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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The medical research agencies contended this was ‘‘not a research function ;” the medical-care agencies contended it was “not a service function; most agencies looked to private efforts ; private sources looked to supplemental Govern- ment efforts. Month after month, year after year, I personally reiterated to all of them (in statements in committee, on the Senate floor, in the press and before public assemblies) the absolute importance of affirmative action. What does the record show ? Who actually did what and when? Who did not do what and when? Let us see a few of the principal actions, step by step, over the past 2 years.’ * * f % * % * A LARGER SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS This is where we now stand. Obviously, we still have a long way to go. But, let’s not lose any more time. Let representatives of the principal drug infor- mation sources—the generators, “packagers” and users—work out together a common program. And, let them plan it, as Dr. Kelsey rightly urged, as a part of a much larger, i.e., drug and nondrug, health clearinghouse system. To that I may add, let the Clearinghouse for Health Sciences be recognized as an integral part of an overall system for all the sciences—the physical, social, mathematic, engineering and life sciences. This is no idle dream. The fact is that parts of an “all-science’”’ system al- ready exist and are already functioning, but on a relatively uncoordinated, disuniform basis. I refer to: the very modern NASA system ; the system of the Atomic Energy Commission ; the system of the Armed Services Technical Information Agency ; the Science Information Exchange, etc. The present patch-work should be transformed into a rational ‘“‘system of systems,” such as this subcommittee—its Members and staff—have long pro- posed. GREAT POTENTIAL ON USEFUL DRUGS I predict that there will be a Drug Information Clearing House and that it will be a great boon to medicine and to pharmaceutical science. It should be pointed out, too, that in much of the advance thinking about a clearinghouse, its value has been mentioned as a means of calling attention to adverse drug reactions. The fact of the matter is, however, that the clearing- house could serve for just the opposite objective also. It could and would call prompt attention to the beneficial effects of the vast number of efficacious and safe drugs. And, it would provide varied information for the widest variety of ‘“audi- ences’—for basic and applied researchers, administrators, drug companies, practitioners, pharmacists, other members of the healing arts, etc. The clearinghouse could help further raise the high and well-justified confi- dence of the American people in the healing arts, including pharmaceutical “science, The type of dedication which Hllis Kelsey has evidenced should be paralleled by dedication on the part of all sources whose cooperation will be so vitally necessary. Exactly where the clearinghouse or system of clearinghouses will be established, under whose auspices, whose financing, whose “language” system, ete. are important but hardly insoluble problems. Let us get on with the task. July 18, 1963.—Dr. Ellis Kelsey testifies before the House Committee on Edu- cation and Labor Ad Hoe Subcommittee on Research Data Processing and In- formation Retrieval Center, under the chairmanship of Congressman Roman Pucinski of Illinois. Dr. Kelsey elaborates on the concept and plans for the proposed clearinghouse. [The full text of his address follows. ] The chronology, as published in the Congressional Record, is reprinted in expanded form in the present exhibit.

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