Top Democrat Finds F.D.A.'s Efforts Have Plunged

[cal04]

A 15-month inquiry by a top House Democrat has found that enforcement of the nation's food and drug laws declined sharply during the first five years of the Bush administration.

For instance, the investigation found, the number of warning letters that the Food and Drug Administration issued to drug companies, medical device makers and others dropped 54 percent, to 535 in 2005 from 1,154 in 2000.

The seizure of mislabeled, defective or dangerous products dipped 44 percent, according to the inquiry, pursued by Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee.

The research found no evidence that such declines could be attributed to increased compliance with regulations. Investigators at the F.D.A. continued to uncover about the same number of problems at drug and device companies as before, Mr. Waxman's inquiry found, but top officials of the agency increasingly overruled the investigators' enforcement recommendations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/27/health/policy/27fda.html?ei=5094&en=0e25a48e6978b523&hp=&ex=1151467200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1151381356-vdYZeW+dnKX4c+Ur2/RAxA

[killbotfactory]

1. Very surprising!

Greetings from bizzaro world!!!

[Judi Lynn]

2. Who could have predicted the Bush administration would stoop this low?

This defies basic common sense. From the article:

The biggest decline in enforcement actions was found at the agency's device center, where they decreased 65 percent in the five-year period despite a wave of problems with devices including implantable defibrillators and pacemakers.
(snip)

"This is a tragedy," said Peter Barton Hutt, a former general counsel of the F.D.A. who now represents drug companies and teaches food and drug law at Harvard. "Congress has failed to realize that our single most important government agency is being systematically dismantled."

Dr. Sidney M. Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at the watchdog organization Public Citizen, noted that the agency now received about $380 million a year in fees from drug makers.

"The public," Dr. Wolfe said, "is getting the kind of F.D.A. that the industry is paying for them to get."
(snip/)

What a desperate, damnable shame. I hope Republicans will enjoy this news. Idiots.

[eppur_se_muova]

3. K&R for Rep. Waxman! One of the few watching out for US. nt