[Stitcher]

A Cure for What Ails FDA

By Margaret Anderson, COO, FasterCures, Tuesday, June 16, 2009
http://fastercures.blogspot.com/2009...-ails-fda.html

No agency is asked to do more, with less, than the Food and Drug Administration. It regulates 80 percent of U.S. food supply, every drug, vaccine, and medical device, consumer cosmetics, and could potentially/now have a hand at regulating tobacco products. One entity is charged with ensuring the safety of everything from spinach to statins, produce to pacemakers, totaling over $1 trillion in consumer products; 25 cents of every dollar consumers spend in the U.S. every year. No government entity is more important than FDA to the daily lives – and safety – of Americans.

Unfortunately, the importance of the FDA is often lost in the din of political arguments over health reform. But no one is well-served by omitting FDA reform from the health reform debate; indeed, it could be argued that both the health and welfare of every American is guarded within FDA’s walls. The healthcare debate should begin with FDA. Yet, we rarely hear about FDA unless there’s a recall, or a salmonella outbreak, a political skirmish over a “controversial” drug, or when its already stretched scope is further expanded. We hope that the newly formed Transparency Task Force, in its effort to make more information available and foster better understanding of decision-making within the FDA, will also shed light on the breadth and depth of the agency's scope.

to read more please go to
http://fastercures.blogspot.com/2009...-ails-fda.html