FROM Dr. Thomas Cowan, general medical practitioner for 34 years and co-author of The Contagion Myth:

We would all like to trust that governmental agencies act with integrity and transparency. We would especially hope that the FDA, entrusted to examine and review pharmaceutical products, has the highest standards of integrity. However, over time, such agencies – including and especially the FDA – have acted in ways that do not engender trust. A whole separate paper could be written on the dangerous drugs they approved that had to be recalled. Here are sample quotes from people who have insider experience with the FDA.

“If the American people knew some of the things that went on at the FDA, they’d never take anything but Bayer aspirin.” — Len Lutwalk, FDA scientist

“The FDA, by spinelessly knuckling under to every whim of the drug companies, has thrown away its high reputation, and in doing so, forfeited our trust.” — Drummond Rennie, deputy editor of the Journal of American Medical Association

“[The] honest employee fears the dishonest employee. There is also irrefutable evidence that managers at CDER (Center for Drug Evaluation and Research of the FDA) have placed the nation at risk by corrupting the evaluation of drugs and by interfering with our ability to ensure the safety and efficacy of drugs. While I was at FDA, drug reviewers were clearly told not to question drug companies and that our job was to approve drugs … If we asked questions that could delay or prevent a drug’s approval — which of course was our job as drug reviewers — management would reprimand us, reassign us, hold secret meetings about us or worse … When you are able to dig in, if you found issues that would make you turn down a drug, you could be pressured to reverse your decision, or the review would then be handed off to someone who would simply copy and paste whatever claims the company made in the summary document … I believe I also have documentation of falsification of documents, fraud, perjury and widespread racketeering, including witnesses tampering and witness retaliation.” — Ronald Kavanagh, Ph.D., pharmacist who reviewed medications for the FDA from 1998 to 2008

** Note: This post is not an endorsement of all Dr. Cowan’s ideas about medicine.

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