Pharma Critic Is Candidate for Top FDA Post

[Celebration]

Source: Wall Street Journal

WASHINGTON -- A doctor who once denounced Pfizer Inc. for holding a marketing event in a pool hall is leading President-elect Barack Obama's team formally assessing the troubled Food and Drug Administration, boosting his chances of becoming the next FDA commissioner.

Joshua Sharfstein, now head of the Baltimore Health Department, has tangled with the pharmaceutical industry on several occasions and would likely lead the agency to get tougher on drugs. Companies might benefit from his strong support of childhood vaccinations, however.

..........snip............

Drug companies particularly worry about two contenders for the top job whose crusading has affected FDA policy and corporate bottom lines.

One is Dr. Sharfstein, who successfully pushed the FDA last year to block drug makers from selling over-the-counter cough and cold medicines to small children. The other is Steven Nissen, 60, head of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Nissen's questions about the safety of two popular drugs, the diabetes medicine Avandia and the anticholesterol pill Vytorin, have hit their makers' sales hard and given him a platform to criticize the agency that approved them.



Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122902814065899257.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

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According to Mike Huckman of CNBC, Nissen has the edge. Neither of these guys are wanted by Big Pharma, who are promoting other people. Big pharma contributed lots of $$$ to Democrats this year, so we'll see.

[Crunchy Frog]

1. Uh oh.

Are we going to start seeing a flood of posts about this guy being a "woo woo"? You generally can't say anything critical at all here about big pharma without being jumped on by a posse.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

2. Woo woo?

What?

[StarryNite]

3. Well I hate Big Pharma!

[kimmerspixelated]

4. Isn't that the truth!!!!

It's time, "they" got over it! We need to see a lot more whistleblowers for BigPharma. They've gotten away with too much for too long, and this is my polite post.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. Not true.

If you can criticize Big Pharma without resorting to conspiracy theories and pseudoscience, I'd be perfectly happy to listen.

[Crunchy Frog]

10. Yeah but

it's not possible to present anything to you that you won't automatically dismiss as conspiracy theories and pseudoscience.

[Captain Hilts]

6. So much for Nader and Frank Rich's "there's no diff. between the Dems and Republicans" theory. nt

[Pirate Smile]

7. After 2000, I don't see how anyone can say that crap anymore.

[Malva Zebrina]

8. Ya think

you can have any power whatsoever over the pharmaceutical industry in America? Making billions upon billions of dollars off the schlumps who need medication,as their docs tell them they do, even though it puts them at risk? Hey red the fine print that comes with your medication and it is all up to you, the consumer, not the patient. If you take it and do not read it, and you drop dead, it is your fault. LOL. That does not matter==as long as they make a profit off the sick and vulnerable.

Ain't gonna happen. They gotcha comin and goin.

[SierraNightTide]

9. FDA Wants To Reduce The Quality of Life Again.

I have severe asthma and two of the medicine the FDA wants to ban is on the list. I am asking that anyone that has or has known someone with a lung disorder please contact the FDA and let them know that all Americans with any disorder or disease be allowed to continue living life best they can with the current medicines available and not to ban them. Banning even one of the medicines I take can reduce my daily life by as much as 50%

http://www.fda.gov/comments.html