Stuart Jones - Re 'MHRA & ABPI

I received the following email from a good friend of mine, Stuart Jones. It's regarding the story I posted here about the recent joining of forces between the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency [MHRA] and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry [ABPI].

With Stuart's permission I have uploaded his message for your perusal.


The information provided by the MHRA in this joint effort, is to say the least disingenuous, and once again demonstrates either a complete lack of knowledge about how so called novel chemical entities are developed as drugs, or utter disregard for scientific facts. What MHRA does not say about drug development is a lot more revealing to the aware than that which it provides the ordinary prospective patient about. See: HERE

According to a piece in Pharmafocus, "the mymedicine site is a joint collaboration between the MHRA and the ABPI"--and: Karen Miller, a director at the ABPI, said, "More and more people are going online to find out about health-related issues, and while the internet is a superb resource, it contains a lot of disinformation."Comment: Read as websites critical of Pharma perhaps?--and: Anne Joshua, NHS Direct's associate director of pharmacy, said: "This new web resource will provide the necessary reassurance to patients and their families about how new medicines are rigorously tested before they are available to the public and what measures are taken to ensure the safety of newly licensed medicines as they are used across the range of conditions that they treat." Comment: With nary a mention of Me-too drugs--How disappointing! Links the page to the MHRA's mymedicines URL address, then mysteriously goes on to link, on the same page, to the ongoing controversial furore over DTC drug advertising in Europe. See: HERE

Does this mean the MHRA now officially backs the drive to allow DTC for prescribed drugs too? or does Pharmafocus just imply that?

For all MHRA has an obligation to interface with pharmaceutical companies, (Albeit the select committee on health's report 2004/2005 concluded the MHRA was too close to the industry to do that impartially) MHRA do not have the right to collude with Pharma's official trade representative organisation, the ABPI, not even to promote patients guides to medicines.
I'm seething over this scandalous position.

Stuart.

Stuart Jones Wales. UK.

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