Ah...nostalgia for the days before the FDA.

[Liberal Veteran]

(containing one grain of morphine per fluid ounce....shut a lot colicky babies up permanently).

[CoffeeCat]

1. Today's FDA is worse, much worse.

Back in the day, we didn't know better.

Now we know better, but the FDA is just an arm of big pharma--helping them to get drugs to
market quicker and helping them hide the fact that some of their wares kill people.

The FDA, in its current form, exists to aid the corporations. Public be damned.

And if you just so happen to die of a heart attack or stroke, from taking Vioxx--
a drug that Merck aggressively and purposely hid its lethal side effects--well then,
oooops...sorry!

[villager]

2. whereas, of course, "alternate," (i.e., "non-corporate") medicines or modes of healing

need to by "studied" because they could all be "dangerous..."

[Liberal Veteran]

4. And yet, try to get thalidomide or accutane and see what kinds of hoops you have to jump through.

....in order to prove you aren't pregnant or going to get pregnant soon.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't it seems.

But truth to tell, for every Vioxx story, there are ten or twenty or fifty sustiva, zocor, kaletra, taxol, methotrexate, zyrtec, ibuprofen, naproxen, clindamycin, topamax, etc.

But hey, let's only judge things by the past mistakes and forget about their numerous successes.

And as I recall, the detractors generally say the negative data was withheld from the FDA wrt Cox-2 inhibitors.

[Fovea]

3. You make a beautiful

false dichotomy.

The choice isn't between an FDA that is owned by big pharma and no FDA.

The choice is between an FDA that works for the welfare of the sick and one that
protects corporate profits.


I did enjoy the old ads though.
Thanks.

[Liberal Veteran]

5. Of course, that doesn't explain why almost all the same drugs get approved in other countries.

I assume you are aware that the FDA is not the approving body in the UK, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Brazil, India, etc....? Yes?

Now is there room for improvement in the FDA? Absolutely.

There always has been. Thalidomide is an example. While not marketed in the US at the time, after the thalidomide tragedy, the rules were changed for dispensing drugs to women who may be pregnant or become pregnant.

[Silent3]

6. Because Big Pharma is a global conspiracy, silly!

It's obvious that all of the regulatory agencies in all countries everywhere have been bought and paid for by the drug companies. If you think otherwise, or even try to shade your response with some sort of measured in-between position, you can only be one of two things: A dupe or a shill. You've either been fooled by the propaganda, or you personally profit from Big Pharma yourself.

:sarcasm:

[Fovea]

11. My minor is Poli Sci with a concentration in

comparative systems. I worked 5 years as an nurse in an ER and 6 in Orthopedic surgery.

Remember Gillian-Barre' from flu vaccinations? Gulf war syndrome?
Levofed? Factor VIII untested for AIDS for a couple years after we had a test?

I know a family of hemophiliacs in Wyandotte County Kansas whose males died of AIDS from
the medicine I personally helped administer. It is part of the reason I left medicine, that, and a few hundred unsuccessful CPR attempts.

These are problems that were not endemic to other medical systems. They were American problems.
Other systems have done as well or better with far less resources to apply to the problem.
So the FDA are not so heroic in my book.

Yes, of course I know the history of the FDA and public health in the US. But what does the jurisdiction of the FDA have to do with its effectiveness and its current capture by Big Pharma?

Look at medical marijuana. THC is one of the few agents effective for intractable neurogenic pain, such I have from a stroke. The amount of opiates it takes every day to relieve my pain would kill you outright. But the FDA has not cleared marinol for this application, despite its effectiveness.

I think the FDA has sins of both omission and commission.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

7. FDA ----> Fatal Drugs Allowed n/t

[Liberal Veteran]

8. And how would YOU improve the FDA?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. Eliminate this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x341890



http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Story.aspx?guid={6FF895ED-61A3-44E8-9B09-538F6EF99939}
Has FDA become Big Pharma pawn?
Drug recalls, flu vaccines raise concerns about agency

By Val Brickates Kennedy, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last update: 6:05 p.m. EST Dec. 29, 2004
BOSTON (CBS.MW) - Has the Food and Drug Administration become a pawn of Big Pharma?
After a year filled with stories of dangerous painkillers and questionable flu shots, critics say pro-industry forces have eroded the FDA's regulatory prowess.
They charge the FDA yields to political pressure to speed drugs through the approval process, and is reluctant to yank a suspect medication off the market once approved.
"The Bush Administration has been putting people in the agency that are fairly conservative and more interested in getting the drugs out than in regulation," said Phillip Hilts, a former New York Times science reporter and author of "Protecting America's Health: The FDA, Business and One Hundred Years of Regulation.


http://www.newswithviews.com/Richards/byron27.htm
In May of 2006, after months of research and investigation, I published my ominous findings in the book Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA’s Betrayal of America. Everything I predicted in this book is on the fast track to becoming reality. A majority of Americans, not informed on current events and unaware of the history involved, are silent. Mainstream media, one of Big Pharma’s largest clients, is silent. Only the power of the internet, which rivals the invention of the printing press in significance, is making it possible for individuals to understand what is going on.

Americans are sick and tired of unelected bureaucrats, such as the management of the FDA, usurping our constitutional rights, suppressing our choices, interfering with commerce, and forcing on us a predetermined path that lines the pockets of the multinational corporations known as Big Pharma. The American people must wake up so that we do not consistently repeat the same mistakes that were made by our parents and grandparents, mistakes that created the current dilemma. We cannot and must not pass these problems on to our children and grandchildren.

Yet, before us this very day, the Senate is proposing sweeping changes (S1082) that will affect the FDA, Big Pharma, and Big Biotech for the next 50 years. This legislation is as significant as the original creation of the FDA. I wish I could say that these changes were mostly positive, but that is just not the case. Many of the real problems are being completely ignored. Under the pretense of improved consumer safety, this legislation seeks to lock in the Big Pharma monopoly called the sickness industry – even taking it to a whole new level. S1082 is a major tool that will assist the FDA, Big Pharma, and Big Biotech in their overall plan to suppress, eliminate, or buy up all safe and effective natural health competition.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

10. Dupe

Dupe

[mhatrw]

12. Who doesn't want the FDA? I want the FDA to do its fucking job. n/t