Avandia Critic Claims FDA Smear Campaign

[RamboLiberal]

Source: ABC News

The prominent cardiologist sounding alarms about the diabetes drug Avandia claims he is the target of a smear campaign organized by a top Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokesman.

Dr. Steven Nissen, chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, showed ABC News an e-mail sent to several health reporters by Douglas Arbesfeld, a senior communications consultant to the FDA.

In the e-mail, entitled "What are St. Steven's feet made of? Clay, perhaps?," Arbesfeld forwarded to reporters a critical news article which included an anonymous blog accusing Nissen of playing favorites among drug companies.

Watch this story Thursday on "Nightline" at 11:35 p.m. EDT

Nissen, who co-authored a recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggesting that Avandia may increase the risk of heart attacks, was visibly upset about what he considers a direct attack on his personal integrity and professional reputation.


Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3225419&page=1

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Bush Appointee - not surprising.

[Demeter]

1. You Realize That Headline Makes No Sense?

But then, what does in BushLand? Why would the FDA care one way or the other to smear anybody? Somebody's stocks decline?

What hath Bush wroth?

[youngdem]

2. The FDA is owned and staffed by the drug companies

and instead of regulating the drug companies, they promote and protect them. This doctor was blowing the whistle about a problematic drug, and the person in charge of drug enforcement for the entire country instead engaged in childish smearing of the well-intended doctor.

This is the standard M.O. for the Bush Administration - put an industry insider or lobbyist in charge of the regulatory agency charged with oversight of that person's industry, so the insider can gut the enforcement arm and rewrite the rules.