Sanctioned doctors on pharma company dole; FDA not protecting consumers

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http://tinyurl.com/yruybs


"The Times included in its analysis any doctor who received drug company
payments within 10 years of being under medical board sanction. At least
38 doctors received a combined $140,000 while they were still under
sanction. Dr. Abuzzahab received more than $55,000 from 1997 to 2005.

Drug makers refused to comment, said they relied on doctors to report
disciplinary or criminal cases, or said they were considering changing
their hiring systems.

Asked about the Minnesota analysis, the deputy commissioner and chief
medical officer of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Janet Woodcock,
said the federal government needed to overhaul regulations governing
clinical trials and the doctors who oversaw them.

“We recognize that we need to modernize the F.D.A. approach in keeping
people safe in clinical trials,” Dr. Woodcock said.

Drug makers are not required to inform the agency when they discover
that investigators are falsifying data, and indeed some have failed to
do so in the past. The F.D.A. plans to require such disclosures, Dr.
Woodcock said. The agency inspects at most 1 percent of all clinical
trials, she said."


Susan