A Drug Safety Board Didn't Work, Let's Try a Drug Safety Board

To counter accusations that it failed to monitor painkillers like Vioxx, the FDA is creating a "Drug Safety Board" to monitor drugs once they're on the market. The FDA already has an "Office of Drug Safety" with the same purpose. Critics say the Office version lacks resources. But then, it's slated for millions in increased funding in the 2006 budget. The new version is also supposed to be more "independent," though it's not clear what the board will be independent of. All this comes a day before a much anticipated will-painkillers-give-us-heart-attacks meeting, which is already fielding controversy. The FDA's own chief nanny David Graham has accused other FDA officials of "intimidating" him so he won't present his research to the panel.

Comments

[sage]

To be efficient, they should place both of these in the Department of Redundant Offices Department.

[Bonar Law]

It's quite simple: The Office of Drug Safety examines drugs to see if they are safe, while the Drug Safety Board verifies the safety of drugs.

[kwais]

Maybe the new independant drug safety board will determine that the FDA should be scrapped.

[rst]

Sage - what about the Office of Redundant Departments Office? We need our checks and balances.

<sarcasm>
Graham should quit his bitching. Intimidation is for the kids, dammit. It's all fun and games until some poor college freshman dies from frat hazing from eating too much advil. My letters to the editor calling for a crack down on rampant bottled water purchases following the hyponatremia death of a frat pledge have sadly gone unanswered.
</sarcasm>

Someone forgot to check whether the FDA was independent of abject stupidity.

[Hydroman]

rst
DMHO (dihydrogen momoxide)is well know killer of frat pledges.

[Shannon Love]

I really have begun to hate the word "safe" and all it's derivatives. There is no such thing as "safe" only "acceptably risky."

The intellectual fraud perpetrated by the FDA and others with similar programs and laws is the idea that there exists a single standard for acceptable risk that can be applied to everybody in the general population. Further, they presume that some elite group of experts can make that assessment of acceptable risk.

I guess "Office for determining the acceptability of risk presented by medicinal drugs" is just to wordy.

[zeroentitlement]

I saw a movie once where dihydrogen monoxide was used to kill a witch. That stuff'll kill you, man.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

I just went out into the hall and took a hit of dihydrogen monoxide. I can't resist.. my body craves for it. I can't believe how freely available dihydrogen monoxide is. Just like alcohol, if you take too much, you die.

I should just stick with weed.

[Ayatollah Usoe]

Shannon, I don't mind "Safe" so long as I can quickly flip it to "Fire".

Why even have an FDA? Its risky to take drugs, and risky to sell them. So why not let the market work? It did in this case. Note that the FDA did not pull any COX-2 drug, it was the marketer.