Resources for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

FDA strengthens policy on vetting of advisers

www.sfgate.com

The Food and Drug Administration said Monday that it will look more closely at conflicts of interest when screening potential members of the influential expert committees that advise the agency on the approval of drugs.

Appointments to the powerful committees, whose recommendations are usually followed by the FDA, have come under fire in recent years as Congress and watchdog groups scrutinized the agency after the withdrawal of the painkiller Vioxx in 2004.

The consumer group Public Citizen found in a 2006 study that in 73 percent of the committee meetings from 2001 to 2004, at least one member had a financial conflict such as a grant from the drug company seeking approval of a new medicine. Some of the voting members' grants or consulting fees exceeded $100,000.

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