FDA Staff Travels on Drug Industry Dollars

I found a link to this article on the blog Flogging The Simian and think this needs to be read on the DU as well.

FDA Staff Travels on Drug Industry Dollars
Groups tied to FDA-regulated industry paying for agency officials' trips

By Alexander Cohen

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2006 — Through an apparent loophole in agency rules the Food and Drug Administration has allowed its employees to receive more than $1.3 million in sponsored travel since 1999 from groups closely tied to pharmaceutical and medical device companies.

FDA policy bars employees from taking trips paid for by the drug, medical device and other companies the agency regulates or by their trade groups. But the Center for Public Integrity has found nonprofit associations that draw their members, their boards and even some of their funding from medical and pharmaceutical-related companies paying for the travel of hundreds of FDA employees.

The sponsor of the most trips was the Drug Information Association, which footed the bill for more than 600 trips taken by FDA employees. The nonprofit group made up of pharmaceutical and medical device employees, academics and government regulators boasts 13 members on its board of directors who work or have worked for the industry or its consulting groups.

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They're just going through the motions pretending they're doing something for the consumer.

The pill peddlers have bypassed them completely. On the one hand, the "natural cure" crowd is selling pretty much whatever they want without any scientific evidence, courtesy of that free pass given to them by Congress. On the other hand, the pharmaceutical industry is blasting the airwaves with ads for their drug du jour (whose name ends with an "a") and telling consumers to ask their doctor to PLEASE give them that scrip so they too can be the drug companies' guinea pigs.

snip
Consumer and government watchdogs worry that trips sponsored by those with financial ties to regulated companies provide opportunities for pharmaceutical, medical device and other related industries to set the agenda for the FDA.

"There is no countervailing perspective," said Dr. Peter Lurie, deputy director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, which monitors the FDA and the health industry. "They mostly become schmooze-fests for people from industry."

snip
Several former FDA officials now work for the industry they policed. Some are involved with groups that formerly funded their travel; the Center identified 20 former FDA officials who took trips sponsored by one of the five associations that went on to work for medical and pharmaceutical-related companies.



The level of corruption within this administration stagers me.