What would you call a politician who privately urges the federal government to ease controls on one controversial drug even as he publicly blocks the streamlining of all federal drug approvals?
A hypocrite? A room-temperature IQ? A Republican "extremist?"
We'd call him Ted Kennedy, who has single-handedly tried to block reform of the Food and Drug Administration even though he lobbied the government in a January 16 letter to ease controls on fenfluramine, the diet drug that has since been withdrawn from the market because of concern over side effects. The Earl of Hyannis was joined in his letter by other famous New England liberals, Senator John Kerry and Representatives Barney Frank, James McGovern, Joe Kennedy and Sam Gejdenson.
Their purpose, in writing to Drug Enforcement Administrator Thomas Constantine, was to request that the feds "deschedule" fenfluramine, which is the "fen" in the fen-phen diet drug combo linked to leaky heart valves. The feds monitor controlled substances under five different schedules depending on their capacity for addiction and medical risk. Fenfluramine is a Schedule IV drug, which means it can be issued only with a prescription and can be refilled no more than five times over six months. "Descheduling" would free the drug from many rules and record-keeping. In May, DEA opened a public comment period on descheduling the drug, but had made no decision by the time it was withdrawn.
Sen. Kennedy didn't respond to our queries about the letter. But our guess is that it had something to do with a small biotechnology company called Interneuron Pharmaceuticals Inc., based in Lexington, Mass. Interneuron developed Redux, a diet drug chemically similar to fenfluramine. We called Interneuron for comment but didn't hear back.
Now, we aren't about to join a public lynch mob over fen-phen or any other drug caught in the media-trial lawyer vortex. That's the game Senator Kennedy and his pals at the Naderite lobby, Public Citizen, play. As Henry Miller wrote on this page yesterday, the FDA had choices short of the huge disruption of withdrawal to cope with the reported fen-phen side effects.
Our concern has long been that pols and "public-interest" know-nothings use tragic anecdotes to frighten both the public and the bureaucrats at FDA to slow down approvals for all drugs and medical devices. The people who pay for this are patients with urgent, often life-threatening needs.
Which is precisely why FDA reform has been debated in Congress for nearly 20 years. The latest version now moving through the Senate is a watered-down bill favored by everybody but the Naderites. One of its better provisions would allow more terminally ill patients to have access to experimental drugs not yet approved by the FDA. We'd prefer something far more deregulatory so some future bureaucratic kingpin like David Kessler can't keep drugs away from whichever patients come after AIDS. But it's the best we're going to get with this timid Congress.
The bill passed the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee in June by 14-4, with even liberals Paul Wellstone and Barbara Mikulski in support. Yet Mr. Kennedy has used excuse after excuse to delay Senate passage, hoping to run out the clock this year. His colleagues have had to roll over three of his filibusters so far, all by huge majorities, the most recent just yesterday. When his eminence held forth with his latest phony concern, even his old friend, Chris Dodd, stood up to say he was wrong.
Mr. Kennedy is happy to lobby regulators on behalf of a diet drug made by a constituent. But he'll lay his substantial figure across the tracks to prevent other drugs from getting to patients more quickly. If Jesse Helms were doing this, imagine what the press corps would write.
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