FDA Safety Board comes under fire

The US Food and Drug Administration's year-old Drug Safety Oversight Board came under fire from outside advisers who suggest that independent voices are needed, a new panel should be created and that the panel should consider meeting in public.

Panel chairman Peter Gross told the agency that, while the FDA was competent, the board would benefit from outside views, according to news sources. He went on to say that despite a goal of transparency for a committee responsible for overall safety, the FDA has set it up to meet in private, without public representatives.

Saying the model is bad and the name is misleading, Arthur Levin, director of the Center for Medical Consumers, questioned why an audience is not allowed. But another adviser, Curt Furberg of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, said that the Board is a good step that addresses some perceived agency weaknesses.