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The FDA does not have sufficient funds to police Big Pharma adequately. In fact, a significant amount of FDA funding comes from the drug industry in the form of fast tracked drug programs. Congress is the culprit.          

Can we trust the FDA to protect us from Big Pharma and from the supplement industry? Fast tracking drugs has plusses and minuses. Should patients have the choice of trying drugs that are not yet on the market? Can we trust the drugs that are on the market that don't do that much? How much do conflicts of interest come into play?        

New drugs are the poorest tested and Americans are the guinea pigs for the first few years after release. Most new drugs have new side effects reported and 20% wind up off the market or with black box warnings.

  Americans last year got access to 24 new medications before they became available in Europe. User fees from drug companies made this possible; they now provide about 1/3 of all funding that the FDA gets. This sets up a serious conflict of interest for the FDA that makes them beholden to Big Pharma's wishes. Far too many look alike drugs are...

According to a Yale School of Medicine study published in the January 22, 2014 issue of JAMA, reviewed 188 drugs and technologies from 2005-2012 and documented that more than 1/3 of the drugs were approved not only on the basis of a single clinical trial, but also were often small, short, and involved surrogate metrics rather than clear clinical endpoints. It...

A special editorial written by Donald Wright from Harvard University and published in the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics pointed out that 90% of all new drugs approved by the FDA over the past 30 years are little or no more effective than drugs that are already on the market! They also commented that the safety of new FDA approved drugs is low....