Ensuring safe medicines and medical devices for children: hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, United States Senate, One Hundred Tenth Congress, first session, on examining ensuring safe medicines and medical devices for children, March 27, 2007.

Ensuring safe medicines and medical devices for children : hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, United States Senate, One Hundred Tenth Congress, first session, on examining ensuring safe medicines and medical devices for children, March 27, 2007.

The United States Government Printing Office (GPO) was created in June 1860, and is an agency of the U.S. federal government based in Washington D.C. The office prints documents produced by and for the federal government, including Congress, the Supreme Court, the Executive Office of the President and other executive departments, and independent agencies. A hearing is a meeting of the Senate, House, joint or certain Government committee that is open to the public so that they can listen in on the opinions of the legislation. Hearings can also be held to explore certain topics or a current issue. It typically takes between two months up to two years to be published. This is one of those hearings.

Innovative medical devices have helped reduce the burden of illness and injury and improve the quality of life for countless children. Mechanical ventilators and other respiratory support devices rescue thousands of fragile newborns every year. Children who once would have died of congenital heart conditions survive with the aid of implanted pacemakers, mechanical heart valves, and devices that close holes in the heart. Responding to a Congressional request, the Institute of Medicine assesses the system for postmarket surveillance of medical devices used with children. The book specifically examines: The Food and Drug Administration's monitoring and use of adverse event reports The agency's monitoring of manufacturers' fulfillment of commitments for postmarket studies ordered at the time of a device's approval for marketing The adequacy of postmarket studies of implanted devices to evaluate the effects of children's active lifestyles and their growth and development on device performance Postmarket surveillance of medical devices used with children is a little investigated topic, in part because the market for most medical products is concentrated among older adults. Yet children differ from adults, and their special characteristics have implications for evaluation and monitoring of the short- and long-term safety and effectiveness of medical devices used with young patients.