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Quotes about Advisory Panels from the world's top natural health / natural living authors

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"Furthermore, members of the fda "advisory panels" are not barred from financial arrangements with pharmaceutical firms, and many are so entwined. Much was at stake when coxibs came under fda scrutiny. Once licensed, the enormous success of the new cox-2 agents was a testimony to the power of rumor, to the gullibility of the lay press, and to a slick approach to marketing to physicians and patients." - Nortin M. Hadler MD, Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (Get the book.) "It has driven statins to the forefront in recommendations by advisory panels of such organizations at the American Heart Association. Thanks to the fallout from this study, Americans know that cholesterol is bad and statins are good. Questioning the credo is heresy. There are parallels to the fashion in which the results of the trials of cabg surgery (see chapter 2) have gained such influence that the efficacy of cabg is an American "truth." - Nortin M. Hadler MD, Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (Get the book.)

"The FDA Commissioner often relies on advisory panels consisting of scientists he or she selects to evaluate drug safety issues. The choice of whom to place on the panel oftentimes affects the outcome. That is particularly true when those with known conflicts of interest, with economic ties to the very company whose drug is being evaluated, are selected and the conflicts routinely waived. In 2006, the National Research Center for Women & Families evaluated FDA advisory committee meetings from January 1998 through December 2005." - Jonathan W. Emord, The Rise of Tyranny (Get the book.)

"The application process is underwritten by the applicant firms, placing the fda into a client role. advisory panels are riddled with "experts" with industry ties. The political appointees to the fda and many senior staff are recruited from industry. An alarming number of physicians, including academicians, have assumed paid roles in the process of performing clinical trials and marketing drugs. There is a cogent argument that trials with fda-approved drugs are marketing exercises rather than attempts to test hypotheses as to risk/benefit ratios." - Nortin M. Hadler MD, Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (Get the book.)

"Finally, the FDA gets input from outside advisory panels made up of doctors who are experts in their fields. Most of these doctors receive payments as consultants, research grants, and support for travel to conferences from drug companies. In some cases, the doctors are working as paid consultants to the same companies whose drugs are coming up for approval by their advisory committees." - J. Douglas Bremner, Before You Take that Pill: Why the Drug Industry May Be Bad for Your Health (Get the book.)

"The FDA, the drug companies, and the hand-picked advisory panels are nothing more than the same team of drug pushers, covering up deaths and serious risks while poisoning and damaging the brains of our children with dangerous medications. They pretend that the benefits outweigh the risks, while suppressing deadly information. How many more children have to die or suffer adverse reactions before action will be taken to curtail the indiscriminate use of these drugs?" - Byron J. Richards, Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America (Get the book.)

"Co-opting the Scientists: Health Advisors for Sale In addition to outsourcing the science, food makers are increasingly bringing health experts in-house for maximum spin control by inviting them to sit on formal "advisory panels." This tactic burnishes a corporation's reputation by associating it with a body that appears to be "official," "objective," and "impartial." As an added bonus, hiring health professionals often disabuses them of any impulse to speak out critically of industry. As a technique of scientific and academic cooptation, it works like a charm." - Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Get the book.) "Like corporate advisory panels, such bodies are given lofty, objective-sounding names to convey scientific integrity. Witness the Bell Institute of Health and Nutrition, created by cereal giant General Mills. Its mission is to "contribute to research on whole grains, micronutrients and breakfast, and publish research and scientific articles in leading peer-reviewed journals."26 The significance of the word "Bell" in the organization's name isn't exactly clear." - Michele Simon, Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back (Get the book.)

"The Unique Problem of Evaluating Mind Drugs Now let's return to the FDA and the drug approval process, and let's imagine that every clinical trial was registered, that drug manufacturers did not provide any of the funding for FDA employees' salaries and did not give grants, honoraria and consulting fees to any of those sitting on FDA advisory panels. Could the FDA then make wholly objective judgments about the drugs they are asked to approve? The FDA and its expert committees make their decisions based primarily on the results of the research they examine." - Dr. Timothy Scott, America Fooled: The Truth About Antidepressants, Antipsychotics and How We've Been Deceived (Get the book.)

"To begin with, the FDA allows researchers connected to pharmaceutical companies, who have a financial stake in the outcome, to be members of drug approval advisory panels (often making up 50% of the members). [5] And the evidence these panels are reviewing? It comes from studies conducted by the drug companies themselves, where positive results are reported an unsurprising 98% of the time. Are the drugs really this good? Of course not, but their creators are very good at suppressing negative outcomes and massaging positive outcomes." - Fred A. Baughman, Jr., M.D. and Craig Hovey, The ADHD Fraud: How Psychiatry Makes "Patients" of Normal Children (Get the book.)

