OTHER BUSH CRONIES? CHECK OUT THE F.D.A.

What Bush appointees share is a reckless ignorance of the department they are appointed to manage.

<www.toolz.blogs.com>

In SLATE today, investigative Journalist Jeanne Lenzer explores the culture of deadly deception fostered by our own FDA. As unbelievable as it may sound, the FDA cannot release studies wherein patients have died in drug trials because it is considered a "trade secret." While Mike Brown gets rightfully lambasted for fostering a nonexistent relief effort wherein 1,000 people died, Lester Crawford, the head of the FDA, quietly steps down after a tenure which saw 100,000 victims of heart attacks from Vioxx, over 10,000 of which have died, from a drug that should never have been released and prescribed as widely.

Mike Brown vilified for not using federal resources to help 1 million evacuees? Crawford blew it last fall when we were short 40 million flu vaccines that were foreign-made and deemed tainted.

What the hell has he ever known about human medicine? I think his resignation had more to do with the indignation of his original appointment of another veterinarian to head the FDA's section on women's health. Well, maybe not so much the actual appointment as letting the public get wind of it.

affecting our health and well-being. ;)