Editorial: Bush team strong-arms FDA

Saturday, Aug. 12, 2006 | 7:30 a.m.

The Bush administration is exerting political muscle to influence decisions at the Food and Drug Administration, which is supposed to make independent determinations based on science - not conservative ideology.

That was the finding of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which surveyed nearly 1,000 FDA employees. Among the troubling results: 61 percent of respondents knew of cases in which political appointees injected themselves into FDA decisions or actions. The survey found that 18.4 percent of respondents "have been asked, for nonscientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information or their conclusions in a FDA scientific document."

The FDA does high-stakes work vital to public safety, regulating the products we put in our bodies - food, medicines and vaccines. Federal law requires the agency to make determinations based on scientific and legal grounds, and the agency historically has been respected for neutrality.

But critics say that reputation has been tarnished under the Bush administration.

Perhaps the most visible example is the saga of Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill. The pill has been proven safe and effective and is available without prescription in more than 40 countries. An FDA panel voted in 2003 to allow the drug to be sold without a prescription, but agency chiefs have delayed a final determination.

"Once we start politicizing the FDA, there is no stopping it," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., told acting FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach at a hearing on his nomination to permanently lead the agency.

The Union of Concerned Scientists said the FDA should better protect whistleblowers and be more transparent in its research and reviews so political pressure can be spotted easily. We agree. It is terrible to think that White House ideology would influence FDA decisions about the medications we take.

Should Eschenbach get the job, his top priorities should be eliminating White House influence from agency determinations and tackling what Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., called a "crisis of confidence" at the FDA. Congress should hold the agency accountable for making science-driven decisions that serve the public, not the Bush administration.