These changes in the HHS advisory panels are likely to have direct impact
on Parkinson's and other medical research. The full article can be found
in today's (Sept. 17th) Washington Post
www.washingtonpost.com
Linda
FROM Kaisernetwork.org Daily Reports:
http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_reports/rep_index.cfm?DR_ID=13496
ADMINISTRATION NEWS
Bush Administration Overhauling Health Advisory Panels, Eliminates Some
With Discordant Views
The Bush administration has begun a "broad restructuring" of the 250
scientific advisory committees that guide HHS on a wide range of health
issues, the Washington Post reports. The committees, which operate in
near anonymity, are "important because their interpretation of scientific
data can sway an agency's approach to health risk and regulation," the
Post reports. In recent weeks, the administration eliminated two
committees with views seemingly "at odds with the president's views" and
replaced almost all the members of a third committee with "handpicked
choices" who have strong ties to the industries on which they will be
advising. The following is a summary of changes in the three committees:
Secretary's Advisory Committee on Genetic Testing: Charged with advising
the FDA on risks associated with the emerging gene-testing industry, this
committee examined among other issues how the agency should regulate
"home-brew" genetic tests, which are being sold by a growing number of
companies, the Post reports. The committee convinced the FDA to assert
its authority in regulating the sale of the tests and was helping the
agency to develop guidelines to that effect when the Bush administration
"[s]uddenly" disbanded the committee and put oversight plans on hold.
HHS spokesperson William Pierce said the committee was not eliminated
because of its regulatory stance, adding that the administration plans to
create a new committee to address a "broader range of genetic
technologies," the Post reports. Members of the new committee have not
been named.
National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee: Created under
the Clinton administration to advise the administration on protecting
human participants in clinical trials, the committee was disbanded
because it "angered the pharmaceutical industry" by suggesting stricter
research conflict-of-interest rules, some unnamed sources claim, the Post
reports. According to the sources, the committee "r[a]n afoul of
religious conservatives" by failing to support a Bush administration
priority to include fetuses in regulations regarding research on human
newborns. Pierce said the administration plans to form a new committee
on clinical trial safety that has a "broader, as yet undetermined"
mission, the Post reports.
HHS officials said they hope Mildred Jefferson, a doctor who helped
found that National Right to Life Committee and served as its president,
will serve on the new committee.
Advisory Committee to the CDC's National Center for Environmental Health:
The administration will replace 15 of the committee's 18 members,
including Thomas Burke, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins
University who has served as chair of the committee for almost five
years, the Post reports. While Burke said he understands the "constant
turnover" that often occurs on advisory committees, he added, "What's of
concern though is to see so much turnover at one time, especially at such
a critical time for the CDC." Burke added that many of the people
expected to be named to the committee, which is charged with assessing
the health effects of low-level exposure to environmental chemicals, have
"well-known" connections to the chemical industry, the Post reports.
The committee overhaul is "rattling some HHS employees," who say that
changes on a similar scale have not occurred since the Reagan
administration's early years, the Post reports. The moves represent a
"quie[t] dismantl[ing]" of the Clinton administration's influence on the
way scientific policies are created, the Post reports. However, Pierce
defended the restructuring, saying, "No one should be surprised when an
administration makes changes like this. I don't think there is anything
going on here that has not gone on with each and every administration
since George Washington" (Weiss, Washington Post, 9/17).
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