Good morning, Doctor Dal Pan.
How do you determine whether a drug is safe for the public? We read in the newspapers that a number of drugs have been pulled off the market, and that there should have been a much more proactive approach to avoid deaths and detrimental effects, which have a measurable impact on the public.
There were a few deaths reported among girls who had been given the Gardasil vaccine. But no country has called for a moratorium on the mass vaccinations carried out by various public health authorities.
Under your drug safety oversight system, how is a moratorium issued regarding a given drug? What are your parameters? It seems difficult to initiate a drug recall. There have to be a lot of cases in order for a drug to be pulled off the market. In the case of Gardasil, it seems that the clinical trials were improperly done or carried out hastily so that the drug could get to market more quickly.