The absence of a legal obligation on companies to produce information on drug trials among children is seen as a weakness of the new proposal: 'Without legislation, companies will not voluntarily undertake paediatric trials because they are politely encouraged to do so'.
The editorial concludes: 'Another part of the UK Government's initiative is the investment of part of additional £100 million announced in April, 2004, into a new research network on medicines in children. In addition to medicines in children, research networks will initially cover cancer, mental health, diabetes, stroke, and Alzheimer's disease. An effective research network for paediatric trials with a wider remit, rather than just for medicines in children, would be an extremely valuable step forward in an area where data are lacking and disease prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care are all too often based on no more then anecdotal evidence. As presented, this new initiative falls a long way short of what children deserve: centre stage for acquiring research-based evidence.'
ISSUE: 28 August-3 September 2004
The Lancet