Concerns about pharmaceutical safety testing cause clinicians to appeal to UK PM and Health Sec

A group of eminent UK clinicians and scientists who have written an open letter to Prime Minister David Cameron and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley expressing concerns about the escalating problems of drug failures and adverse drug reactions. Adverse drug reactions have reached epidemic proportions amid rising costs in prescriptions, with around 197,000 EU citizens dying every year because of the problem.

The letter, published 3 June 2011 in the medical journal, The Lancet, says the reliance on testing new drugs on animals before humans is partly to blame, with trials on non-humans frequently failing to translate to the clinic. The experts have called for the use of more human-biology-based experiments where chemicals are tested on human cells to see how people might be affected by new treatments.

Adverse drug reactions have reached epidemic proportions and are increasing at twice the rate of prescriptions, the letter points out. The European Commission estimated in 2008 that adverse reactions kill 197 000 EU citizens annually, at a cost of 79 billion euros ($115 billion).The cost of new medicines is rising unsustainably, creating an ever-increasing burden on the National Health Service (NHS). Meanwhile, many increasingly prevalent diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, many cancers, and stroke, remain without adequate treatments, it was noted.