§ 27. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Health if he will make a statement on the 10 new drugs recently rejected by his Committee on the Safety of Drugs, indicating the names of these drugs, the firms selling them as ingredients in sales to the public and the steps taken by him to protect the public from them and other noxious drugs; and when the next Report of that Committee will be made public.
§ The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson)The Committee has, I understand, no evidence that any of these drugs has been marketed.
§ Mr. HughesMay I ask whether, in pursuance of the steps which the Minister proposes to take to protect the public, he proposes to institute any prosecutions and, if so, will be publish the names of the firms convicted?
§ Mr. RobinsonNo, Sir. Unless a drug has been marketed without, or even 712 against, the advice of the Committee, information in these new drugs submissions and the Committee's decision on them are confidential to the Committee, to its staff, and to the manufacturer. But I believe that the possibility of a public statement that a drug has been marketed without, or contrary to, the Committee's advice would be a very powerful sanction.