More Funds Urged to Help FDA Review New AIDS Drugs

The head of the President’s AIDS commission said Friday that he would push for more money to help the Food and Drug Administration review growing numbers of experimental AIDS drugs.

Research into AIDS drugs has been expanding quickly, and the FDA is reaching the point where it “will not be able to handle the load and do the kind of regulatory work that’s needed” to make appropriate drugs available, retired Adm. James D. Watkins said.

A few tens of millions of dollars would help the FDA handle the load, said Watkins, chairman of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic. The FDA approves drugs for marketing and can allow expanded use of drugs still being tested.

Watkins said in an interview during commission hearings that without such help the FDA might have to divert resources from evaluating other drugs for diseases that affect millions of people.

Watkins asked FDA Commissioner Frank E. Young to work with the commission in detailing FDA needs in such areas as personnel and scientific facilities. He told Young that he wanted the commission to be “your advocate” in its report to the President.