Inside the FDA: The Business and Politics Behind the Drugs We Take and the Food We Eat

... and found the scope and accuracy of this book good. I expected more though- the general public is not aware of the politics, confusion and back stories that have a direct impact on their health. I would have love to see the book pushed a bit further into these areas. Still a good dive into this monster of a government bureaucracy.

This is one of the most thorough investigative books I have ever read on such a narrow topic. The author covers the history, and political and regulatory issues of the FDA in far more detail than I expected. Her in depth investigative style reminds me of Sylvia Nasar in A Beautiful Mind: The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash.

From the author's investigation I derived the FDA does the very best of an impossible situation. This is because its constituents have irreconcilable contradictory objectives. Big Pharma wants fast and efficient drug approvals. Consumers want safe drugs in all circumstances. Congress wants a cheap regulatory process (fiscal efficiency).

I also realize that despite their best efforts the FDA can't keep us safe. This is true for several reasons. The FDA does not control how doctors prescribe drugs. When they prescribe a drug for something else than its main purpose (off-label use), the FDA has no say on that. We are on our own. Also, supplements are not regulated by the FDA. You buy a supplement from China that has some lead in it. You do so at your own risk. Also, the FDA clinical trials will not catch side effects that occur less than 1% of the time. So, they approve drugs that are perfectly safe for 99% of the population but can turn out to be lethal to 1%. That's what happened with Vioxx. It passed all the rigorous clinical trials. But, when the population at large took it a very small percentage suffered dire cardiovascular implications. So, expect nasty headlines and drug recalls to continue because there is no explicit alternative to their occurrences.

No matter how you look at it, the FDA is under a huge amount of political pressure. Unlike the Federal Reserve they are not an independent branch of government. Their livelihood (Budget) is almost solely dependent on the goodwill of Congress. And, Big Pharma lobbies Congress to death. Thus, the FDA is always under huge pressure to do the right thing by its boss, Congress, who in turn does the right thing by its customer-constituent Big Pharma. Exacerbating those conflicts of interests even more, now a good part of the FDA's budget is financed by fees approved by Congress it earns directly from Big Pharma. This is the exact same conflict of interest that caused the housing and credit crisis. Moody's and S&P gave AAA ratings to mortgage securities that should have been rated BB at best in part because the rating agencies are paid by the security issuers. Fortunately, consumer groups and related liabilities mount a counter pressure to Big Pharma that forces the FDA to maintain its proper balancing act.

The author taught me a bunch of things I did not know about this whole business. Some are downright funny. I always wondered about drug advertising on TV. Remember when we were bombarded by drug TV commercials and the commercial did not even tell you what the drug was for. It just told you to ask your doctor about a specific drug. We probably all thought this was really absurd. Now I know it was at the time the FDA's effort to regulate what pharmaceutical companies could say in TV commercials about drug ads. For the FDA it was a way of saying `No' without having the full power to say no. I don't think the FDA thought Big Pharma would take their word for it and produce commercials without saying what their product was for but they did!

In any case, if you want to know everything there is to know about the FDA I strongly recommend this book.

Rarely do any of us get a glimpse so throughout into a governmental body as large as the FDA. Author Fran Hawthorne claims the FDA to have nearly 11,000 doctors, scientists, and others --all there to maintain the safety of the drugs all Americans use and do a good job of it. I think they have been lucky. They (the FDA) has lost its objectivity over the years because of a counter productive lifestyle. They have panels voting on issues or problems with drugs on the markets of which the voting members often have stock in the very company which is being checked. They allow advertising of rx products on TV, a practice only permitted by one other country in the world..and a very bad practice. Money, has replaced their objectivity because they have become big friends to the pharmaceutical companies, especially the larger ones. CDER, one part of the FDA, even though on the outside pretends to play fair, will often intimidate smaller drug (generic companies) for apparently little or no reason at all. However, the author does miss one point. If current US law permits the FDA to grant additional time for patent bending and corruption (which it does), do not blame the agency for that. The FDA seems to have gotten too large for its own good. I have asked them why phenylalanine is placed in certain Rx products, and cannot get an answer. The best thing to do with the FDA, if you read this book, is quite obvious. Get rid of the current system. But so many government agencies (like the NTSB and EPA) are operated the same way. There needs to be more public oversight and accountabilitiy, which the author does a great job in exposing. Overall, I would rate this a good book because it exposes this giant agency for exactly what it is: an excercise in extreme loss of objectivity and greed. guyairey

Democrats want more Big Pharma regulation and consumer protection. Republicans want to protect Big Pharma's profits. The tobacco and diet supplement industries want to be left the hell alone. And consumers want miracle drugs for free. Somehow, some way, the FDA navigates the minefields of the food and drug industries every day and tries to base its decisions on science. While some authors take cracks at the FDA because of a political agenda, Fran Hawthorne remains neutral and thus provides the most level-headed look at the FDA that's on the shelves. While the reading is pretty dense, this is a book that every concerned citizen needs to read.

If you know nothing of the FDA, than this will blow your mind. By the time you are through half the book you will be considered an expert on the subject by all your friends.

Not one of the more exciting reads, but extremely informative. Not just about what you might think it is about, but much much more. This book will give a clearer view of where we all live.