WASHINGTON (AP) - For years, the public calendars of two top federal drug safety officials were largely blank - devoid of the required detail about their contacts with the industry they regulated.
Open government experts and lawmakers said it is only the latest example of the lack of transparency at the Food and Drug Administration and a violation of the spirit of open government. The FDA attributed it to administrative oversight....
Federal regulations require the FDA to maintain a public calendar that details all "significant meetings" between its top brass and anyone outside the executive branch. There is no punishment for failing to disclose the information, but open government experts called it crucial to make public all the same.
"It's important to disclose this kind of stuff so the public knows who these high-ranking FDA officials are talking to and who has their ear. That's part of the process of assessing what's going on at FDA and are decisions being made in the best interest of the public," said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause. ...
Frequent FDA critic Dr. Sidney Wolfe called it "ridiculous" that the FDA had failed to post the calendar listings but suggested the requirement should be expanded to cover even lower-level employees at the agency. It's those employees, Wolfe said, who spend the most time meeting face-to-face with drug companies.
"Before decisions that seem to be going in the wrong direction from the public health perspective, it might be nice to know a company was in there," said Wolfe, of the watchdog group Public Citizen.
Whay's the problem? It's not like the drug companies are like the oil and energy companies meeting secretly with The Dick.
Oh, you think so?
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