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Grassley chucks his role as pharma gadfly
Dancing in the streets yet? If you're not, then you haven't heard that Sen. Charles Grassley, the perpetual thorn in pharma's side, looks to be stepping down from his post as chief of the Senate Finance Committee. He's planning to move to Senate Judiciary instead, where the top Republican post was abandoned by Sen. Arlen Specter, a newly minted Democrat.
If the word on Grassley is true, then pharma may be able to say sayonara to the steady flow of letters from Grassley, who demanded answers on a plethora of industry issues, from drugmakers' relationships with prominent doctors and academic researchers to a host of drug safety questions. Grassley challenged Pfizer to determine whether artificial-heart pioneer and Lipitor spokesman Robert Jarvik was really a doctor--or even qualified to play one on TV. And he asked so many questions about DTC ads for the cholesterol med Vytorin that Merck and Schering-Plough simply took the commercials off the air to stop the flurry of mail.
FDAers will probably dance with pharma folks on this one, because Grassley has been no less critical of the agency that regulates the drugmakers. Under Grassley's microscope, the FDA became an agency the public loved to question. The Senator castigated FDA for bungling foreign inspections of Chinese heparin plants and raked the agency's safety types over the coals for one drug scandal after another, from SSRIs to GlaxoSmithKline's diabetes remedy Avandia to Amgen's blockbuster anemia meds Epogen and Aranesp.
Also joining the dance: two prominent psychiatrists whose research changed medicine's approach to drugs for mental illness, Joseph Biederman of Harvard and Charles Nemeroff (photo) of Emory. The two docs got the Grassley treatment for taking thousands upon thousands from drugmakers whose products they researched, sometimes without reporting the receipts to their university overseers.
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports that FDA staffers were exchanging high-fives on the news, and pharma companies are calling their lobbyists to make sure the "good news" is true. It can't be long before the dance music cranks up.
- read the Health Blog post
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Sen. Grassley: No disclosure, no NIH money
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Comments
By ben | Posted 12:19pm | May 1, 2009
Ms Staton, I hope you washed your hands after typing out this disgusting posting. The idea we should celebrate because pharma has less oversight is not only misguided but dangerous.
By Mister | Posted 8:40am | May 2, 2009
This is sad and highly disturbing news. I will be of the group who will pull completely away from pharma companies, and have diminished trust in the FDA (if not nil). Others will be at their prey. The rest of us will have to speak more LOUDLY, while we hope for another Grassley.
By Yluck | Posted 11:40am | May 2, 2009
I entire agree with the sentiments above. This is not good news. I hope there is someone who steps up to the plate and continues the incredible work that Grassley has done.
By Dad Fourkids | Posted 2:44pm | May 2, 2009
I think it is easy to miss the overall point of this piece. The author clearly highlights what a thorn Grassley has been to the corrupt elements in Pharma and Federal Regulation. She also clearly states what will be the natural reaction to those who put profits ahead of humanity.
What are that chances that Grassley's replacement will share his zeal for protecting the rank and file citizens from the dangerous business practices that have been common place since the FDA was "partnered" with industry to "fast track" drugs under Clinton? With the ridiculous amount of money Pharma pumps into campaign funds on both sides of the aisle, in lobbyists, and into the pockets of people at teh FDA, NIH, CDC and myriad research universities I would say it would be very long odds indeed.
By Trish | Posted 1:56am | May 3, 2009
Sen. Charles Grassley will be greatly missed as Chief of the Senate Finance Committee. Ironically, most people will never even realize the good he has done. I wonder how many lives he has improved, or even saved by being the pharmaceutical industry's proverbial "thorn in their side"?
If word becomes truth, I pray that his successor has the same moral integrity that he has! I wish Sen. Grassley the best. I sincerely hope that he can continue to impact pharma on our behalf,
through the Senate Judiciary!
Great article, Tracy... I do understand your intent to portray the slime at big Pharma, as the gloating idiots that they are! It's a shame what they have done to the industry, in the name of greed!
By Troy L | Posted 6:55pm | November 30, 2009
Grassley is the worst.
A paper tiger at best...
What has he done to help Americans out of work
or paying high medical costs?
What has he actually done besides send letters?
He's just another member of the millionaire's club we call the US senate...
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