FDA Paid For By Industry

In response to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2006
Drug Firms Use Financial Clout To Push Industry Agenda at FDA

"For most of its history, the FDA was funded entirely by Congress. But in the early 1990s, companies unhappy with the pace of drug approvals agreed to pay the FDA millions of dollars in' annual fees to help speed its performance. Because the industry and the agency renegotiate every five years over the size of fees-and what they,' can be used for-drug makers can have considerable input, into which pro­grams receive funding. Each time the arrangement has been renewed, the FDA has gained 'new fund­ing. In return, industry has wrung conces­sions. In the 1997 deal, the review time for a standard application dropped from 12 months to 10 months. In 2002, the FDA agreed to a number of changes, including a new deadline for how fast the agency would respond to companies' requests for meetings' about their drug applications." - Anna Wilde Matthews, Wall Street Journal, Sept. 1, 2006

Barbara Loe Fisher Comment:
An FDA that is paid by the pharmaceutical industry to do its job is not an FDA that is looking out for the public's interest, it is the FDA looking out for its own interest and the interest of its funder: the industry it is supposed to be regulating. Shame on Congress for allowing the drug industry to bully and bribe the only federal regulatory agency standing between the people and toxic drugs and vaccines.

Unfortunately, most drugs and vaccines that have been fast tracked by the FDA since Pharma began funding the FDA in the 1990's are suspect and should have independent confirmation of their safety and efficacy. With FDA sold out to Big Pharma, the only way the American public can protect themselves is to "just say no" to drugs and vaccines that may not have been adequately tested by an FDA pandering to an industry in search of quick and easy profit making. With Congress failing to do it, Americans have no choice but to protect themselves from dangerous drugs and vaccines licensed by an FDA owned by Pharma.