HL&W Ministry's moves to meet pharmaceutical industry's interests on medicinal examining procedures

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry has leaked internal legislative information on examination of medicine to the pharmaceutical industry.

Koike Akira of the Japanese Communist Party revealed this fact at the House of Representatives Health, Labor and Welfare Committee meeting on November 26.

Koike asked about a bill to scrap some of the ministry's departments dealing with examining and approving medicine and set up a new independent administrative agency to replace them.

In early August when the bill has not yet been outlined, the HL&W Ministry provided the pharmaceutical industry with detailed internal information, such as the number of staff and the assignments to the new agency. On the contrary, the ministry only roughly explained the bill to organizations of victims of medicine-related illnesses in the middle of September.

Koike criticized the setting up of a new agency for the ministry in response to the request from the pharmaceutical industry that new medicine be "examined and approved speedily" at the expense of safety.

He also blamed the bill for assigning the new agency with the entirely different functions of development and examination of medicine and relief of victims. He said that such a multi-tasking with the agency goes against the lesson taken from the medicine-related AIDS incidents, and that development and examination of medicine should be dealt with separately.

JCP Koike in conclusion said that the bill to accelerate the examination procedure to meet the request of the pharmaceutical industry will result in a setback in medicinal safety. (end)