Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Personal Injury Law Blogs -> InjuryBoard

Personal Injury Law

: InjuryBoard

FDA Commissioner Will Resign With Bush Administration

By Jane Akre

p align="center"img title="Dr Andrew Eschenbach will resign from the FDA the last day of the Bush administration." alt="Dr Andrew Eschenbach will resign from the FDA the last day of the Bush administration." src="http://www.injuryboard.com/uploadedImages/InjuryBoardcom_Content/Blogs/News_Blog/News/dr andrew eschenbach wsj 500(1).jpg" border="0" //p p/p table width="200" align="right" tbody tr tdp align="center"stronguLEARN MORE/u/strong/p ul liInjuryboard on a href="/national-news/heparin-debaucle-reveals-fda-flaws.aspx?googleid=29696"font color="#800080"Heparin China plant inspections/font/a /li liInjuryboard on a href="/national-news/the-fda-chooses-avandia-over-patients.aspx?googleid=28056"font color="#800080"Dr. Nissen criticizes Avandia/font/a/li liInjuryboard on a href="/national-news/should-kids-cold-meds-remain-otc.aspx?googleid=248668"font color="#800080"Dr. Sharfstein on OTC cold meds/font/a/li /ul p /p p align="center"IMAGE SOURCE: Dr. Andrew Eschenbach, Wall Street Journal a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122938610079708825.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"font color="#800080"online Web page/font/a /p p align="center" /p /td /tr /tbody /table pHe has overseen the opening of three drug safety offices in China and faced an unresolved salmonella outbreak this past summer./p pa href="http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2008/12/17/fda_chief_will_resign_at_end_of_bushs_term/"font color="#800080"Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach/font/a plans to resign as commissioner from the troubled Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on January 20, the transition day for a new administration./p pWho will succeed him is the question that will determine the direction of the agency and the priorities of the nation./p pBarack Obama is considering candidates such as Baltimore's Health Commissioner, a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122938610079708825.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"font color="#800080"Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, 39/font/a, a pediatrician who was the driving force behind questioning the safety of child cold medications./p pAlso on the list is as FDA head is a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122938610079708825.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"font color="#800080"Dr. Steven E. Nissen, 60/font/a, who is an outspoken critic of the pharmaceutical giants and their big-selling medications./p p"This is a failed agency," Dr. Nissen said in a recent a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/health/17FDA.html?ref=us"font color="#800080"interview to the Times/font/a, "and it has lost the public's confidence." He advocated greater transparency for the results of industry drug trials and said the process for approving medical devices needs an overhaul./p pExpect the rapid approval of drugs under FDA scrutiny to slow down while safety takes a priority under new leadership.   /p pVon Eschenbach, 67, a cancer survivor, previously was director of the National Cancer Institute before being appointed by President Bush to head the FDA in 2005./p pVon Eschenbach has overseen a major increase in funding in the drug safety office and pushed to have the FDA offices opened in China after it was discovered that the foreign made heparin plant in China a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122938610079708825.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"font color="#800080"had never been inspected by FDA regulators/font/a./p pUnder von Eschenbach, the agency has gained congressional support for larger budgets to increase its increased responsibilities for foreign food and drug inspections./p pspan lang="EN""I am extremely proud of the progress we have made together," said Dr. von Eschenbach in his note to staff. "Resources are on a dramatic upward trajectory, and the gleaming new buildings and laboratories at our White Oak campus will make possible synergies and collaboration that were long beyond our reach."/span/p pspan lang="EN"The White Oak campus, in a Maryland suburb of Washington, D.C., will serve as the FDA's new headquarters and is being dedicated later this week, according to the a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122938610079708825.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"font color="#800080"Wall Street Journal/font/a./span/p pUnder von Eschenbach, tensions reportedly have eased between the drug safety office and the division that handles drug approvals, as well as lawmakers and critics who report they find Eschenbach easy to work with./p pHis departure will be joined by a parade of others in the nation's public health agencies - part of a clean sweep by the new administration./p pa href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/health/17FDA.html?ref=us"font color="#800080"The New York Times reports/font/a that a title="More articles about Elias Zerhouni." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/z/elias_zerhouni/index.html?inline=nyt-per"Elias Zerhouni/a has already left his post as director of the a title="More articles about National Institutes of Health, U.S." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_institutes_of_health/index.html?inline=nyt-org"National Institutes of Health/a./p pDr. a title="More articles about Julie L. Gerberding." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/julie_l_gerberding/index.html?inline=nyt-per"Julie Gerberding/a, director of the a title="More articles about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention." href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/c/centers_for_disease_control_and_prevention/index.html?inline=nyt-org"Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/a, plans to depart and Dr. John E. Niederhuber, director of the a title="More articles about National Cancer Institute" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/national_cancer_institute/index.html?inline=nyt-org"National Cancer Institute/a, is expected to surrender his leadership job./p pThe new appointments in these positions will determine the direction of the country in the areas of stem cell policies, the safety of imported drugs and food and planning for global influenza and bioterrorism. #/pa href="http://www.injuryboard.com/national-news/fda-commissioner-will-resign-with-bush-administration.aspx?googleid=253468"Originally posted/a at a href="http://www.InjuryBoard.com"InjuryBoard/a by a href="http://www.injuryboard.com/member-profiles/Jane-Akre"Jane Akre/adiv class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.injuryboard.com/~f/IBnationalnews?a=aIOvO"img src="http://feeds.injuryboard.com/~f/IBnationalnews?i=aIOvO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.injuryboard.com/~f/IBnationalnews?a=SxZaO"img src="http://feeds.injuryboard.com/~f/IBnationalnews?i=SxZaO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.injuryboard.com/~f/IBnationalnews?a=dMGMO"img src="http://feeds.injuryboard.com/~f/IBnationalnews?i=dMGMO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.injuryboard.com/~r/IBnationalnews/~4/487785183" height="1" width="1"/

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on December 17, 2008 (boomark / email).