FDA Is Flexing Less Muscle

[BlueStatesForever]

(Bush's "family values," although no outrage from Kerry either!)

In the past four years, the Food and Drug Administration has taken a noticeably less aggressive approach toward policing drugs that cause harmful side effects, records show, leading some lawmakers, academics and consumer advocates to complain that the agency is focusing more on bolstering the pharmaceutical industry than protecting public health.


From 2001 to 2004, three important drugs were taken off the market, compared with 10 that were recalled from 1996 to 2001.


Two of the three were withdrawn in the very early months of the Bush administration. The third, the blockbuster arthritis drug Vioxx, was pulled in September at the initiative of its maker, Merck & Co., without FDA (news - web sites) involvement.


In the same period, the number of warning letters sent by the FDA's drug marketing office challenging misleading or dishonest drug advertising also plummeted. From 1996 to 2001, the agency issued about 480 cease-and-desist letters. Over the past four years, the total has been about 130.


The decrease in FDA enforcement has come despite a steadily rising number of reports of potentially harmful side effects from approved drugs. From 1996 to 2004, the annual number of these "adverse events" almost doubled.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/washpost/20041118/ts_washpost/a58470_2004nov17

[Javaman]

1. And only now the press figures this out? Let's all repeat will

feigned astonishment, "we are so surprised!"

[NC_Nurse]

2. Waht amazes me is the

complete hypocrisy of all the shit about RU-486 both before and after approval. The patients are actually WARNED about potential problems and when to call the doctor, some have not followed directions...

Other drugs that aren't opposed by the RW fundies have been approved and continually prescribed with MANY problems for MANY patients that they were not specifically warned about. NOTHING happens until a lot of people have been documented to be harmed.

What hypocrisy! :mad: