The new head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) selected by President Barack Obama has very close ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Dr. Robert Califf, an FDA deputy commissioner and cardiologist at Duke University, has had considerable dealings, including financial ones, with drug manufacturers, whose products must be approved by the agency he’s been tabbed to lead.
“No one who knows him thinks he wants to weaken the regulatory agency he has been chosen to lead,” The New York Times reported. “But he has deeper ties to the pharmaceutical industry than any FDA commissioner in recent memory, and some public health advocates question whether his background could tilt him in the direction of an industry he would be in charge of supervising.”
Daniel Carpenter, a Harvard political science professor, told the Times: “In a sense, he’s the ultimate industry insider.”
– From last year’s post: Obama’s Nominee to Head the FDA Has Very Deep Ties to the Pharmaceutical Industry
In the past 24 hours, I’ve read two very interesting articles detailing how the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is partly to blame when it comes to not just EpiPen price gouging, but drug price gouging in general.
The first piece is by someone whose work I’ve highlighted multiple times in the past, David Dayen. Let’s take a look at some of his observations in a recent piece titled, Here’s How to Stop Price Gouging by Drugmakers Like Mylan:
Donate bitcoins: 35DBUbbAQHTqbDaAc5mAaN6BqwA2AxuE7G
Follow me on Twitter.
