Drug companies may have more control in FDA policies.

For most of it’s existance the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was funded entirely by the US government.? Right around 1990 drug companies in an effort to speed up the drug approval pace?cut a deal with the FDA?to pay millions.? This agreement is renegotiated every five years and gives the pharmaceutical industry leverage as to which programs receive funding.? In a recent article Dr. Kesler a former FDA official says the negotiations raise troubling questions:

“There is no doubt that user fees give the industry leverage on setting the agency’s priorities, because of the negotiating process,” says Dr. Kessler, now dean of the medical school at the University of California, San Francisco. “There are significant risks, especially when a growing percentage of the budget comes from user fees,” he says, adding he doesn’t think the FDA has been compromised so far.

?If the FDA gets what it is looking for in this new deal, by October of 2007 the pharmaceutical industry will be paying for more than 66% of the agencies buget.? An agency being funded by the companies it oversees?? WTF?!