Former FDA Head Says Agency Holds Medicine Back

We're squandering "unbelievable" scientific possibilities.

A former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration who will help lead a discussion at Tufts University today says that the agency is holding back, rather than encouraging, the creation of groundbreaking new drugs.

Andrew von Eschenbach, commissioner of the FDA for more than two years until January 2009, said in an interview Friday that as a result of FDA demands, drug trials have become too large and expensive. He said the FDA has become too "risk-averse" at a time when scientists in the pharmaceutical industry are moving forward like never before.

"The business model is basically falling apart at a time when the scientific possibilities are unbelievable," he said.

Comments

[mad.casual]

He said the FDA has become too "risk-averse" at a time when scientists in the pharmaceutical industry are moving forward like never before.

The problem isn't just that the FDA is too 'risk-averse' the problem is that it is to *proactively* risk-averse.

And, unfortunately, this failing isn't limited to just the FDA or just the medical community.

[Free Society]

and the people who've died aren't even counted among the casualities of statism. Those 260 million democide victims from the last century would probably be tripled if we factored in the deadliness of government negligence and incompetence.

[sarcasmic]

Government: The Great Preventer

[Knarf Yenrab!]

Andrew von Eschenbach, commissioner of the FDA for more than two years until January 2009, said in an interview Friday that as a result of FDA demands, drug trials have become too large and expensive.

Milton Friedman spent the entire decade of the 1970s talking about this, and you see how much he accomplished.

The FDA is the precautionary principle reified. Its sole purpose is to stall innovation, as innovation is sometimes dangerous, and we can't have people voluntarily assuming risks without proper technocratic guidance.

[Jose Chung]

Where was this criticism when he was in a position to do something about it?