The topic sould be at the top of health policy agenda (at least as it is in this blog). New evidence confirms the additional safety risks of european bad regulation.
In the European Union, medical devices are approved by private notified bodies if they meet performance criteria and are likely to be safe, but notified bodies generally do not require evidence of effectiveness for most devices. Many high risk devices are approved faster in the EU than in the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration usually requires prospective clinical trials of such devices.And the results are in BMJ:
The unadjusted rate of safety alerts and recalls for devices approved first in the EU was 27% (62/232) compared with 14% (11/77) for devices approved first in the US. The adjusted hazard ratio for safety alerts and recalls was 2.9 (95% confidence interval 1.4 to 6.2) for devices approved first in the EU.This means exactly 2.9-fold greater rate of safety alerts and recalls and a 4.6-fold greater rate of recalls than devices approved first in the US (and if you look at the confidence intervals you'll get more worried). How can we trust the european regulator?. For decades, European Union has leaved its citizens with less safety protection than is required for medical devices. A perfectly designed absurdity to disseminate risk for european citizens that the new proposed regulation is unable to correct.
PS. If you wnat to understand the differences between EU and US regulation, read this NEJM article or Milbank one..
