Europe Moves Nearer FDA- Style Drug Safety Agencies

A call for the creation in the European Union of a US Food and DrugAdministration-type organization to monitor drug and food safety has come from the European Commission's President, Jacques Santer, in an address to the European Parliament.

While Mr Santer was mainly concerned with responding to criticism of the Commission over its handling of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis in the agricultural sector, he said the BSE affair raised questions that went beyond agriculture and which affected society as a whole.

Referring to the need to "make difficult choices" in dealing with new developments in biotechnology, Mr Santer endorsed "a credible European health protection system" as a "necessary follow-on from the single market," and added that an independent agency on FDA lines should be considered.