More FDA Flacking

Like more evidence is necessary to conclude the Food And Drug Administration's primary mission has long since been altered from consumer protection and safety to a rubber stamp for the pharmaceutical industry:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Nearly 20 percent of U.S. Food and Drug Administration scientists surveyed in late 2002 said they were pressured to approve or recommend approval of a medicine despite their reservations about the drug's risks or effectiveness, according to documents made public on Thursday.

Also, two-thirds of the scientists questioned by the Department of Health and Human Services' inspector general said they lacked full confidence in the FDA's ability to monitor side effects of prescription drugs after they hit the market.

To those of us who wound up having to buy medications from Canada due to extreme over pricing here in the US, and were warned by the FDA of dire safety issues involved in taking "foreign drugs," this intentional suppression of negative information about drugs going through the approval process comes as no surprise.

The ominous warnings FDA issued on a daily basis about the dangers of ingesting drugs from outside the US, drugs manufactured in exactly the same plants as those sold in the US but retailing for 25 - 500% less outside our borders, were issued on behalf of the most profitable industry in the world. To wit - the FDA abandoned its role as safety watchdog to assist that industry in protecting and inflating its profits.

And now we discover that information about Vioxx and other drugs recently pulled from the market, information about serious, harmful, and fatal side effects, was suppressed by those hired and paid by tax dollars to protect us from the avarice of the pharmaceutical companies.

Full article from Reuters.