Here’s a question: In the case where a life is on the line and you need a doctor who would you choose: someone who is world reknown, an expert in saving lives and treating the disease that threatens it but is under scrutiny by the mainstream media and the Left for consutling with drug companies or an untested doctor with no track record by who has done no consulting for biotech or drug firms? Only a dumb person — or a pure ideologue (an oxymoron) — would choose the latter.
Now apply this logic to banning people — regardless of their insight, clinical gifts or peer recognition — from advising the FDA because they consulted for the NIH or private companies. Merrill Goozner argues that there are plenty of oncologists for example that have not consulted for private firms that could serve the FDA. The question is: would excluding those that have consulted advance the public health. Applying the Goozner rule would exlude:
one of the world’s experts in prostrate cancer, one of the pioneers in using biomarkers to measure angiogenesis, a leader in the design of clinical trials for stomach cancer, one of the nation’s leading researchers dedicated to finding drugs that actually stop the progression of bladder cancer., and a Nobel Prize winner to boot…
This is dumber.
Peter and I have a better way that will increase the number of smart people helping the FDA as opposed to proposals that make them feel like criminals.
