Drug bureaucrats incompetent and/or dishonest..
<<< Back to main page
Senior management at Health Canada have been rubber stamping US FDA
approvals over the objections of its own scientists. Scientists who object over
the approval of deadly drugs that clearly should not be on the market get fired
for rightfully blowing the whistle. Deputy and assistant deputy health ministers
and middle management in Health Canada should be asked if they think civil
servants should be fired for blowing the whistle on regulatory
incompetence when it is certain such incompetence will lead to the
death or harm to the health of Canadians. - CW
Things are seriously unravelling for big pharma at the moment. Within days of Merck withdrawing its painkiller Vioxx, a leading Food and Drug Administration official has warned that five of the world's best-selling drugs may also have an unacceptable health risk.
Dr David Graham told a Senate hearing last week that GlaxoSmithKline's asthma drug Serevent, AstraZeneca's cholesterol fighter Crestor, Pfizer's arthritis treatment Bextra, Roche's acne treatment Accutane and Abbot Laboratories' weight loss drug Meridia could all have unacceptable risks.
Vioxx was pulled from the market after it was linked to an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes among patients who had taken the drug for longer than a year. It has been estimated that the drug may have killed up to 55,000 people.
The FDA had approved Vioxx for use among children just days before it was removed from the market.
So it's no great surprise to hear that Dr Graham doubts that the FDA has the infrastructure to protect Americans from another Vioxx. This is undoubtedly the case when you consider the FDA's most powerful weapon it seems to exercise is the 'black box' warning, a typographical device that sends shivers down the collective spine of the pharmaceutical industry.
