Medicines Board welcomes EU move to test children’s drugs

THE State’s drug policing body has welcomed plans for EU legislation next year that will result in drugs for children being tested before they go on the market.

The Irish Medicines Board (IMB) was responding to a British study that found that nine out of 10 medicines used on newborn babies have not been tested properly. The report also warns that around half of all prescription and over-the-counter drugs given to under-18s have not been put through suitable trials.

“Children are not simply small adults and it cannot be right that 90% of the medication given to new-born babies has only ever been tested on adults,” the House of Lords select committee report said.