FDA is "fundamentally broken" ... "compelling evidence of serious wrongdoing"

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

FDA Scientists Ask Obama to Restructure Drug Agency
JANUARY 8, 2009, 10:50 A.M. ET FDA Scientists
By ALICIA MUNDY and JARED A. FAVOLE

WASHINGTON -- A group of scientists at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday sent a letter to President-elect Barack Obama's transition team pleading with him to restructure the agency, saying managers have ordered, intimidated and coerced scientists to manipulate data in violation of the law.

The nine scientists, whose names have been provided to the transition team and to some members of Congress, say the FDA is a "fundamentally broken" agency and describe it as place where honest employees committed to integrity can't act without fear of reprisal.

"There is an atmosphere at FDA in which the honest employee fears the dishonest employee," according to the letter, addressed to John Podesta, head of Mr. Obama's transition team.

...The Energy and Commerce Committee's Democratic and Republican leaders sent a letter to von Eschenbach in November, saying it had "received compelling evidence of serious wrongdoing" at the agency. The members wrote that they were told McConagha had found the FDA doctors' evidence compelling, and that their findings supported removal of certain managers in the device division.

...

[spanone]

1. all the regulatory agencies have been bu$hed

managers have ordered, intimidated and coerced scientists to manipulate data in violation of the law.

i'd say investigations and indictments are in order

[ColbertWatcher]

7. I'm gonna say "all of them." n/t

[MadMaddie]

11. Absolutely. All government agencies have been corrupted!

[depakid]

10. "i'd say investigations and indictments are in order "

No question about it. There needs to be accountability, or this will keep happening again and again.

[CountAllVotes]

2. why am I not surprised?

and no, this is not something new.

The FDA will approve almost any drug without the necessary studies/approvals that MUST be required. They'll say it on fast track or some such nonsense.

Anything, oh yes anything at all to sell a drug to a desperate, sick and unwitting consumer. Sad as hell IMO.

:dem: :kick:

[stillcool]

3. What's up with all the

confessing pre-inauguration? Getting in before the pardons expire?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. maybe they feel that they will now be listened too

lets hope.

[gratuitous]

4. Oh . . . well, if it was just serious wrongdoing

No problem, then. But if someone had gotten blow job, then there would be heck to pay! Heck, I tell ya!

[pinto]

5. I hope this furthers the move to clean house at federal departments of those

ideologues who place political partisanship over professionalism.

[Brazenly Liberal]

8. The FDA has been a corrupt mess for a long time

There's a revolving door for management between the FDA and Big Pharma, Big Biotech, and Big Agriculture. I like to blame the Bushies for everything that goes wrong as much as anyone, but the FDA mess goes back more than half a century.

The USDA is no better. The information we get on food and the actual safety of our food supply are both fucked up to an indeterminable degree because the people who are supposed to make sure it's good are in bed with those who stand to make $$$ when it isn't.

[SpiralHawk]

9. Freaking republicon 'family values'

What a bunch of truth perverts the republicons are...

Total Pharisees...

[KoKo]

12. K&R...it's so broken it will take YEARS to get back to some kind of accountability!

So sad....our food, drugs and other health care mechanisms will be impaired for years because of Bush/Cheney. We will have to live with it long beyond what we thought. :-(