The Hindu : Business : Drug exporters to U.S. to come under FDA inspection

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Drug exporters to U.S. to come under FDA inspection

— PHOTO: AP

CLOSE SCRUTINY: Senator Byron Dorgan (centre), with Senator Debbie Stabenow (left), and Senator Olympia Snowe, showing examples of prescription drugs during a news conference at Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday.

WASHINGTON: Leading U.S. Senators announced on Wednesday that they were introducing a legislation in the Senate, which would make mandatory U.S. inspection of drug manufacturing plants anywhere in the world that supplied medicines to them.

Since, India and China account for a major quantum of medicine supplied to the U.S., drugs manufacturing plants in the two countries would be mainly affected by this legislation if passed by both the houses of the Congress.

If signed into law, all such plants would have to be mandatorily subject to inspection by the Food and Drug Administration or FDA of the U.S. Government.

To cover every facility

“There will be inspections of every facility and approval by the FDA for every facility that — where we import these medications, because we think that that is the appropriate approach to take when it comes to this critical legislation,” Senator Olympia Snowe, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, said at a press meet.

Besides Snowe, the press meet was jointly addressed by Senator John McCain and Senator Byron Dorgan — the two sponsors of the legislation. The legislation has the backing of the White House, the Senators claimed. — PTI

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