Durkan backs campaign

MEDICINES hospitalise a million and kill 10,000 people each year in the UK, according to Foyle MP Mark Durkan.

The Londonderry representative is backing a new campaign calling on the Government to improve the safety testing of new drugs.

Mr Durkan backed the Safe Medicine Campaign's contention that new drugs are one of the leading causes of death in Britain.

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The campaign argues better methods to test the safety of new drugs could have a major impact.

Mr Durkan said: "I am calling on the government to initiate a comparison of currently required animal tests with a set of human biology-based tests, as proposed in the Safety of Medicines Bill, to see which are the most effective in predicting the safety of medicines for patients.

"I am pleased to support the Safer Medicines Campaign and to do everything I can to help hasten this process.

"Too many people are harmed by their medicines, whose safety must be improved. If superior tests are available then the law should require them."

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Dr Margaret Clotworthy, Science Director of Safer Medicines Campaign, said: "It is time to compare these new tests with the animal tests currently required by the government.

"Technologies to predict safety in humans have leapt ahead in the past ten years but our regulations are stuck in the past."

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