To Professor Sir Alasdair Breckenridge, Chair MHRA
cc Dr June Raine, Director, Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines
Dear Sir Alasdair,
The MHRA website contains a recent Drug Safety Update entitled “Addiction to benzodiazepines and codeine: supporting safer use” and then gives a link to two reports, one written by The National Addiction Centre, King’s College London, and School of Social and Community Medicine, University of Bristol, 2011 entitled “The changing use of prescribed benzodiazepines and z-drugs and of over-the-counter codeine-containing products in England: a structured review of published English and international evidence and available data to inform consideration of the extent of dependence and harm.”
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/depts/addictions/research/drugs/benzodiazepinesz-drugsandcodeineproducts.aspx
I wish to bring to your attention that the main author of this report, Professor John Strang, had a conflict of interest in that he has a consultancy with Genus Pharmaceuticals who manufacture lorazepam and oxazepam which are benzodiazepine tranquillisers and the subject of the report. Furthermore, Professor Strang made a false declaration when tendering for commissioning of the report.
In light of this information will the MHRA remove this report from its website immediately?
This was also the subject of a recent article in the Independent 26 July 2011.
Why did the MHRA fail to notice that there was no declaration of interests attached to this report or the NTA report on addiction to prescribed medicines?
Why did the MHRA not investigate to reveal for itself this conflict of interest?
For your information my MP has tabled a Parliamentary Question asking for a declaration of interests by the NTA authors and would suggest in meantime that the NTA report is removed as well pending further clarification.
Lastly, the NAC report recommends practices in breach of the BNF guidelines including 8-10 week withdrawals with a ceiling of 6 months contrary to the guidelines which state that withdrawal may take up to a year or more and also that long-term use is appropriate for recurrent anxiety whereas the guidelines advise that use should be restricted to 2 to 4 weeks only.
I look forward to your response.
Yours sincerely
John Perrott