A scientific panel provided FDA officials with advice on how to test the safety and effectiveness of painkillers.
A number of pharmaceutical companies have spent a lot of money for the chance to affect the policy-making process in the United Sates Food and Drug Administration.
The companies paid as much as $25,000 to attend meetings of a scientific panel which provided the US government agency with advice on how to test the safety and effectiveness of painkillers, The Washington Post reported on Monday, citing hundreds of emails obtained by a public records request.
œThe regulators had become too close to the companies trying to crack into the $9 billion painkiller market in the United States,” the newspaper said. œFDA officials who regulate painkillers sat on the steering committee of the panel, which met in private, and co-wrote papers with employees of pharmaceutical companies.”
Critics say the FDA has failed to take precautions that might have averted the epidemic of addiction to prescription drugs including Oxycontin and other opioids.
œThese e-mails help explain the disastrous decisions the FDA™s analgesic division has made over the last 10 years,” said Craig Mayton, the Columbus, Ohio, attorney who made the public records request to the University of Washington. œInstead of protecting the public health, the FDA has been allowing the drug companies to pay for a seat at a small table where all the rules were written.”
An official from the National Institutes of Health wrote in an email that the private meetings might have been a œpay to play process.”
FDA officials say they did not benefit from their participation in the meetings, which included academics, FDA and NIH officials, and representatives from pharmaceutical companies.
œWe take these concerns very seriously,” the agency said in a statement, adding that œwe are unaware of any improprieties” associated with the panel.
The scientific panel was organized by two medical professors, Robert Dworkin of the University of Rochester and Dennis Turk of the University of Washington.
According to the emails, the two academics had received as much as $50,000 apiece for one the meetings/
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Copyright: Press TV