Drug Safety Overhaul Is Urged

Article in today’s Los Angeles Times — Drug Safety Overhaul Is Urged, by Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Denise Gellene:

    The government’s drug safety system is seriously out of balance, devoting too much
    attention to approving new medications and not enough follow-up to uncovering risky
    side effects, a blue-ribbon scientific panel concluded in a major report released Friday.

    Convened at the request of the Food and Drug Administration after a popular painkiller
    was linked to heart attacks, the experts in medicine, pharmacology, law and other fields
    issued a sweeping call for reform. Its 25 recommendations include establishing a fixed
    term for the FDA commissioner, restricting ubiquitous drug commercials and placing a
    special cautionary symbol on the packaging of newly approved medications.