Lax On, Lax Off
After the drug debacles we've witnessed in recent years, you'd think the FDA would be cracking down on things.
You'd think.
Yet a new report by a pharmaceutical industry analyst shows that 2006 is tied with 2004 as the "best year" for drug approvals since Bush took office. And a review by the federal governments General Accounting Office (GAO) found that the FDA issued fewer citations for false and misleading prescription drug advertising in 2006 than in any previous year.
How can that be? Every night when I sit down to watch TV, I see half a dozen drug ads that I think should be cited.
The FDA says it's because the process it too time consuming. The data show that between 2002 and 2005, it took the FDA on average four months to get citations out the door.
Yet the same GAO report shows that in the time period between 1997 and 2001, the FDA got citations out in half the time. Not surprisingly, the number of citations issued during these two time periods is inversely related: the agency issued twice as many citations between 1997 and 2001 as it did between 2002 and 2005.
Part of the explanation lies in sheer numbers: the number of television, radio and Internet ads for drugs has doubled in just the last four years. But interestingly, the FDA found time to approve 83 new drugs in 2006 - 15 in the month of October alone.
No, I think it's more an example of the FDA's attitude of lax oversight of the pharmaceutical industry. Just look at the approval figures: how could 2006, a year filled with Vioxx lawsuits, Ketek hearings, and halted torcetrapib trials, be among "the best" years for drug approvals?
According to the industry report, nothing is going to change anytime soon. The report goes on to predict five to six percent growth in the global pharmaceutical market in 2007, fueled in part by another year of 80-plus new drug approvals. It also predicts a staggering 112 "blockbuster" drug approvals in 2007.
After what we've seen in recent years, you'd think they'd stop crowing about "blockbusters."
You'd think.
