GAO Report on FDA: Recent Initiatives Have Potential But Weaknesses Remain

In a report [pdf] released yesterday, the Government Accounting Office concluded that “[r]ecent FDA initiatives–some of which have been implemented and others proposed–could strengthen FDA’s foreign drug inspection program, but these initiatives do not fully address the weaknesses that GAO previously identified.”  For example,

[In November 2007], GAO testified that gaps in information weaken FDA’s processes for prioritizing the inspection of foreign establishments that pose the greatest risk to public health. While FDA recently expressed interest in obtaining useful information from foreign regulatory bodies that could help it prioritize foreign establishments for inspections, the agency has faced difficulties fully utilizing these arrangements in the past. For example, FDA had difficulties in determining whether the scope of other countries’ inspection reports met its needs and these reports were not always readily available in English.

– SBS