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Pharmaceutical Consultants Unmask Rule Breaking Doctors Working With The FDA

10th February, 2010 - Posted by health news - No Comments

The US Government Accountability Office GAO has used pharmaceutical consultants to look into people working for the FDA and the results are a damning criticism that the Food and Drug Administration hires criminally convicted doctors to work for it in clinical trials. By failing to debar anyone with a criminal record from work activities with the FDA, the Administration is breaking its own rules.

On average, GAO found that it took the FDA an average of four years to get round to debarring doctors with a conviction. This is despite the fact that the administration is required by law to disqualify doctors who have been found guilty of fraud or other crimes. One dramatic case was that of a male doctor who had been convicted of a 53 criminal counts but went on to work for the FDA for 11 years.

Other cases involve medical professionals who have committed fraud or prescribed medicines without a license. There are even three doctors who continue to work with the FDA despite knowledge that each of them have a criminal conviction.

The most common charge that the doctors had committed was that of falsifying criminal data. They created participants to bulk out data, faked the consent of some participants and neglected medical histories. There is major concern over criminal doctors’ involvement in the criminal device industry. Under present FDA rules, a doctor who has been convicted of a criminal offence is not prohibited from practicing in the medical device industry, which could be putting the lives of millions of people at risk, especially since inhalers used to treat asthma are thought of as a medical device.

Critics do not see any benefits of introducing new rules as the FDA has already flouted many of the laws that currently govern it. Instead many critics are calling for a wide reform of the whole health care regulatory system. Prosecutions for doctors found to be breaking the law, company executives barred from senior roles in the FDA and a stricter relationship between the FDA and drug companies.