FDA scientists express lack of confidence in own agency

[theearthisround]

http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-hsfda1217,0,6939714.story?coll=ny-top-headlines

About two-thirds of Food and Drug Administration scientists are less than fully confident in the agency's monitoring of the safety of prescription drugs now being sold, according to an FDA internal survey.

Also, more than one-third of those scientists have some doubts about the process for approving new drugs, the survey found.

The survey sought the opinion of about 400 FDA scientists about the process of evaluating and approving prescription drugs. A majority of the scientists said they were "completely confident" or "mostly confident" about the FDA's decisions about the safety and efficacy of drugs approved for sale. But 31 percent were only "somewhat confident" and five percent had no confidence in the safety decisions.

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Government under Bush is not fulfilling the basic requirment...

expected of government -- protecting public health and safety.