Was the FDA's surprise announcement that it would reconsider an effort to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B drug available without a prescription a political move on the eve of Senate hearings on the confirmation of Acting Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach?
The Washington Post reports that much of the hearing focused on the politicization of the agency.
The Post reported that Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) said, "There is a crisis of confidence at FDA."
"More than 100 whistle-blower cases are pending at the agency, Mikulski noted -- an outgrowth, she said, of rock-bottom morale, much of it rooted in the perception that the Bush administration is imposing ideology over evidence.
Several senators cited a recent survey by the Union of Concerned Scientists in which more than 40 percent of nearly 1,000 FDA employees said they knew of cases in which political appointees had interfered with agency decisions."
Posted by schwitz at August 4, 2006 07:41 AM | TrackBack