PARIS: Following the Mediator scandal in late 2010, which concerned a medicine suspected of causing the death of some 500 people in France, the Minister of Health, Mr Xavier Bertrand, has launched a series of conferences regarding medicines.
Associations, industry players, doctors and members of Parliament will work on improving the approval process before medicines can be agreed for sale in France.
The Minister called for assistance from doctors to write prescriptions for the names of molecules instead of brand name drugs.
The main objective of these conferences is to reform the French Agency for the Sanitary Safety of Health Products (AFSSAPS), who was seriously criticised in the fall out of the Mediator scandal.
No reform will be implemented before the conclusions and recommendations are published by May/June 2011.
Source: www.leschos.fr
