FDA's Janet Woodcock Retiring...

[PR123]

Reuters is reporting that:

"The retirement of Dr. Janet Woodcock as head of the Food and Drug Administration’s pharmaceutical division is at least a year away, but already the industry she regulates is worrying about who will replace her. Over the past 20 years Woodcock, who is 65, has reshaped the drug approval process, relaxing the criteria needed for certain drugs to reach the market - especially those that represent scientific breakthroughs. Last year, the agency approved 39 new drugs, the most since 1996.

“That is good news for drug companies who depend on product approvals to fuel profit growth, and some fear that once Woodcock leaves the pace of drug approvals will slow. ‘No one is seeing that luminous, next-generation leadership,’ said Dr. Robert Meyer, a former top medical reviewer at the FDA who subsequently joined drug maker Merck & Co as a vice president and in March.”

You may recall that is was Woodcock who nixed Merck’s petition to study the effects of finasteride in teenage boys:

propeciasideeffects.co.uk/me … -pill.html

The full Reuters story here:

finance.yahoo.com/news/insight-b … 03145.html

[Mark2012]

As far as I’m concerned the FDA is a criminal organization. They are responsible for the deaths of millions.

“The FDA protects the big drug compaines, and is subsequently rewarded, and using the governemnts’ police powers, they attack those who threaten the big drug companies. The thing that bugs me is that the people think the FDA is protecting them. It isn’t. What the FDA is doing, and what the public thinks it is doing are as different as night and day” Dr Herbert Ley, former Commissiner of the FDA.

[PR123]

Sadly, that’s probably true.

Then again, it’s like the airline industry: If everyone on the planet agreed to stop flying, no one would ever die again in a plane crash.

But how about the kid in Denver who needs a new kidney and must get it within the next 12 hours in order to live?

When a matching donor kidney becomes available – but it’s in, say, France – it must be flown in immediately, right?

Clearly, flying is for the most part a positive, productive thing. It just needs to be done as safely as possible.

If the airlines started ignoring thousands of reports of travelers passing out on their planes and subsequently developing mysterious illnesses – then told those passengers and their families, “Oh, yea? Prove it. See you in court!” – then you’d have the Merck problem.

And the Merck problem is what we need to avoid.