical industry; welcomes the exposure that the MHRA's initial report was a whitewash in claiming that there were `no errors in the administration of the drugs to trial participants'; recalls the Health Select Committee's judgement that `the MHRA's organisation, process and techniques are focused on bringing drugs to market fast' and that the MHRA `has been too close to the industry'; and calls for the Committee's recommendation for fundamental review of the MHRA because of its many failings to be implemented.