Is Intelligence Compromised by Working with FDA on Safety Issues?

It's obvious that intellectual ability is a threat to the tools working for the pharmaceutical industry within the FDA.

Sidney Wolfe, MD

(MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.) - “It is an extremely dangerous drug, and it's just reckless for any company to be selling it, and it's reckless in the extreme for the FDA to allow this to stay on the market,” Sidney Wolfe, MD said in regard to Darvon or Darvocet, after it was finally taken off the market by the FDA in 2010. The drugs are the cause of over 2,000 accidental deaths since 1981 and were on the market for 32 years.

In 2009, Dr. Wolfe - Head of the Washington, DC based Public Citizen, and leading nemesis of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the drug industry, was asked by the FDA to join their Risk Management Advisory Committee for a 4 year term. The committee is the most significant one at the FDA in connection with evaluating the safety of drugs. My guess is that no one was as surprised as Dr. Wolfe to be asked to serve on any committee of the FDA. (see: Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee Charter)

While Dr. Wolfe ran the Health Research Group at Public Citizen, the DC nonprofit founded by Ralph Nader, he waged war on dozens of drugs he felt were unsafe and was directly responsible for having 16 drugs removed from the market and out of the hands of the American consumer.  He was also responsible for having stronger black box warnings put on prescription drugs.  Some, like Merck’s Vioxx, have been pulled from the market; others, like GlaxoSmithKline’s Avandia, are still being peddled by physicians to their patients.

Dr. Wolfe is also an author of Worst Pills - Best Pills and his website is http://www.worstpills.org/aboutus.cfm.  One of the dangerous drugs he zoned in on was Yaz launched in 2006 by Bayer.  Yaz claims went beyond birth control to the treatment of acne and severe PMS without water retention issues. 

• Oral Contraceptives Containing Drospirenone - Increased Risk of Blood Clots
  (May 2011)
  This article reviews recent studies showing significantly increased risk of blood clots in high-selling contraceptives containing drospirenone, compared to the lower risk of blood clots with older contraceptives containing levonorgestrel. Drospirenone is an ingredient in the contraceptive pills Yaz and Yasmin, which are sold in the U.S.

Salem-News.com Reporter Marianne Skolek, is an Activist for Victims of OxyContin and Purdue Pharma throughout the United States and Canada. In July 2007, she testified against Purdue Pharma in Federal Court in Virginia at the sentencing of their three CEO's - Michael Friedman, Howard Udell and Paul Goldenheim - who pleaded guilty to charges of marketing OxyContin as less likely to be addictive or abused to physicians and patients. She also testified against Purdue Pharma at a Judiciary Hearing of the U.S. Senate in July 2007. Marianne works with government agencies and private attorneys in having a voice for her daughter Jill, who died in 2002 after being prescribed OxyContin, as well as the voice for scores of victims of OxyContin. She has been involved in her work for the past 8-1/2 years and is currently working on a book that exposes Purdue Pharma for their continued criminal marketing of OxyContin.

Marianne is a nurse having graduated in 1991 as president of her graduating class. She also has a Paralegal certification. Marianne served on a Community Service Board for the Courier News, a Gannet newspaper in NJ writing articles predominantly regarding AIDS patients and their emotional issues. She was awarded a Community Service Award in 1993 by the Hunterdon County, NJ HIV/AIDS Task Force in recognition of and appreciation for the donated time, energy and love in facilitating a Support Group for persons with HIV/AIDS.

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