Understanding Government

Peter Lurie

When Dr. Peter Lurie was working at Public Citizen, he was known as one of the FDA’s biggest public opponents.  He participated in congressional hearings, he fought Big Pharma, he spoke out on behalf of people who needed medicines or who had been hurt by the wrong medicine.  Now he’s working inside the FDA, and Rob Stein of the Washington Post decided to find out what it’s like for someone like Lurie on the inside.  The upshot?  Lurie has realized “the issues are more complex than people on the outside of government can fully appreciate.”  These may seem like wiggle words, but they’re certainly true.  Government officials have to look at more sides of an issue than issue advocates outside government, and they have to take into account more stakeholders — including, in the FDA’s case, the extremely influential pharmaceutical companies.  But in a way, working inside a large government agency and working with so many people, you end up being less exposed — certainly less exposed to some people’s anger than he was at Public Citizen.  (more…)

Charlie Peters has always said that to find the nugget of news inside the average news story, look to the last paragraph.  In this case, he recommends you at least make it to the fifth:

“Avandia Gets Equivocal Vote from FDA Panel. Fewer Than Half Want Diabetes Drug Pulled over Safety Concerns.” If this subhead from the Washington Post leads you to assume that more than half the panel approved of Avandia, it was significantly misleading. Here’s what you would have found if you had stuck it out through the story’s fifth paragraph: of the thirty-two members of the FDA panel who voted, only three favored allowing Avandia to continue its present sales practices unaltered. (more…)

Denise Grady’s insightful report in the New York Times makes it clear why it’s so hard to remove the plastic bisphenol-A, or BPA, from various products — and from our own bodies.  The reason is America’s general approach to food and product safety.  This approach puts the onus not on industry, but on scientists (in and out of government), who must prove that it a product is unsafe after it has already been introduced.  Grady contrasts our approach to that of the European Union, which favors the “better safe than sorry”  method for approving the use of chemicals people are going to ingest.   Seems like in America, it’s better sorry than safe. (more…)

A simple solution to a lethal problem could come with the stroke of a pen — and save lives.  It remains out of reach because the Food and Drug Administration’s unwieldy review process.  Gardiner Harris of the New York Times investigates something  basic and alarming — the misconnection of plastic tubes that are used to deliver medicine, anaesthetic, and other vital substances to patients in America’s hospitals.  The tubes are often very similar, and can easily be fitted into many different devices.  The result can be painful and sudden death when medical workers make errors and connect the wrong tubes — liquid food can be inserted into a vein, and air bubbles can end up in people’s blood streams. (more…)

When the people whose very livelihood depends on the government say they don’t trust the government, we’ve got a lot to worry about. David A. Fahrenthold and Juliet Eilperin report in the Washington Post that Gulf Coast shrimp fishermen, told by the Obama administration that they can start shrimping today and that their catch is safe, are wary of fishing again in spite of government reassurances. (more…)