US EDWARDS COMMITTEE REFORMS

The members of the Advisory Committee on the US Food and Drug Administration (the Edwards Committee) have announced that they are to reconvene in order to review the responses of the Department of Health and Human Services (which set up the committee) and of the FDA to the recommendations made in its May 1991 report.

The committee members say that they plan to produce a report on their findings by June 30, and they are asking for contributions from HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan and FDA Commissioner Kessler.

The committee members stress that their reassessment of their work and the responses to it is not intended to be a report card on the FDA's overall performance in the the past year. Instead, they say their focus will be on the recommendations which they submitted in May 1991, their continuing validity and the progress made in implementing them. The meeting could "confirm the responsibility of official oversight committees and commissions to revisit their recommendations after an appropriate interval," they add.