Should we Trust the Drug Companies & Their Lobbyists? How about the FDA?

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[I]n the first six months of this year alone, drug and biotech companies and their trade associations spent more than $110 million — that’s about $609,000 a day — to influence lawmakers, according to figures compiled by the nonpartisan watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics. The drug industry’s legion of registered lobbyists numbers 1,228, or 2.3 for every member of Congress. And its campaign contributions to current members of Waxman’s committee have totaled $2.6 million over the past three years. Here's the link: http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/10/22/how-the-pharmaceutical-industry-bought-its-way-into-congress-heart/#comment-116623 Here's what happens as a result of special interest lobbying. Meet Bray Patrick-Lake, a 39-year-old mother of two and director of a Colorado nonprofit serving the homeless. In 2008, she volunteered for a clinical trial, regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, testing a medical device designed to close a hole in her heart, in hope of putting an end to the migraine headaches that were ruining her life. Three months later, she found out over the Internet that St. Jude Medical Inc., the manufacturer of the device, had terminated the study. Now Patrick-Lake can’t find out the results of that clinical trial. That’s because pharmaceutical and medical device industry lobbyists—including those representing St. Jude Medical, Inc. and its trade association, AdvaMed—convinced Congress in 2007 to insert a last-minute provision in the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act that allows medical device manufacturers to withhold data disclosure to a public government database, ClinicalTrials.gov, when their products fail to make it to the market. And the link for this article: http://blog.sunlightfoundation.com/2009/10/28/how-congress-and-special-interests-kept-clinical-trial-data-secret/ I keep hearing that the drugs and vaccines we are being fed are safe, the FDA says so! But who is watching the FDA? Here's a strange report on just who is running the FDA. Monsanto was required to submit a scientific report on rBGH to the FDA so the agency could determine the growth hormone's safety. Margaret Miller put the report together, and in 1989 shortly before she submitted the report, Miller left Monsanto to work for the FDA. Guess what her first job was? Strangely enough, to determine whether or not to approve the report she wrote for Monsanto! The bottom line is that Monsanto approved its own report. Miller was assisted by another former Monsanto researcher, Susan Sechen. And the link is: http://www.smart-publications.com/nutrition/fda.php So, do you feel safe knowing that drug companies are buying legislation to make theirselves richer by selling us more drugs and vaccines and the FDA is hiring the people whom they are suppose to watch?