[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The FDA was sympathetic toward WinthropDr.Sadusk's successor was Dr.Joseph M.Pisani who shortlyChemical and extremely helpful.Exercising their bureaucraticresigned to work for The Proprietary Association, the tradepowers, Dr.Klumpp, head of the FDA drug division, and hisassociation that represents the manufacturers of non-prescriptionsuperior, FDA Commissioner Campbell, refrained from prosecut-drugs a part of the very industry Dr.Pisani had "regulated."ing for the deaths.They helped to hush up the matter and merelyDr.Pisani was replaced by Dr.Robert J.Robinson, whose stayrevoked Winthrop's license to ship Sulfathiazole for threewas even shorter than that of his predecessor.He became a topmonths, after the market had been glutted with the product.Theexecutive at Hoffman-LaRoche, a leading manufacturer ofsuspension of shipment for three months was a meaninglessprescription drugs.gesture.Commenting on this episode, Howard Ambruster adds:Omar Garrison continues the list, in his splendidly researchedDr.Klumpp, by this time, had moved onward and upward.Hebook, The Dictocrats:had accepted a position awarded him by Dr.Fishbein and becameDr.Howard Cohn, former head of FDA's medical evaluation,Director of the A.M.A.division on food and drugs and secretary ofwho made a profitable transition from the agency to Ciba Pharma-its Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry (the same council that hadceutical Company;"accepted" Winthrop's Sulfathiazole and approved its advertising).Dr.Harold Anderson, chief of FDA's division of anti-infectiveAnd Dr.Klumpp kept moving.Not long thereafter, Edward S.drugs, who terminated his government employment to take aRogers, chairman of the Board of Sterling Products, announced thatposition with Winthrop Laboratories;Dr.Klumpp had been elected president of Winthrop.(1)Morris Yakowitz, who felt that a job with Smith, Kline andFrench Laboratories would offer greater personal rewards than hisSome years later, an antibiotic drug by the name of Chloram-post as head of case supervision for FDA; andphenicol was manufactured and distributed by Parke-Davis andAllen E.Rayfield, former director of Regulatory Compliance,Company.Shortly after it was released, reports began to appear inwho chucked his enforcement duties (including electronic spying) tothe medical literature to the effect that Chloramphenicol wasbecome a consultant to Richardson-Merrell, Inc.(1)responsible for blood toxicity and leukopenia (reduction of theIn 1964, under pressure from Congress, the FDA released a listwhite blood cells), and that it had caused several deaths fromof its officials who, during the preceding years, had left theaplastic anemia.agency for employment in industry.Out of the eight hundred andThe man who was director of the FDA's Bureau of Medicinethirteen names appearing on that list, eighty-three better thanat that time and the man who could have ordered Parke-Davisten percent had taken positions with companies they previouslyto withdraw this drug from the market was Dr.Joseph F.regulated.Many of these people, of course, were from the verySadusk.Instead of clamping down on Parke-Davis, however,top FDA echelons of management men who were charged withSadusk used his official position to prevent the drug from beingmaking decisions and issuing directives.While these men wererecalled, and even ruled against requiring a precautionary label.with the FDA, they had access to information regarding theFinally, in 1969, after the drug had earned a substantial profitresearch and processes of all companies.When they went to workfor its producer, and after it had been replaced by a newerfor one of those companies, therefore, there is no reason theyproduct, Parke-Davis was allowed to get off the hook merely bycouldn't have taken that information with them which, obviously,sending a letter to all physicians stating that chloramphenicol1.Garrison, The Dictocrats, op.cit., pp.70, 71.1.Ambruster, Treason's Peace, op.cit., p.213. 286 WORLD WITHOUT CANCER: Part TwoTHE PROTECTION RACKET 287could put the firm that hired them at a tremendous advantageS.E.Massengill Company of Tennessee.The previous year, oneover its competitors.hundred and seven people mostly children had died fromHere, again, we find the classic pattern of governmentingesting an anti-biotic substance known as "Elixir of Sulfanila-bureaucratic power being used, not for the protection of themide." The chemist had tested the compound for appearance,people as is its excuse for being, but for the aggrandizement offlavor and fragrance, but had not tested it for safety.individuals holding that power and for the elimination of honestThe attendant publicity resulted in public acceptance ofcompetition in the market place.The voters approve one exten-increased powers to the FDA requiring all drug manufacturers tosion of government power after another always in the naivetest each new compound for safety and to submit the results ofexpectation that, somehow, they will benefit.But, in the end, theythose tests to the agency for approval prior to marketing.Theinevitably find themselves merely supporting a larger bureauc-FDA also was empowered to remove from the market anyracy through increased taxes, paying higher prices for theirexisting substance it believed to be unsafe.consumer goods and losing one more chunk of personal freedom.From a strictly theoretical point of view, the first part of thisThere are almost no exceptions to this rule, as will be obviouslaw was beyond reproach, but the second part was a colossalif one but reflects for a moment on the results of governmentmistake.It is logical to require a food or drug manufacturer toentry into such areas of economic activity as prices and wages,take reasonable steps to insure the safety of his product.It is alsoenergy conservation, environmental protection, health care andlogical to require him to place appropriate warnings on hisso on.product labels where there is a possibility that its improper useAs the Frenchman, Frederic Bastiat, observed over a hundredcould result in harm
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]