French To Set Up Drugs And Food Health Police

In France, the government of Lionel Jospin has started its defence inthe Senate of a bill drawn up by the previous government to establish a "health police" organized into two agencies - one for pharmaceuticals and another for foods.

The bill was sponsored by Charles Descours (UDF) and Claude Huriet (RPR) and envisages a health care products agency covering drugs, blood products, human tissue and cosmetics, and another covering all types of foods, including nutritional supplements. Parallel to these two agencies, an "institute of surveillance" would be set up - described as a sort of control tower - to deal with the totality of elements which could impact on human health and which would cover issues such as working conditions in production units and environmental factors.

These three bodies would report to the Secretary of State for Health, currently Bernard Kouchner, who wants the government to go further than the proposal drafted by the previous government, and to set up a single institution modelled on the US Food and Drug Administration. This proposal has been rejected by Prime Minister Jospin, but is expected to resurface in the National Assembly, because the Communist party is interpreting the dual-agency project as a retreat from the initial objectives of public health.