Prescription For Change Blog: Great drug safety article in the New Yorker today

Great drug safety article in the New Yorker today - check it out! Posted by Meg at 06/25/07 06:44 PM

In today's New Yorker magazine is an article that describes the status of our current prescription drug approval and montitoring process so well it could be called What's-Wrong-With-Our-Drug-Safety-System-For-Dummies... and I don't mean that as an insult! Can we try to get this in the hands of every House member before they vote on upcoming drug safety legislation????

Read this article now! (Really, you should read it. It's not that long.)

comments (2)

Comments

1 Posted by Jason Mondale, M.D. at 07/02/07 03:39 PM

I strongly support the point of the article. The FDA has been emasculated over the past 15 years apparently. Remember that staffer who kept thalidomide out of the USA for pregnant women! I seem to recall that the agency was further strengthened in the 1960's by a grateful nation.
The turning point was when (to cut taxes) the FDA started being funded by "user fees" charged drug companies requesting evaluation for certification of a new product. After that, the FDA has been working more for the drug companies than for the public interest.

2 Posted by Francine at 07/02/07 04:57 PM

The New Yorker article "A Drug on the Market" is very interesting. It does not mention the grilling that Dr. Nissen from the Cleveland Clinic took from the Congress several weeks ago.

Their line of questioning was horrible. They accused him of trying to bring GlaxoSmithKline stock down. All the questions had little to do with the study Dr. Nissen did on Avandia. He was brave enough to step forward and tell the truth. To warn the public and his fellow doctors, however Congress and the pharmaceutical companies will make his life miserable and they will put pressure the Cleveland Clinic to get rid of him.

It happened to Dr. Topal when he spoke out and testified on the hazards of Vioxx, and it will continue as long as greed exists and it is running full speed ahead. This train needs to stop and we need more people active in fighting to get this bill passed.