Day 039 - 20 Oct 94 - Page 63
1
2 Q. Thank you. A similar proposition is true of most countries
3 in the world, is it not?
4 A. Forgive me. Could you be slightly clear as to which
5 proposition?
6
7 Q. The use of those compounds in the world at large is
8 similarly regulated, is it not?
9 A. Similarly regulated in industrialised countries, yes,
10 in OECD countries, yes.
11
12 Q. For example, throughout the European Community?
13 A. Throughout the European Community there is just about a
14 uniform regulatory system since 1st January 1993.
15
16 Q. In the United States the use of such substances is
17 governed, is it regulated by government?
18 A. It is indeed.
19
20 Q. Through the agency of the Food and Drugs Agency, the FDA?
21 A. That is the relevant agency, yes.
22
23 Q. The information upon which the governments of the Western
24 world act in making regulations is fed to them, is it not,
25 from a number of sources directly or indirectly?
26 A. You are asking me to agree with that?
27
28 Q. I am.
29 A. Well, I would not take that precisely as it stands.
30 I would want to qualify it slightly more carefully, because
31 I am sometimes concerned at the mechanisms by which
32 documents come to be incorporated into the dossiers which
33 the toxicological experts review. The system I find most
34 impressive is the US system in which companies are legally
35 obliged to submit all the evidence which they have
36 concerning these compounds, and the scientific staff of the
37 FDA make it their business to conduct independent searches
38 of the toxicological database. The position in the UK is
39 very different.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think the question was simply that the
42 information was fed to the bodies from a number of sources?
43 A. In some cases the information is fed, for example, the
44 Committee on Toxicity, from very, very few sources and, in
45 particular, the dossiers of documents typically come from
46 the companies who are themselves seeking to market or use
47 the compounds. One of the distinctive feature about the
48 British system as far as I can tell is that the Scientific
49 Civil Service, the Department of Health and the Ministry of
50 Agriculture, do not always themselves independently seek
51 out scientific independent data.
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: Dr. Millstone, let us get around this semantic
54 problem, if I may call it that, by taking a body which is
55 supranational JECFA?
56 A. Yes.
57
58 Q. Do you agree that it is supranational?
59 A. Yes.
60
