An Open Good Riddance Letter to FDA Commissioner Califf
Pack your bags, Dude. We don't know if the new FDA Commish will be Martin A. Makary, MD, a Johns Hopkins surgeon, but we do know it won't be you.
While most doctors and government officials at least pretend there is a firewall between them and drugmakers (who have three lobbyists for every Congress member) not you! "Many of us consult with the pharmaceutical industry," you told PBS after the Vioxx scandal which killed half a million people. "I think is a very good thing."
More recently you exulted over the new GLP-1 agonists diet drugs like Oxempic--a breakthrough class of drug you called them and drugmakers' answer our national obesity. Not regulation of junk food ingredients, marketing and availability but a pill. Ka-ching. Obesity makes money.
A quick look at the "benefits" the Wall Street darling drugs are said to offer besides weight loss--a reduction in dementia risk, alcohol craving, uterine fibroids, stroke, heart events, osteoporosis, opioid overdoses, such a deal--shows that your cronies who also don't believe in firewalls are busy at work helping GLP-1 agonist makers like Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk. Every "benefit" that the mainstream media obediently repeat without checking conflicts of interest is either claimed by GLP-1 agonist maker-funded doctors or derives from GLP-1 agonist funded "research." See: many of us consult--and it's very good thing.
Why Were You Confirmed?
It is hard to believe only four senators opposed your confirmation as FDA commissioner, Consider these financial links disclosed in the November 20, 2013 Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
"Dr Califf receives research grants that partially support his salary from Amylin, Johnson & Johnson, Scios, Merck/Schering-Plough, Schering-Plough Research Institute, Novartis Pharma, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Aterotiovax, Bayer, Roche, and Lilly.
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