DES (diethylstilbestrol) & the History of Lobbyists influencing the FDA

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

Big dollars and politics decide what is best for women.
It looks like "there's nothing new under the sun" when it comes to getting dangerous drugs onto the market. DES sets the template of "how to" market a dangerous drug to women.

the retreat from precaution: REGULATING DIETHYLSTILBESTROL (DES), ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS, AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTHNANCY LANGSTON

The drug companies also hired a lobbyist named Carson Frailey, the executive vice president of the American Drug Manufacturers Association. To generate evidence that DES was safe for women, Fraily worked with the drug companies to supply hundreds of doctors with samples to give to their female patients, thus creating a market for the drug even before approval, and political pressure to aid approval. These doctors treated thousands of patients with DES, and many of these doctors and patients then wrote both to the FDA and to politicians (including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt), asking them to speed the approval of DES.23 Frailey persuaded fifty-four doctors from around the country to write to the FDA, describing their clinical experiences with a total of more than five thousand patients. Only four of these fifty-four doctors felt that DES should not be approved, and the result was that, against the concerns of many of the FDA medical staff, the FDA's drug chief Theodore Klumpp recommended that the FDA approve DES.

Readers Digest helped promote DES (RD gave Gardasil some type too)

By the following winter, pressure on the FDA to approve the drug was mounting as media attention increased. An article in Reader's Digest promised that women would find welcome relief from the horrors of menopause if only the FDA would approve DES: "Called by one clinician 'the most valuable addition to our therapy in recent years,' the first synthetic estrogen, diethylstilbestrol ... awaits only the approval of the Federal Food and Drug Administration as a 'new drug' before being placed on the market as an inexpensive, orally-administered therapeutic agent for the relief of the menopause and other conditions. ... link

The wrong people/organizations are making the decisions about medicines.

Perhaps it is easier to push dangerous but profitable drugs on women because of the paternalistic and authoritarian nature of medicine and Big government.

[dropkickpa]

1. DES and Gardasil 2 totally different things

Damn, now I regret pointing out the existance of DES to you, gives you another strawman to throw out there.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. oh bullshit. This is an OP about the lobbyists running the show

and they don't give a shit if their meds make us sick, its all about profit.

Damn, you should regret your fracking strawmen, because they further destroy your misinfo.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Irony alert.

[flyingobject]

4. Irony - Lobbyists pimping off of women's bodies is an old habit

Some men are quite happy to make a profit off of women's bodies.
No matter what.

[CoffeeCat]

5. Pot. Meet Kettle.

Strawman?

You're the only one with a strawman.

The OP is making the point that pharmaceutical companies and their hunger for profits often
conflict with the safety of the American people.

DES is an example of that. There are many examples of this.

There are many horrific problems within big Pharma. There are countless stories of pharmaceutical
companies paying doctors, bribing them with expensive trips and cajoling them into pushing drugs
that haven't been fully vetted because they're rammed through FDA approvals.

That's a common thread with DES, Vioxx, ADHD drugs, and many others.

You're the one who brought up Gardisil, and since you did I'll just ask you this: Given the pharmaceutical
industry's blatant disregard for human life--when it comes to their profits--why should we trust them
with Gardisil or any other drug that hasn't been on the market long enough to determine the long-term
effects?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. LOL you made my day

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. Four companies drop $6 million on lobbying

Four companies drop $6 million on lobbying
August 6, 2008
By Christe Bruderlin-Nelson

...Four Big Pharma companies spent some serious cash to lobby congress in the second quarter of 2008. A common concern was legislation that would allow FDA to approve less-expensive generic versions of biotech drugs, as was a bill to update the U.S. patent system (the latter remains stalled in the Senate). Likewise, implementation of Medicare drug benefits for seniors was a hot topic.

http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/four-companies-drop-6-million-lobbying-q2/2008-08-06