US FDA is Corrupt, Allows Unsafe Products
FDA Abandons Safety, Looks to Lobbyists Instead of Science
| Below is a part of a recent Reuters news report on the corrupt Food and Drug Administration. |
The editor of a top medical journal on Friday accused the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the world's most powerful drug watchdog, of endangering people's lives.
Richard Horton of The Lancet said the FDA, which supposedly safeguards the health of 274 million people and regulates over $1 trillion worth of products, was compromised by funding [bribery] from the drugs industry and pressure from Congress.
In an editorial in the Lancet, he slammed the FDA for its handling of GlaxoSmithKline Plc's controversial drug Lotronex. The FDA approved Lotronex in February 2000, but the company had to withdraw it on its own from the market nine months later after the deaths of five patients who had been taking it.
That's bad enough. Now senior FDA officials are now trying to reintroduce it, Horton said.
``This story reveals not only dangerous failings in a single drug's approval and review process but also the extent to which the FDA, its Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) in particular, has become a servant of the industry,'' he wrote in an editorial in the journal.
According to Horton, serious side effects were evident during the pre-approval process and shortly afterwards but the FDA kept the product on the market. ``The decision was to prove fatal,'' said Horton.
The Lancet said scientists within the FDA who raised concerns about the drug's safety were sidelined and excluded from future discussions. An independent review of research found serious flaws but calls for more studies were ignored.
The agency is supposed to monitor the safety, labeling, import, transport, storage and sale of food ingredients, drugs, cosmetics and surgical supplies.
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