Is the FDA Putting Profits Ahead of Safety?

CNS News ^ | November 18, 2002 | Kerri Houston

[weekendwarrior]

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCommentary.asp?Page=\Commentary\archive\200211\COM20021118b.html

Is the FDA Putting Profits Ahead of Safety? By Kerri Houston CNSNews.com Commentary November 18, 2002

The firewall the Founding Fathers built between the three branches of government has proven to be a prescient and effective model for other entities with shared synergies and overlapping interests. Keeping those interests separate is often critical to our collective well-being.

At the insistence of WellPoint Health Networks, the nation's fourth largest health insurer, the FDA has jumped this wall of sense and safety and in a big way.

WellPoint believes that its profit margin would improve dramatically if some medications it currently covers became available over the counter, thereby becoming no longer covered by WellPoint. In response, the FDA seems to be bent on reviewing a drug's pricing structure rather than its safety.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The firewall the Founding Fathers built between the three branches of government has proven to be a prescient and effective model for other entities with shared synergies and overlapping interests. Keeping those interests separate is often critical to our collective well-being.

At the insistence of WellPoint Health Networks, the nation's fourth largest health insurer, the FDA has jumped this wall of sense and safety and in a big way.

Umm . . . which one, exactly, of the three branches of government does the FDA fall in?

None!? How can that be?!! Why, the writer just told us the FDA was jumping barriers between the branches, and it never had any barriers to begin with! Quasi-judicial, quasi legislative. Barf.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Abolish the FDA. Trial lawyers will keep the pharmaceutical companies in line, and we CAN'T get rid of them.