§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what appeal mechanism he will establish in respect of decisions by the Medicines Control Agency to classify foodstuffs as medicines. [73314]
§ Ms JowellWe do not propose to give the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) the power to decide that a foodstuff is a medicine. The MCA has consulted on legislative proposals for classifying medicinal products, which include introducing a statutory right to a formal review of the agency's provisional decisions. The agency is now considering responses to the consultation exercise. We will decide in due course whether and what review arrangements we wish to put before Parliament.
§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) if health foods and dietary supplements will have to satisfy the same licensing criteria as medicines when the remit of the Medicines Control Agency is extended; [73319]
(2) what limitations he plans to place on the Medicine Control Agency's proposed new power to declare any food product to be a medicine. [73313]
§ Ms JowellThe powers of the licensing authority, of which the Medicines Control Agency (MCA) is an executive arm, are set out in the Medicines Act 1968 and secondary legislation including the Medicines for Human Use (Marketing Authorisations Etc.) Regulations 1994. We have no proposals to extend the remit of the MCA to health foods and dietary supplements, which will continue to be subject to food law.
900W
§ Mr. MacleanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of health food products which could be reclassified as medicines. [73312]
§ Ms JowellWe can make no such estimate since under European Commission law and United Kingdom law, health foods are not medicines.