[Pharm-policy] FDA advisers tied to industry

[James Love]

Thanks for Ian for this pointer.  Jamie


http://www.usatoday.com/news/washdc/ncssun06.htm

5/00- Updated 12:24 AM ET

FDA advisers tied to industry

 By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY 

More than half of the experts hired to advise the government on the
safety and effectiveness of medicine have financial relationships with
the pharmaceutical companies that will be helped or hurt by their
decisions, a USA TODAY study found.

These experts are hired to advise the Food and Drug Administration on
which medicines should be approved for sale, what the warning labels
should say and how studies of drugs should be designed. 

The experts are supposed to be independent, but USA TODAY found that 54%
of the time, they have a direct
financial interest in the drug or topic they are asked to evaluate.
These conflicts include helping a pharmaceutical company develop a
medicine, then serving on an FDA advisory committee that judges the
drug.

The conflicts typically include stock ownership, consulting fees or
research grants. 

Federal law generally prohibits the FDA from using experts with
financial conflicts of interest, but the FDA has waived the restriction
more than 800 times since 1998. 

  [snip]

-- 
James Love  mailto:love@cptech.org http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology, P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
voice 1.202.387.8030  fax  1.202.234.5176