Volume 3

Interagency coordination in drug research and regulation : hearings before the Subcommittee on Reorganization and International Organizations of the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Eighty-eighth Congress, first session. Agency coordination study, pursuant to S. Res. 27, 88th Cong. Review of cooperation on drug policies among Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Veterans' Administration, and other agencies. Mar. 20-June 26, 1963.

United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations

Date:: 1963

Credit: Interagency coordination in drug research and regulation : hearings before the Subcommittee on Reorganization and International Organizations of the Committee on Government Operations, United States Senate, Eighty-eighth Congress, first session. Agency coordination study, pursuant to S. Res. 27, 88th Cong. Review of cooperation on drug policies among Food and Drug Administration, National Institutes of Health, Veterans' Administration, and other agencies. Mar. 20-June 26, 1963. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$March 20, 21, 1963.—Witnesses testify at Reorganization Subcommittee hear- ings on imperative necessity for improvement in drug information and evaluation resources.” The former head of Mediphone estimates to the press that for $200,- 000 he could provide its type of service on a contract basis to Federal agencies and the Nation’s scientific community. He reports, however, virtually no pre- vious interest in Mediphone on the part of any agency but the Veterans’ Administration. March 21, 1963.—F. Ellis Kelsey, Ph. D., Special Assistant to the Surgeon General for Scientific Communication, states that the “‘broad concept” of a “Na- tional Drug Information Clearinghouse” is “now being carefully explored for its general feasibility im the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and in its several agencies.” [The full text of Dr. Kelsey’s address follows. ] A NATIONAL Drue INFORMATION CLEARINGHOUSE (By F. Ellis Kelsey, Ph. D., Special Assistant to the Surgeon General for Scientific Communication) In light of the fact that the National Library of Medicine is the host institu- tion for this, your sixth annual meeting, your program chairman has asked me to extend a formal welcome to you on behalf of the Surgeon General. First, I bring to you most hearty greetings from Dr. Terry. He has asked me to assure you of his personal interest in your group and the activities of the organizations you represent. The Public Health Service has long had heavy commitments in scientific communications; in fact, many of our programs have as their main purpose the more effective use of health science information by scientists, by health practitioners, and by the general public. As for myself, I was particularly happy to have this opportunity. I want to describe for you a broad concept which is now being carefully explored for its general feasibility in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and in its several agencies. This is for the establishment of a National Drug Informa- tion Clearinghouse. This concept calls for a very high degree of collaboration among many dif- ferent groups. Among the most crucial are those represented here—the indi- viduals who are specially skilled in science abstracting and indexing. The premise which is basic to the system I am about to outline for you is that a more systematic approach to drug information handling is urgently needed, that the volume of the drug literature is great and growing, and that much valuable information is being unnecessarily delayed in its application. Drug information handling systems operated separately, by various groups, are, at present, insufficient in their coverage. The National Library of Medi- cine, for example, is able to provide an index to only 2,200 scientific journals, although many more are in existence. Letters to the editor, and minor notes in journals, are not indexed. Hven the largest drug companies attempt to cope with only a fraction of the published literature. The American Medical Asso- ciation plans to monitor thoroughly only some 500 journals for current informa- tion about drug toxicity. Pharmacists find it difficult to keep up with regula- tory actions by the Food and Drug Administration, which in turn has its well- known scientific information problems. Within the Public Health Service each institute and division has, or is planning to undertake, science information pro- grams in its own field of responsibility, with inevitable duplication of effort. However, probably the greatest deficiency lies in the fact that present-day attempts to handle substantive information about drug research-in-progress are unorganized and inadequate, even though collections of such information do in fact exist. ' It is now technically feasible to establish a Centralized Drug Information Clearinghouse, responsible for total collection of all drug information, published and unpublished, and for the switching of organized blocks of such information to each user-group according to its predefined area of interest, for repackaging and distribution to individual users within that group. In this concept, the user-groups would include various Government agencies; for example, each 7 16 “Interagency Coordination of Drug Research and Regulation,” pt. 4 (to be printed).$

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