Bushies Fiddle FDA

Image source: Durango Bill's Creationism and our Political Leaders

Story Source: "F.D.A. Scientists Accuse Agency Officials of Misconduct," by GARDINER HARRIS, The New York Times, November 17, 2008.

Excerpts:

Top federal health officials engaged in “serious misconduct” by ignoring concerns of scientists at the Food and Drug Administration and approving for sale unsafe or ineffective medical devices, the scientists have written in a letter to Congress......

The House Committee on Energy and Commerce will investigate the accusations, first aired when eight agency scientists wrote a private letter in May to the F.D.A. commissioner, Andrew C. von Eschenbach.......

The letter to Congress, dated Oct. 14, is part of a growing chorus of dissent from what had long been a tight-lipped agency. In decades past, scientists rarely disagreed publicly with their agency’s decisions, and any concerns they had about important decisions were whispered among veterans.

But increasing scrutiny of the agency on Capitol Hill has coincided with a growing willingness by some scientists to voice their misgivings. The disputes tend to pit agency managers, who often lean toward approving drugs or devices when the data are equivocal, against agency scientists, who want more certain trial results before allowing the products to be sold.

Comment: I keep trying to say something new about the willingness of the Bush administration appointees to substitute their ideology, or the interests of their constituency before the opinions of their appointed scientific advisors, but I am running out of comments. How about "Shame!!". JAD