FDA’s main role is to make sure that drugs are properly tested to be approved safe. This is the very reason why pharmaceutical companies weaseled their ways to allure the FDA panels.
Once approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), drugs are deemed safe. However, according to The Washington Post (WP), a recent public records request has revealed that drug companies purchased special access onto FDA panels, where they were given the keys in swaying decision-makers about official drug policy.
Critical information about this corruption were gathered from hundreds of leaked emails, involving hundreds of thousands of dollars from pharmaceutical companies just to arrange private meetings with the FDA. It was reported that $25, 000 is the minimum per meeting to have the “voice” directly accessing the $9 billion painkiller market.
Parties involved were said to be the officials from both the FDA and U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) regularly meeting with pharmaceutical representatives to discuss regulatory protocols, scientific papers, and drug approval process. This was based from an email leaked from a concerned NIH official who confirmed that drug companies pay to attend such meetings to arrange a scheme they call “pay to play process.”
The consequences of such pay to play process include dangerous analgesic drugs to the market which are questionably approved with flawed safety studies. According to MedpageToday.com, the drug industry was successful during these meetings in convincing the FDA to adopt ‘enriched enrollment’ guidance for safety trials that eliminated patients who experienced adverse reactions. These and other modifications made it much easier for drugs to be declared safe and effective, and thus gain rapid approval.
Advocates of Natural Medicine just like me have acknowledged these “monkey businesses” made by the giant pharmaceutical companies. The welfare of the patients, not their benefits, should be taken into utmost consideration. This is why Dr. Farrah® commits herself to helping the sick through natural medicine and not by prescribing synthetic drugs which are doubted to be safe.
