国会和布什政府就FDA主席问题意见不一致
WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - Congress returns next week from its month-long summer recess, but leading Democrats in the Senate and President Bush appear no closer to agreement on a choice to lead the US Food and Drug Administration than before the break.
Among the leading candidates being floated by Bush officials are Michael Astrue, who served as general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services in the first Bush administration, and who is currently vice president and general counsel of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech firm Transkaryotic Therapies. Another candidate who has been mentioned is Eve Slater, currently vice president of clinical and regulatory affairs for Merck Research Labs.
But Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will have to approve the nomination for an FDA head, have made it clear that they are not excited about having someone head the agency who comes from an industry that the FDA regulates.
"It would be unprecedented for the Commissioner to be appointed from an industry regulated by the FDA," wrote seven Democratic members of the committee, led by Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to President Bush in July. "To do so could raise irresolvable conflicts of interest, undercut public confidence, and undermine the agency's worldwide reputation as the gold standard of public health regulators."
Other signers of the letter were Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., Jack Reed, D-R.I., John Edwards, D-N.C., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
A committee aide told Reuters Health this week that no new discussions had taken place over the recess.
The Bush administration is expected to try to pick up the pace on nominations for heads of both the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, now that the President has announced his decision on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Both of those positions had been on hold during the deliberations on stem cells, as administration officials said that they did not want to complicate the situation., http://www.100md.com
Among the leading candidates being floated by Bush officials are Michael Astrue, who served as general counsel for the Department of Health and Human Services in the first Bush administration, and who is currently vice president and general counsel of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech firm Transkaryotic Therapies. Another candidate who has been mentioned is Eve Slater, currently vice president of clinical and regulatory affairs for Merck Research Labs.
But Democrats on the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will have to approve the nomination for an FDA head, have made it clear that they are not excited about having someone head the agency who comes from an industry that the FDA regulates.
"It would be unprecedented for the Commissioner to be appointed from an industry regulated by the FDA," wrote seven Democratic members of the committee, led by Chairman Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., to President Bush in July. "To do so could raise irresolvable conflicts of interest, undercut public confidence, and undermine the agency's worldwide reputation as the gold standard of public health regulators."
Other signers of the letter were Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., Jack Reed, D-R.I., John Edwards, D-N.C., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
A committee aide told Reuters Health this week that no new discussions had taken place over the recess.
The Bush administration is expected to try to pick up the pace on nominations for heads of both the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, now that the President has announced his decision on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research. Both of those positions had been on hold during the deliberations on stem cells, as administration officials said that they did not want to complicate the situation., http://www.100md.com