It was a devastating charge from a credible, career public servant in a position to know what he’s talking about.
Federal drug regulators are “virtually incapable of protecting America” from unsafe drugs, a federal drug safety reviewer told a Congressional panel on Thursday, and he named five drugs now on the market whose safety needs “to be seriously looked at.”
In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Dr. David Graham, the reviewer in the Food and Drug Administration’s office of safety research, used fiery language to denounce his agency as feckless and far too likely to surrender to demands of drug makers.
“We are faced with what may be the single greatest drug safety catastrophe in the history of this country or the history of the world,” Dr. Graham concluded.
Dr. Graham has more than 20 years of service with the Food and Drug Administration and has seen, first-hand, regulators who are far too cozy with the pharmaceutical industry. It’s hardly trivia; Graham’s research points to fundamental flaws in the way the government protects Americans from potentially dangerous medication.
So, what’s the proper Bush administration reaction to Graham’s concerns? Is it a) take his research seriously and take steps to improve public safety; or b) use government employees to smear Graham. Take a wild guess.
Managers at the Food and Drug Administration last month anonymously called a group that protects whistle-blowers in an attempt to discredit an outspoken agency safety officer who was challenging the FDA’s drug safety policies, the legal director of the whistle-blower group said yesterday.
Tom Devine of the nonprofit Government Accountability Project (GAP) said the anonymous callers did not identify themselves but he is “100 percent positive” they were managers at the FDA because of their phone numbers and other identifying information. He said he initially took the callers’ concerns seriously but later came to see the calls as an effort to smear the whistle-blower, Associate Director David J. Graham of the Office of Drug Safety.
We’re dealing with an administration of thugs who put their self interests above ours. Once again, Bush’s team acts less like a presidential administration and more like an organized crime family.
It’s also worth noting that the FDA doesn’t exactly deny these underhanded tactics.
In a statement regarding the GAP allegations, the FDA said yesterday that it “acknowledges the right of its employees to raise their concerns to oversight groups.”
Those who do their duty and bring attention to problems that need correcting are smeared; those who are loyal but incompetent get promoted. It’s quite an administration Bush has built here.