The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) is facing renewed pressure from lawmakers to require that patients receiving the acne drug Accutane, health workers who prescribe it and drugstores that dispense it enroll in a national registry. Four lawmakers including Rep. Bart Stupak (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich., whose teenage son committed suicide while taking Accutane, threatened on Thursday to seek legislation enacting the changes if the FDA (news - web sites) fails to act by Nov. 1. The FDA should “pull this drug until we have more research on the effects of Accutane and the permanency of those effects” on children, the lawmakers wrote Wednesday in a letter to Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson. It was signed by Stupak, Sen. Gordon Smith (news, bio, voting record), R-Ore., and Reps. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., and Dave Weldon, R-Fla.
