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David Ward MP <>
David Ward calls for safer medicines
January 28, 2011 4:00 PM
David has signed a Parliamentary motion calling on the Government to improve the safety testing of new drugs.
Although many medicines are essential and save lives, their side effects hospitalise a million Britons and kill more than 10,000 every year, making them one of our leading causes of death. Current methods rely on animal tests, which often create a false sense of security, as with Avandia and Vioxx, which both caused thousands of fatal heart attacks, despite animal tests which indicated that they would protect the heart.
New safety tests, using state of the art techniques on human tissues and in ultra low dose studies in volunteers, promise to give results more predictive for humans. But these tests are not yet required by law.
Commenting Dr. Margaret Clotworthy, Science Director of Safer Medicines Campaign, said:
"It is time to compare these new tests with the animal tests currently required by the Government. Technologies to predict safety in humans have leapt ahead in the past ten years but our regulations are stuck in the past.
"We must congratulate Mr. Ward for taking a lead in modernising our outdated regulatory system."
Commenting David Ward said:
"Too many people are harmed by their medicines, whose safety must be improved. If superior tests are available, the law should require them.
"We must move safety testing into the twenty-first century, for all our sakes."