Food & Drug Law Institute Annual Mtg Excerpted Version April 1, 2003.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-CA US House of Representatives Washington DC
The epidemic of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome spreads with each passing day. And this year, preventable or treatable illness will needlessly kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.
In the coming months and years, the FDA will be front and center in dealing with the most pressing health challenges facing the United States. Today, I would like to make the case that success depends upon how well the agency performs its key role--supporting medical progress and public health through science-based regulation. I will argue that failure lurks where politics and ideology are allowed to skew the agency's mission.
In the field of military power, none of us would question that the Defense Department should select military equipment based on the best available science. There is no room for asking which missile manufacturer has the right religious views, or for even suggesting that troops in harm's way rely on equipment that has not been rigorously tested.
Yet, in the field of public health, and increasingly in the field of food and drug regulation, some are quite willing to look to turn away from science and towards politics, religion and ideology for answers. They are willing to expose the public to health-related products on the basis of preliminary data and unproven theories. Unfortunately, some of those people are decision-makers in this Administration.
Across cabinet-level Departments, expert appointments to scientific advisory boards and peer review panels are going to individuals with specific ideological viewpoints rather than scientific credentials. Scientific information that does not serve the Administration's political agenda has been suppressed or altered. Science-based regulation of significant health and environmental risks, from arsenic levels to industrial pollution, has been rolled back.
Within HHS, for example this Administration has altered CDC websites on contraception and AIDS prevention, erasing key facts about condom use that could save lives. At the National Cancer Institute, officials changed a web page to read that abortion might lead to breast cancer, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
After Congressional pressure and a meeting of 100 experts, the NCI now acknowledges that experts have concluded there is no link between breast cancer and abortion, yet the misleading webpage remains up.
On lead poisoning, this Administration replaced a leading academic expert on a key advisory committee with a paid lead industry consultant who believes a lead level of 70 does not produce long-term effects on learning and behavior. This is a position that was …
No comments:
Post a Comment