Will the FDA ever be held accountable?
Being an alphabet soup agency means never having to say "I'm sorry"
For years we have written about the shenanigans at the Food and Drug Administration. It is one of the deepest parts of the Swamp. Though held up as a regulatory agency that looks out for the interests of the citizenry, it is in fact all too often a powerful tool of crony capitalism. Its leaders almost always come from industry, who just happen to make highly important and potentially highly profitable decisions that deeply impact their former (and sometimes future) employers.
Friend of Against Crony Capitalism The Alliance for Natural Health said this in 2020 with regard to the revolving door at the agency;
Wellington Sun, former FDA director of the Division of Vaccines and Related Product Applications, went on to be the head of vaccine strategy and regulatory affairs at Moderna.
Patrick Frey, a chief of staff at the FDA’s Office of New Drugs, left to join Amgen as director of global regulatory policy.
John Jenkins, an Office of New Drugs director, was appointed to the board of directors of Corbus Pharmaceuticals.
Elaine Morefield, another FDA director, was appointed director of product quality at Aclaris Pharmaceuticals.
Gerlad Masoudi, an FDA chief of counsel, was appointed chief legal officer at Juul Labs.
Badrul Chowdhury, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research’s (CDER) Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Rheumatology Products, left to become senior vice president of AstraZeneca.
All of these examples are just from 2018.
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