INTRODUCTION Human drugs are regulated by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA). One of the first legislation which authorized FDA to regulate drugs was “Pure Food and Drugs Act” enacted in 1906. In last century, role of FDA has significantly increased in terms of regulation and supervision of drugs to promote and protect public health. The historical evolution of FDA regulation of the drug industry and its impact on marketing unapproved drugs will be discussed later in this memorandum. The term “drug” is defined means “articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man” by “affecting the structure or any function of the body of man.” In order to be marketed, “new drug” needs to have an approved application. “New Drug” can be defined as “any drug…the composition of which is such that such drug is not “generally recognized as safe and effective” for their labelled use. Prescription drug are prescribed by a physician, usually bought at pharmacy, prescribed for and intended to be used by one person and regulated by FDA through the New Drug Application (NDA) process. A typical NDA approval process includes three clinical phases which are distinct in terms of number of patients, length of study and purpose. The new drug application approval process helps in maintaining certain safeguards such as drug safety, dosing, manufacturing quality control standards, review of ongoing clinical safety and efficacy data,
Do you think government regulation of the drug industry is important? Why or why not?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is best known for its role on protecting the health of the public by making sure that food, medications are safe and effective. Especially when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry, its mission is to regulate pharmaceutical manufacturers, as well as the drug approval process. However, in the recent years, many arguments and controversy regarding drug development and regulation have risen. Drug advertisements make false and misleading claims, products are being put out on the market without any proof of safety, causing many unwanted incidents such as the Avandia incident and Vioxx incident, which could have been prevented in the first place.
The Food and Drug Administration, also known as the FDA or USFDA, is responsible for protecting and advocating public health. They are the official government agency that ensures our drug supply is safe and effective. This is achieved through the regulation and supervision of food safety, dietary supplements, veterinary products, cosmetics, vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, prescription and pharmaceutical drugs that can be purchased over- the- counter.
Pharmaceutical companies are provided with temporary monopoly rights on the production of new drugs which result in a higher cost on consumers. If competing companies were allowed to produce generic forms of those drugs, consumers will be able to afford those medications even in cases where those consumers have no insurance coverage. The company responsible for developing and inventing the original medication could be offered incentives to invent in the future by either obtaining tax breaks or NIH funding for future research. They could even be offered a percentage of the sales of the generic drugs. Economist Gary S. Becker advocates dropping many FDA requirements that, in his opinion, provide no additional safety measures but rather delay the development of new drugs.[12] Betamethasone, for example, has been part of the standard prenatal care in Europe since the late 1970’s while it got adopted in the U.S. after 1997. On many occasions, the FDA ignores all scientific evidence concerning certain drugs because the manufacturer did not follow their mandated bureaucratic standards.
The first Pure Food and Drug Act was put into action by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. The act was passed to prevent the manufacture, sale, or transportation of misbranded or harmful food, drugs, medicines, and liquors. Due to this act the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) came to be. The FDA is now responsible for the testing of all foods and drugs for human consumption and the label warnings on them as well.
As one of the primary federal consumer-protection laws in existence today, The Federal Food and Drug Act of 1906 was a law that had two primary goals for food and drugs: (a) forbid harmful ingredients and additions and (b) demand labeling of ingredients to inform consumers. According to Janssen (1981), it was hoped that the enactment of this law would eliminate adulterations and poisons sometimes found in foods, sometimes in drugs and often in both. The foundation of food and drug protection came from the development of scientific methods of analysis by the Federal Bureau of Chemistry,
There are several types of medication, each has a purpose and function needed for their administration via the different routes.
In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, that was years in the making was finally passed under President Roosevelt. This law reflected a sea change in medicine-- an unprecedented wave of regulations. No longer could drug companies have a secret formula and hide potentially toxic substances such as heroin under their patent. The law required drug companies to specify the ingredients of medications on the label. It also regulated the purity and dosage of substances. Not by mere coincidence was the law passed only about five years after Bayer, a German based drug company began selling the morphine derivative, heroin. Thought to be a safe, non-habit forming alternative to morphine, heroin quickly became the “cure-all drug” that was used to treat
The Federal Food, Drug Administration is responsible for establishing the Code of Federal Regulations which outlines the rules and regulations governing pharmaceuticals. The rules are divided into sections and include guidance based on drug categories. Due to each person having varying reactions to pharmaceutical products not all side-effects are detected during clinical testing. The Federal Food, Drug Administration is responsible for sharing the information with consumers. However, it seems a bit unethical because the large pharmaceutical companies do not have to share all of side-effect information that may assist consumers in making its choice on whether to try a product or to not try a product. Through various survey’s it was discovered that consumers are under the opinion that pharmaceutical companies need to have improved internal controls to ensure their compliance with regulations. Due to physicians and pharmaceutical companies working together and are dependent on one another there needs to be controls in place that would have an unbiased view of the regulations. The government will need to continue introducing new regulations that will aide in monitoring the relationships.
Barkan, Ilyse D. Industry invites regulation: the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. American Journal of Public Health January 1985: Vol. 75, No. 1, pp.
Americans must wait up to 19 years after a discovered treatment before they can participate in benefits of a new medication (Philipson & Sun, 2008). The regulatory process drug manufacturers need to endure before releasing potentially life-saving medication is an extremely expensive, time-consuming process. The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) is the main department of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) responsible for the safety of drugs (both prescription and over-the-counter) sold in the United States (Food and Drug Administration, 2011). This department scrutinizes the testing of new drugs and
From a staff of one to over 9,000, the Food and Drug Administration has seen great changes since it was first created in 1862. Stemming from a single chemist in the U.S. Department of agriculture, the FDA now encompasses most food products, both human and animal drugs, cosmetics and animal feed.
Prescription drugs, on the other hand, are medicines that have been approved by the Food and Drug
After all research has been conducted including the testing of all animal and human studies associated, the New Drug application is completed by the drug developer. The results provided are used by the FDA to determine whether the drug is approved or the recommendation of further testing. Finally phase four is based on the monitoring of the drug’s risks and benefits monitored by various sponsors hired by the FDA.
In the United States, a drug can only be advertised legally after being approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Once attaining at least one FDA-approved use, physicians can prescribe a drug for other unapproved uses, based on their clinical judgment; this is referred to as “off-label use” (McCambridge, 2008). In general, marketing drugs for off-label uses is illegal; however, pharmaceutical companies have gone to various lengths within their legal rights to accomplish exactly that.