> If you sit on an FDA panel you need to declare all conflicts of interest. Panel members usually recuse themselves under those circumstances.
I don't care if you work for the pharma, but please don't keep posting demonstrably false comments shilling for the industry:
"Since the lion's share [of FDA user fees] can only go to expedite approvals, that area of the agency has grown while staffing and resources in other parts of the FDA have been relatively starved. As drugs enter the market faster, it becomes increasingly difficult for the FDA to perform its other functions -- including monitoring drug safety, ensuring manufacturing standards, and regulating marketing. [...]
Furthermore, the FDA is subject to industry pressures through its eighteen standing advisory committes, which consist of outside experts in various specialties, are charged with reviewing new drug applications and making recommendations to the agency about approval. The FDA almost always takes their advice. Many members of these committees have financial connections to interested companies. Although there are conflict of interest rules that prohibit participation in such cases, the agency regularly waives them on the unlikely grounds that someone's advice is indispensable. USA Today examined FDA hearing records in 2000 and found that 'at 92 percent of the meetings at least one member had a financial conflict of interest,' and 'at 55 percent of meetings, half or more of the FDA advisers had conflicts of interest.'
Members of FDA advisory committees are said to command unusually high consulting fees from drug companies. They are certainly in a position to do so. They probably don't even have to say, 'Pay me if you want your drugs approved.' According to the Washington Times reporter August Gribbin, 'One drug company executive who asked not to be identified referred to the advisory committee members' approaches for obtaining [consulting] work as 'shakedowns' because a company that refused to yield to such requests could doom products that cost tens of millions of dollars to develop.'" Source: The Truth About Drug Companies, p. 209