Recent FDA Moves Suggests Agency Is Again Taking Its Role of "Protecting Public Health" Seriously

As a patient with type 1 diabetes, I have found myself at odds with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on a number of things the agency has done in recent years (actually since the 1980s), and perhaps even more so in recent years.  In fact, I once joked (only halfheartedly) that the acronym "FDA" stood for Fatal Drug Administration.  Indeed, for a number of years (under the leadership of chief Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach especially, he pushed for FDA to serve what he called its "clients", meaning the companies that the FDA regulates, rather than protecting public safety).  Staff in areas for brand new drugs exploded, while the queue of unapproved applications in generics also grew, yet the FDA never asked Congress for user fee authorization in generics during that time.  However, at the end of 2013, the FDA took two very important moves that might just give me reason to reconsider my belief that the FDA was looking out more for industry than it was for patient safety.  Both relate to the "Food" responsibilities at FDA, but given that cardiovascular disease is the #1 killer of people with diabetes, the first one is especially relevant, while the second one relates to big agribusiness routine abuse of medicines and has resulted in a rise of antibiotic-resistant viruses.Item #1: Obituary for Twinkie the Kid?On November 16, 2012, Huffington Post featured an article entitled "Twinkie The Kid, Dead At 85" (see http://huff.to/1dINwQt).  The artic...

Source: Scott's Web Log - January 28, 2014 Category: Diabetes Tags: 2014 Antibiotics Crisco FDA Trans Fats Source Type: blogs