U.S. PIRG Consumer Blog: Senate finishes Rx bill, on way to President

Last night the Senate approved the FDA drug safety bill passed by the House the day before. The bill achieves 4 of PIRG's five priorities going into the process, according to my colleague Paul Brown, who worked the bill full-time for the last 9 months. The bill provides for transparency of clinical trial results, improves conflict of interest rules, increases FDA's civil penalty authority and transfers $225 million of drug company user fees to post-market safety reviews.

Our fifth priority, strict regulation of direct-to-consumer advertising, was largely scuttled (except for certain fines if ads are misleading) due to an alliance between drug companies and the media and advertising industry (we're shocked, shocked!), as reported in Media Industry Helped Drug Firms Fight Ad Restraints (pd. subs. req'd) in today's Wall Street Journal, but nevertheless passage of this new law with four priorities in strong shape is still a major victory for consumers. Previous blog. Because the bill also extends the user fee program for new drug approval for five years, big PhRMA is also for it, so the President will sign it. Our champions, including Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Reps. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Henry Waxman (D-CA) and others deserve great credit for keeping so many consumer provisions in the package.