After Avandia: Does the FDA Have a Drug Problem?

After Avandia: Does the FDA Have a Drug Problem?

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2010028,00.html#ixzz0wuUn1IQ5


Over the past two decades, as drug after drug has been recalled after winning FDA approval, it has been hard not to wonder if FDA regulators have been captured by the drug industry. FDA critics and industry monitors charge that the drug-approval process is too easy for pharmaceutical companies to game. It is in some ways an unsurprising development. The FDA serves a public insatiably hungry for new medicines. Yet the agency does not have responsibility for performing safety testing. It relies on drug companies to perform all premarket testing on drugs for safety and efficacy. And it relies on industry "user fees" for 65% of its budget for postmarket monitoring of the drugs it approves, thanks to a 1992 law designed to speed treatments to patients. "The FDA's relationship with the drug industry [is] too cozy," says Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2010028,00.html#ixzz0wuUdYqBe