A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has found that conflicts of interest among U.S. FDA drug advisory committee members are common, and also that there is a statistically significant link between such conflicts and voting behavior.
New Guidelines Led to Study
In the wake of a threatened lawsuit in 2001, the FDA instituted new guidelines in 2002 requiring more detailed financial disclosures for committee members meeting to consider specific drugs.
An examination of the resulting information showed that almost 30 percent of advisory committee members and voting consultants had some degree of conflict, and that there was at least one member or consultant with a conflict in nearly three quarters of all meetings. However, only 1 percent of members were ever recused from attending meetings.
10 Percent Greater for Every Member With a Conflict
Conflicts included consulting fees, stock holdings or investments and research grants ranging from $10,000-$100,000.
It's no wonder this report on the postmarket monitoring by the FDA from the Government Accountability Office did not give favorable results, as conflict of interest is rampant in the organization.
If you read the second related link below, you will see that in the past more than half of the "experts" hired to help government on the safety and effectiveness of drugs had direct financial ties to the very companies they were seeking to make a decision on.
This is not too surprising since the drug companies have the largest number of lobbyists in Congress. However, it does not make the facts any easier to accept.
Why should you have to suffer the risk of dying or exposing your child to some deadly toxin like mercury, just because some large multinational drug company has been able to manipulate the system for their benefit so they can earn more money at your expense?
Just isn't fair and that is one of the primary responsibilities of this newsletter and the mission of the site -- to warn you of their scandalous behavior and give you the information. This way you can make an informed and intelligent choice about which, if any, drugs you will consider using.
It's all about a level playing field and having freedom of choice. I am sure my Vioxx warning, which was issued five years before it was taken off the market, helped save some people's lives and helped lower the eventual 60,000 people that wound up dying from taking the drug.
Fortunately, we do seem to be making some progress.
It is encouraging to see that this was published in JAMA. I wouldn't have expected to see that not all that long ago. Evidently, conventional medicine may be finally realizing the pretense that passes for drug safety at the federal level in America is poor, at best.
So please remember the FDA has a corrupt history that should not allow you to put your life and faith in the their hands. They are, for the most part, a compromised and crippled federal entity more interested in helping their real "partners" -- the multinational drug companies -- than their "true" bosses -- the American taxpayers.
We have got to put an end to this nonsense and start the process of ensuring responsible leadership at the FDA. If this appalling behavior disgusts you as much as it does me, then stay tuned and continue reading the newsletter as the entire site is morphing into a new system very soon that will allow you to actively participate.
After nearly 10 years we are getting close to finally having a community on our site. I can assure you it is the most cutting-edge Web 2.0 technology, and it will allow us to make a real dent on health care in the United States.