A United States Senator, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa www.senate.gov, recently said the treatment of certain doctors at the United States Food and Drug Administration www.fda.gov reveals a pattern showing that the FDA needs to be reformed. The latest doctor the FDA abused is Dr. Rosemary Johann-Liang. She left the FDA last Friday after rough treatment for rubbing some people the wrong way over the FDA’s handling of Avandia. www.nytimes.com She wanted the FDA to require a Black Box warning more than a year ago.

As you know, this blog now focuses on newly discovered issues about Paxil, pregnancy and related heart problems in babies. However, we recall the 2003 treatment of Dr. Andrew Mossholder. This doctor discovered that SSRI antidepressants caused suicidal ideation in some children.

The FDA started a criminal investigation after Dr. Mossholder’s findings leaked to a reporter. The agency then wouldn’t let him speak to an advisory committee about his findings. It hired a team of researchers from Columbia University to reanalyze Dr. Mossholder’s data. But guess what? That esteemed team concluded that Dr. Mosholder was right. Part of this sad story is that the re-analysis took a year. Before then, we proved at trial in the United States District Court in Cheyenne, Wyoming, that Paxil could cause death. But what happens to doctors who question the FDA?

Let’s contrast Dr. Johann-Liang’s treatment with another brave FDA doctor, Dr. Frances Kelsey. John Fitzgerald Kennedy presented her with the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service in 1962. http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/jfkeo/eo/10979.htm And for what? She was an FDA inspector who demanded evidence of the safety of thalidomide. Nowadays, the FDA is overruling doctors who stand up to big business and ask for evidence of safety – by punishing the doctors and pushing them out of the agency.