In 2006, my staff at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), along with Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, distributed a 38-question survey to 5,918 scientists at the FDA [Food and Drug Administration], asking them to comment on management, professionalism, independence, candor, and job satisfaction at the agency. Their responses document significant interference with the FDA's scientific work and dissatisfaction at the agency. In fact, 497 respondents disagreed with the statement: "The FDA is moving in the right direction."
This is bad news for the American people, who spend 25 cents of every dollar they earn on products the FDA monitors. This year alone, the Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General, the United States Government Accountability Office, and the United States House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform have all issued reports calling attention to problems raised by our survey results.
Hundreds of survey respondents described their lack of faith in agency leadership: 561 FDA scientists thought their managers did not stand behind their work when it was politically controversial....Respondents described an agency culture that ignores scientific data and prevents scientists from effectively doing their jobs; 378 scientists thought that the FDA is not effectively protecting public health. To be effective, FDA scientists must be allowed to present their data in an environment that values the truth, regardless of its political or commercial consequences. But 357 survey respondents felt they could not openly express any concerns about public health inside the agency without fear of retaliation. That must change.
Safeguards must be put in place for all government scientists who speak out. FDA leadership must make certain that advisory panels making decisions at the agency are truly independent and that the experts who serve on those panels are free of ideological or commercial conflicts of interest. Additionally, the public should have free and open access to the FDA's scientific research and its panels' recommendations.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 8/18/2006 09:30:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
