Feeling Safer Yet?
Nov 1st, 2007 at 6:05 am by Susie
The real joke of this article is, they neglect to mention that unless American pharmaceutical plants are under an FDA order, they don’t make unannounced visits there, either:
Although the volume of prescription drugs and drug ingredients coming into the country from foreign manufacturers in developing nations such as India and China has exploded in recent years, the Food and Drug Administration’s budget for foreign inspections has not kept pace and will be lower in 2008 than it was in 2002, according to congressional investigators.
As a result, foreign drug and drug ingredient makers are inspected on average once every eight to 12 years, while American-based manufacturers must be inspected at least once every two years.
In addition, the investigators reported, FDA officials generally do not bring their own translators, and so in countries such as China they rely on company-supplied translators to conduct inspections. They also have to tell foreign manufacturers in advance that they are coming, while FDA inspectors can go into American plants at any time unannounced.
