Open letter to Annette King, Minister of Health, New Zealand

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.51

BMJ 2004;329:51 (3 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7456.51

Letter

Open letter to Annette King, Minister of Health, New Zealand

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—We learn with great concern that Medsafe [the NewZealand Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Authority], a partof your ministry, intends to stop funding the intensive medicinesmonitoring programme (IMMP) next year.

In its 27 years' work the IMMP has contributed very valuablyto the safety of medicines in New Zealand and worldwide. Drugregulatory agencies in other countries and professionals workingon the safety of medicines have admired and envied it becauseit has so successfully identified previously unrecognised adversereactions, measured risks, and identified risk factors. Forexample, it enabled New Zealand to lead the world in takingregulatory action over agranulocytosis due to mianserin andliver toxicity due to nefazodone.^{1 2}

Many drug disasters have shown that it is unsafe to rely onlyon spontaneous reporting of suspected adverse drug reactions.Such systems are essential, but the data they provide mostlysuffer from gross under-reporting . . . [Full text of this article]

Andrew Herxheimer, emeritus fellow

UK Cochrane Centre London N3 2NL andrew_herxheimer@compuserve.com

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Minister's response: Dr Don Matheson
bmj.com, 2 Jul 2004 [Full text]
Re: Minister's response: Michael L Jenkinson
bmj.com, 3 Jul 2004 [Full text]
Re: Minister's response: David M Coulter
bmj.com, 9 Jul 2004 [Full text]
Re: Minister's response: Dr Simon C Roughan
bmj.com, 9 Jul 2004 [Full text]