"Scientific advisory panels to the EPA)."65 Jeffrey M. Smith "Geneticist Michael Antoniou, who works on human gene therapy, told the New Zealand Commission, "genetic engineering technology, as it's being applied in agriculture now, [is] based on the understanding of genetics we had 15 years ago, about genes being isolated little units that work independently of each other." He explained that genes actually "work as an integrated whole of families." - Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods (Get the book.)

"Independent" advisory panels typically contain members who have significant financial connections to drug companies, particularly when billions of dollars are at stake. A close vote against a drug could be likened to a 12 to 3 vote. The FDA was caught off guard. They knew they put together a panel that would sweep the issue of depression and suicide under the rug. However, the FDA miscalculated the seriousness of the cardiovascular-risk data, something the panel was not willing to ignore. The FDA did not act on the advice of their panel; they are not legally obligated to do so." - Byron J. Richards, Fight for Your Health: Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America (Get the book.)

"Through the work of four Committees and 21 advisory panels, FIGO's work embraces many aspects of obstetrics and gynaecology. Through its official relationships with such international bodies as the World Health Organization, the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the International Federation of Fertility Societies, (conf.) cologists worldwide, founded in 1954, now funnels its professional information through the web portal of ObgynWorld - that is, through Organon and Pfizer." - Martin J. Walker, HRT Licensed to Kill and Maim: The Unheard Voices of Women Damaged by Hormone Replacement Therapy (Get the book.)

"The results of this study elevated statins to the forefront in considerations of public health policy and even in recommendations by advisory panels of such organizations as the American Heart Association. We must decide if this science compels us, the well people, towards Fats, Fadsf and Fate Table 2.1 The West of Scotland Pravastatin Study Outcomes over Five Years Placebo (3,293 men) Pravastatin (3,302 men) Non-fatal heart attack 204 (6.5%) 143 (4.6%) Death by heart attack 52 (1.7) 38 (1.2) Death by cancer 49 (1.5) 44 (1.3) Non-cardiovascular death 62 (1.9) 56 (1.7" - Nortin M. Hadler, The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System (Get the book.)

"Realize that fda regulations do not take exception to such ties to industry as long as they're declared. Of some 3,000 advisory committee members and voting consultants, 28 percent disclosed a conflict. Most were consulting arrangements, contracts/grants, and investments, often for sizable sums. An analysis of the influence of these arrangements on voting patterns suggests that advisors with conflicts are predisposed to voting against the interests of competitor products, although the influence is weak and not discernibly determinative." - Nortin M. Hadler MD, Worried Sick: A Prescription for Health in an Overtreated America (Get the book.)

"Sheldon Krimsky, a science policy expert at Tufts University, "such conflicts are common on F.D.A. advisory panels. The agency often conceals these conflicts, and studies have shown that, taken as a whole, money does influence scientific judgments."6 In the end, the FDA made the unusual decision not to follow the panel's recommendation, and decided to remove Bextra from the market. And while the FDA enjoys a fine reputation with the public?7 percent claim they are somewhat confident or confident in the FDA's ability to ensure the safety of prescription drugs in the U.S." - Peter Rost, The Whistleblower: Confessions of a Healthcare Hitman (Get the book.)

"In government scientific advisory panels, the points of view of participants are required by law to be "fairly balanced," and the opinions of panelists are expected to be unimpeded by improper influences by special interests. In 1998, the General Accounting Office, at the request of Representative Henry A. Waxman (CA) audited several panels of scientists who advised the Environmental Protection Agency on regulations that govern toxic chemicals in the air and water supply." - Jerome P. Kassirer, On the Take: How Medicine's Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health (Get the book.)

"Ironically, even if the industry-funded FDA decided to vigorously investigate the safety questions surrounding Crestor, and it convened a committee of its advisers to deliberate, the panel would most likely include physicians with strong financial ties to statin manufacturers—a conflict of interests endemic within many of the regulator's advisory panels, and many of the influential decision-making bodies across the health care landscape." - Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels, Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients (Get the book.)

"Doctors on government advisory panels make recommendations for drugs while being paid huge amounts of money by the manufacturers of those same drugs. • Drug companies routinely sponsor foundations' research. An example is Amgen gave $150,000 for research done by the Kidney Foundation. Remember, all foundations, all charities, and all research that is conducted on drugs are almost always paid for by the drug companies themselves, and therefore guarantee the results that they want. 8." - Kevin Trudeau, Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About (Get the book.)

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