Good article in this month’s Nature Biotechnology on some of FDA Commissioner Peggy Hamburg’s recent appointments.
I am quoted as follows:
Lurie has earned the reputation of being an industry antagonist. When you’re at the FDA, you need to look at each individual circumstance agnostically. If you go into the job as an advocate, you are doing the agency and public health a disservice.
Not meant as a dis to Peter (a nice guy). More of a warning shot across the bow that people are watching.
Nature Biotechnology, comments on the broader range of appointments (many of them stellar – specifically that of John Taylor):
The number of outside critics brought into the agency is a signal that Hamburg is not so much cleaning house as building a team with the most interested and motivated people she can find. According to Frank Torti, formerFDA chief scientist and principal deputy commissioner, who served as acting commissioner after Andrew von Eschenbach stepped down, “I think it’s important and wise to actually engage people from a variety of viewpoints in thinking about the FDA, so that reaching out to advocacy groups is a smart and necessary piece of reflecting different viewpoints. It makes some sense to me.”
Me too. Mostly.
The complete Nature Biotechnology article can be found here:
http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n12/pdf/nbt1209-1067.pdf
