Friday, February 01, 2008

Scary pharmaceutical company

Apparently, the Chinese company that makes the prenatal infanticide drug RU-486 has also poisoned its leukemia drugs, paralyzing thousands of patients. Sad to say, the same FDA that didn't think four transfusions in RU-486 clinical trials were worth noting also doesn't think that the company's quality record is worth reviewing.

This is appalling; the ugly truth is that quality problems generally don't start on the shop floor, but in the corner offices, as men bucking for a promotion cut corners to get that last farthing out of the bill of materials. The FDA would do well, I think, to make sure they hire people out of industry who have learned this.

3 comments:

Shawn said...

...does your libertarian leaning not extend to FDA rescinding, Bert?

Bike Bubba said...

Interesting take; my first response is to concede that cases like this, and the non-disclosure of adverse drug testing results, certainly put the lie to the idea that the FDA really does a lot better than the private sector would do.

I really don't know what I'd recommend. On one side, the FDA clearly doesn't appear to be doing its job very well--13 deaths, and no review of RU-486? On the other, I've known too many upper managers who'd be out on EBay trying to sell their own mothers if they thought it would get them a VP's office.

Maybe an insurance consortium similar to UL would do a better job? They certainly make products better than, say, Amtrak or NASA.

Shawn said...

...my eventual decision with this (after thinking/talking about it a few times) is that there could easily be independent 'trade certifying' organizations that would provide extra levels of consumer trust/certainty, and they'd have a huge incentive to get it right or fail.