Pediatrics Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Pediatrics, including details on child development, perinatal medicine, child health care.

The EU's new paediatric medicines legislation: serving children's needs?

Permanand G, Mossialos E, McKee M

LSE Health and European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE, UK. g.permanand@lse.ac.uk

In new legislation for paediatric medicines which came into effect on 26 January 2007, the European Union (EU) has attempted to address several unresolved issues relating to children's needs for medicines in Europe. This article reviews the legislation's main proposals and makes some comparisons with equivalent legislation in the USA. We argue that the legislation suffers from several gaps and uncertainties in relation to the specific proposals and their intended aims. As the establishment of new legislation in this area offered the EU an opportunity to set some clear guidelines and objectives, and had the potential to go beyond the equivalent American rules, we thus see the proposals as something of a disappointment.

Published 23 August 2007 in Arch Dis Child, 92(9): 808-11.
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