Problematic Employment Move for FDA Heads

Why are FDA division heads allowed to approve dangerous opioids, killing and addicting in the hundreds of thousands, and then start their own consulting businesses?

Ellen Fields, MD and Sharon Hertz, MD Photos: LinkedIn

(MYRTLE BEACH, SC) - Two long-term heads of the FDA in the Division of Anesthesiology, Addiction Medicine, and Pain Medicine have recently terminated their employment with the FDA to start their own consulting business.

The two are promoting their availability to successfully and efficiently "bring pharmaceutical products to market" utilizing their FDA expertise.

Below is a Linkedin synopsis of Sharon Hertz, MD and Ellen Fields, MD collaborating in the lucrative private sector using their FDA tenure to help bring new pharmaceutical products forward.

• Sharon Hertz
• Ellen Fields

A few interesting details:

Hertz and Fields Consulting, Analgesic Drug Development, was incorporated on September 24, 2019 while both Hertz and Fields were still employed by the FDA. The registered address of the consulting firm is a condo located at 7981 Eastern Avenue, #416, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910. The FDA headquarters is also in Silver Spring, Maryland.

This is not the first time the FDA has violated the trust of the American people. There was the sordid employment of Curtis Wright, MD by the FDA.

For those not familiar with Curtis Wright, MD, he was employed by the FDA from 1989 to October 1997, including multiple senior scientific positions in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research as Deputy Director and subsequently Acting Director of that division.

Dr. Wright was involved in the review and approval of OxyContin, an opioid manufactured and marketed criminally by Purdue Pharma headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut.

After OxyContin's approval by the FDA, Dr. Curtis subsequently went to work for Purdue Pharma -- violating FDA protocol, although no action was ever taken against Wright by the FDA.

When I questioned the FDA about their lack of pursuit in the matter, they cited they were not aware that Dr. Wright was working for Purdue Pharma and the statute of limitations had passed for the FDA to take action against Wright.

Strange that it was all over the Internet that Wright was an employee of Purdue Pharma, but the FDA denied knowledge of Wright first approving a drug and then going to work for the drug company. Conflict of interest? Obviously not to the FDA.

Oh and there was a patent, when Wright was employed by Purdue Pharma. Interested in the details of that patent? It was for a tamper-resistant oral opioid agonist formulation.

Two of the inventors on the patent were Benjamin Oshlack and J. David Haddox, MD who, when OxyContin was launched, tried to convince the medical profession that there was no such thing as "addiction" -- it was "pseudo-addiction".

"Pseudo-addiction" is a term Haddox coined and then pushed the medical profession to over-prescribe opioids by minimizing the dangers. The third individual named on the patent was former FDA employee, Curtis Wright, MD.

Is the FDA unaccountable to the Secretary of Health & Human Services, Attorneys General or the Department of Justice? They certainly have proven not to be the watchdog of the American people.

Their disconcerting contribution to the opioid epidemic should have taught them something, but the further blatant conflicts of interest by Drs. Hertz and Fields show that is simply not the case. Outrage? There should be.