Plants exporting drugs to US may come under FDA inspection net

WASHINGTON: Leading US Senators announced on Wednesday that they are introducing a legislation in the Senate which would make mandatory US inspection of drug manufacturing plants anywhere in the world that supply medicines to them.

Since, India and China account for major quantum of medicine supplied to the US, drugs manufacturing plants in the two countries would be majorly affected by this legislation if passed by both the houses of the Congress.

If signed into law, all such plants would have to be mandatorily subject to inspection by the Food and Drug Administration or FDA of the US Government.

"There will be inspections of every facility and approval by the FDA for every facility that -- where we import these medications, because we think that that is the appropriate approach to take when it comes to this critical legislation," Senator Olympia Snowe, one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, said a press meet.

Besides Snowe, the press meet was jointly addressed by Senator John McCain and Senator Byron Dorgan - the two sponsors of the legislation. The legislation has the backing of the White House, the Senators claimed, as last year the US President, Barack Obama, then as an Illinois Senator had co-sponsored an identical bill.