Jonathan Emord (Constitutional Attorney) discusses in this two minutes documentary how corruption within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) results in unsafe pharmaceutical drugs becoming available to the public: to the benefit of big pharmaceutical companies.
Very few citizens know that the FDA does not do any testing of the drugs itself, of which it approves; it relies entirely on the testing done by the drug companies and their advocates who are presenting their products for approval, which is done entirely with self-interest and in conflict of interest. On at least one occasion, a “super-antibiotic”, Ketek, produced by Sanofi-Adventis was presented as having been tested, but some astute FDA regulators were able to deduce that the entire test had been fabricated and had never even taken place.
French pharmaceutical company Hoechst Marion Roussel (later Sanofi-Aventis) began phase II/III clinical trials of telithromycin (Ketek) (HMR-3647) in 1998. Telithromycin was approved by the European Commission in July 2001 and subsequently went on sale in October 2001. In the US, telithromycin received U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval on April 1, 2004. Despite the FBI and other law enforcement having been called to investigate the case, the FDA passed the drug, nonetheless.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is a federal agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments. The FDA is responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and supervision of food safety, tobacco products, dietary supplements, prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceutical drugs (medications), vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, blood transfusions, medical devices, electromagnetic radiation emitting devices (ERED), cosmetics, animal foods & feed, and veterinary products.
The FDA is led by the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The Commissioner reports to the Secretary of Health and Human Services. The 21st and current Commissioner is Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg. She has served as Commissioner since May 2009. The FDA has its headquarters in unincorporated White Oak, Maryland. The agency also has 223 field offices and 13 laboratories located throughout the 50 states, the United States Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. In 2008, the FDA began to post employees to foreign countries, including China, India, Costa Rica, Chile, Belgium, and the United Kingdom.
The FDA grew into a very powerful organization which can make or, rarely, break drug companies.
