FDA Oversight Panel: What Big Reforms Committees You Have!

Not many are impressed with the new FDA plans for an "oversight board" to monitor drug safety.

But FDA critics weren't impressed. "It's really a cosmetic way of dealing with a much more serious problem," said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the nonprofit Public Citizen Health Research Group in Washington, D.C. "In the absence of any fundamental change, it's a cruel hoax."

The composition of the new board drew immediate fire. While the board will consult with outside medical experts and patient and consumer groups, its members will be drawn only from the FDA and other government agencies.

Particularly unhappy about it is Tom Murray, who is quoted everywhere about it to this effect:

"I'm a little surprised that the description of the board doesn't include outside advisory committees empowered to ask the hardest questions," said Thomas Murray, president of The Hastings Center, a medical think tank in Garrison, N.Y.

I'm not sure it would matter much who was on the panel, given the preposterous challenges such a board will face, but outsiders certainly seem like a good idea.