More sunlight the best medicine for TGA

The Therapeutic Goods Administration has operated with a reputation for excessive secrecy so those who follow it closely would not have been surprised by reports that the US Food and Drug Administration publicised a list of deficiencies and inadequacies identified in audits of CSL at its Melbourne laboratory, leaving the TGA to admit belatedly that it also had sent the company letters detailing problems uncovered in its own audits but had not informed the public. Not mentioned in local reports of these developments was the Transparency Review commissioned by the government last November, chaired by former ombudsman and former chairman of the Australian Press Council Professor Dennis Pearce, and due to report on 30 June. Plenty of submissions and lively hearings around the country support the decision to establish the review because of "community concern about the lack of information made available by the TGA." The professor seems certain to prescribe more sunlight.