§ Dr. Roger Thomasasked the Secretary of state for Social Services if he will take the necessary steps to ensure that when British pharmaceutical products are manufactured under licence in Third world countries the same stringent conditions and supervision takes place in those factories as occurs in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. Kenneth ClarkeIt is for the individual country concerned to exercise such control as it considers necessary. We cannot prescribe or enforce regulations governing conditions in independent sovereign states.
In a report to be published during 1984 the WHO expert committee on specifications for pharmaceutical preparations is recommending that developing countries should set up a system of spot checking the quality of pharmaceuticals through national control laboratories designed specifically for the work. We would endorse that recommendation.
We do make expert advice available. For example, the Department's medicine inspectorate has produced a guide to good pharmaceutical manufacturing practice which recommends the steps which should be taken by manufacturers of medicinal products with the object of ensuring that their products are of the nature and quality intended.