Open letter to Annette King, Minister of Health, New Zealand: Intensive medicines monitoring programme is not due to be stopped

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7463.460-b

BMJ 2004;329:460 (21 August), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7463.460-b

Letter

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

Intensive medicines monitoring programme is not due to be stopped

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

EDITOR—Herxheimer is misleading in claiming that Medsafe,the New Zealand medicines regulator, is intending to stop fundingthe intensive medicines monitoring programme.¹ In the past year,the ministry has provided additional funding to the New Zealandpharmacovigilance centre to intensively monitor the rolloutof the meningococcal vaccine, which has been developed to dealwith the meningococcal epidemic in New Zealand, using an innovativenew approach distinct from the programme's methods. Medsafe,the University of Otago (where the intensive medicines monitoringprogramme is based), and our Medicines Adverse Reactions Committeeare working together to determine the types of pharmacovigilanceservices that Medsafe should purchase for New Zealand. The futuredirection of the intensive medicines monitoring programme ispart of this discussion.

New Zealand is committed to strengthening its pharmacovigilanceservices. In order to grow and develop, all programmes mustbe responsive to their environment. Since the intensive medicinesmonitoring . . . [Full text of this article]

Don Matheson, deputy director-general

Public Health Directorate, Ministry of Health, New Zealand Antony_Byers@moh.govt.nz