Headline: Senate Rejects Medicare Drug Price Negotiations
Headline: Senate Committee Passes Drug User Fee Reauthorization
Headline: Breast Cancer Rates Decline After Hormone Use Declines
You don't have to be a political scientist to connect the dots. It's business as usual on Capitol Hill, even as evidence for the need for more thoroughgoing reform at the Food and Drug Administration continues to mount.
I attended the Senate mark-up hearing yesterday that passed the reauthorization of prescription drug user fee act. The full Senate will take it up in a few months.
The bill contains some improvements in the FDA's ability to protect the public from unsafe drugs. But it safety provisions are a far cry from the structural changes called for in last year's Institute of Medicine report.
Nor does it include key changes demanded by insiders who've been blowing the whistle about failures at the agency.
This is a "must read".
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