| ■ FDA Issuing Fewer Warnings about Drug Ads: Report | 06.12.15 |
| In recent years, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued fewer warnings to drug companies for false and misleading direct-to-consumer advertising and is taking longer to act on such infractions, says a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Thursday. Between 1997 and 2001, the FDA took an average of two weeks to issue warning letters to drug companies about ads that violate federal rules. Between 2002 and 2005, it took an average of four months to issue such letters, the report said. The GAO also found that the number of warning letters issued by the FDA fell by about half between those two time periods, the Associated Press reported. According to the GAO report, the FDA also does not have an effective method of screening, reviewing and tracking drug ads and Web sites. The FDA has only six reviewers who are unable to check everything, so they focus on ads with the greatest potential to affect public health, said the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, the FDA's parent agency. In a letter to be sent Thursday, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.) asks the White House to provide the FDA with more money to review and regulate direct-to-consumer drug advertising, the AP reported. |