By Evelyn Pringle
Online Journal Guest Writer
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_944.shtml<snip>
The best example of the administration's efforts to protect Big Pharma was revealed recently when the FDA announced a preemption rule that would disallow lawsuits in state court against drug makers if a drug has been approved by the FDA.
"We think that if your company complies with the FDA processes, if you bring forward the benefits and risks of your drug, and let your information be judged through a process with highly trained scientists, you should not be second-guessed by state courts that don't have the same scientific knowledge," said FDA Deputy Commissioner on Medical and Scientific Affairs Scott Gottlieb.
But in all fairness, the FDA is certainly not the only public health agency in bed with Big Pharma. Nobody can deny the fact that Big Pharma is an equal opportunity corrupter. It's obvious that drug companies have infiltrated every federal regulatory agency in the US.
For instance, on June 14, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Alzheimer's researcher, Dr Trey Sunderland, asserted his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee about accusations that he has profited from giving Pfizer access to spinal fluid and plasma samples collected by the NIH...