A majority of Americans don’t want to sacrifice safety in exchange for getting new treatments faster to the market, a new poll finds as Congress is trying to streamline the drug approval process.
The poll from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and STAT news service found nearly 3 in 5 adults oppose changing Food and Drug Administration approval standards for prescription drugs. Half said in the poll they opposed changing approval standards for medical devices as well.
Last year, the House passed a bill by a wide margin that intended to speed up the approval times for certain pharmaceuticals and devices. The bill also included new funding for medical research.
Now the Senate has been working on its own alternative to that House bill that include faster approval for products.
The poll asked for Americans’ thoughts on what role the FDA should play in drug prices and whether TV ads for drugs should be removed.
The survey of 1,006 people asked if the FDA should be “allowed to reject drugs if the agency decides the price is too high — 44 percent say they should, while 49 percent say they should not.”
About 57 percent of those surveyed would also support removing prescription drugs from television. Several major doctor groups have called for a ban on such direct-to-consumer advertising.
