Department of Health and Human Services November 5, 2009 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

HHS gives notice concerning the final effect of the HHS decision to designate a class of employees at the Norton Company, Worcester, Massachusetts, as an addition to the Special Exposure Cohort (SEC) under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act of 2000. On September 29, 2009, as provided for under 42 U.S.C. 7384q(b), the Secretary of HHS designated the following class of employees as an addition to the SEC:

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is providing notice of an amendment to a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between FDA's Office of External Relations and WebMD, LLC.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is announcing the launch of its Safe Use Initiative with the release of a report titled ``FDA's Safe Use InitiativeCollaborating to Reduce Preventable Harm from Medicines.'' FDA is opening a docket to enable the public to comment on the report and the initiative. In addition, a safe use Web site has been created to facilitate transparency as the initiative moves forward. The initiative proposes a series of next steps, including working with interested partnerspatients, consumers, caretakers, healthcare practitioners, pharmacists, healthcare systems, health insurers, drug manufacturers, and other Federal agenciesto select specific candidate cases of preventable, drug-related harm for analysis, intervention proposals, and evaluation metrics. The report identifies some specific areas of concern that could benefit from Safe Use Initiative partnerships.