Political interference and low morale are blighting the work of US drug regulators. That is the conclusion of an anonymous survey of scientists at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The Union of Concerned Scientists, a lobby group, sent questionnaires to nearly 6000 FDA scientists, 997 of whom replied. Almost one-fifth of those involved in regulatory decisions said that they had been asked, for non-scientific reasons, to inappropriately exclude or alter technical information, while 61 per cent said they knew of cases in which “political appointees have inappropriately interjected themselves into FDA determinations or actions”.
Given such figures,…
