Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2004. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
PRNewswire - December 17, 2004
Who: Michael Weinstein, President, AIDS Healthcare Foundation
Contact: Ged Kenslea, AHF Communications Director, 323.860.5225(w) 323.791.5526(m)
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 17 /PRNewswire/ -- On the heels of the latest drug industry debacle -- serious safety concerns raised earlier today on Pfizer's blockbuster drug, Celebrex -- AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest AIDS organization in the United States which operates free AIDS treatment clinics in the US, Africa, Central America and India, will call upon the US government to implement an emergency ban on direct-to-consumer advertising by the pharmaceutical industry. Earlier this week AHF had also called for the creation of a new, independent blue ribbon commission or panel to review all drug research in light of several recent other drug industry scandals roiling the nation's public health and raising serious questions about the US bodies that license and regulate the industry.
"The pharmaceutical industry continues to abuse and manipulate a fast-track drug approval process the FDA first implemented for drugs and treatments for genuine life-threatening illnesses such as AIDS in order to bring hugely profitable -- and, as Celebrex and Vioxx demonstrate, increasingly deadly -- drugs to market," said Michael Weinstein, AIDS Healthcare Foundation president. "While it may have been worth the risk for illnesses that are truly deadly, is it worth jeopardizing the American public's health in order to bring new, 'me too' drugs that are really glofified aspirin compounds? And the drug industry then unleashes a barrage of slick, direct-to-consumer advertisements in order to convince a trusting public to buy and use these drugs that they really don't need. We are calling on the government to institute an emergency ban on such drug advertising until the process for approving, licensing and regulating our drug supply is fixed."
"The FDA and NIH are clearly letting the American public -- and the world at large -- down with regard to their so-called roles as regulatory bodies overseeing the safety and efficacy of our drug supply." Weinstein went on, "The system is riddled with conflict of interest and needs to be fixed. This emergency ban on consumer adverting and creation of a new independent body to review all drug industry research would be a good first step. The issue is really one of developing a competent and respected testing and approval process that the public can truly trust and one which the world can look to."
SOURCE AIDS Healthcare Foundation
041217
PR041228
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