This chapter analyzes European and American policies toward a range of consumer safety risks; including drugs, children's products, and cosmetics. It shows how European and American risk regulations have converged, though the dynamics through which this occurred differed substantially. Pharmaceutical regulation constitutes the most important exception to the broader pattern of increased transatlantic regulatory policy divergence. What makes this area of regulatory policy distinctive is that its political salience increased in the United States but not in Europe. Pharmaceutical regulation also represents an important exception to the dominant pattern of transatlantic regulatory policy diffusion. In this case, European regulatory policies did affect those of the United States, first by highlighting the transatlantic drug lag, and more recently by American decisions to adopt some European practices to expedite drug approvals.
Japan Works To Shorten "Drug Lag," Boost Trials of New Drugs