Brussels, 21/08/2001 (Agence Europe) - In a statement issued last Friday, the president of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, stressed that the marketing of the anti-cholesterol medicine by Bayer was authorised through decentralised procedure and that the responsibility for the safety of this product lies fully with Member States . He noted that the European rapid warning procedure has worked well and that the Commission acted promptly to ensure that safety measures were taken by Member States. "The Commission has done everything within its power to assist Member States in carrying out their responsibilities in this matter", said Mr Prodi, who went on to add: "We have recently proposed improved rules in this area and I call upon Member States to respond quickly". Mr Prodi was referring to strengthening the pharmaceutical vigilance measures set out in the context of revision of pharmaceutical legislation proposed by the Commission on 18 July. EUROPE recalls that, following several deaths and various other problems arising from the administration of "Cervistatin", the Bayer laboratory recently decided to withdraw this medicine from the market.