John LaMattina, Contributor
I cover news on drugs and R&D in the pharma industry
In touting an upcoming special issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics (JLME), Donald W. Light of the School of Public Health, University of Medicine & Dentistry of NJ, wrote an article entitled “Risky Drugs: Why The FDA Cannot Be Trusted”. Last week I discussed one aspect of this article, Light’s challenge that 90% of FDA approved drugs of the last 30 years are no more effective than existing drugs. However, the bulk of his essay focuses not on his views about pharma’s competence but rather on his issues with the FDA. While I found a number of his comments troubling, the following stood out.
“The forthcoming article in JLME also presents systematic, quantitative evidence that since the industry started making large contributions to the FDA for reviewing its drugs, as it makes large contributions to Congressmen who have promoted this substitution for publicly funded regulations, the FDA has sped up the review process with the result that drugs approved are
continue to read here