Opinion: A ‘conflict of interest-free’ FDA advisory committee policy is a terrible idea
Banning FDA ad-comm members who have any conflict of interest might sound good, but look a little closer.
During my time at the Food and Drug Administration, I was the senior official in charge of advisory committees. I recollect a meeting with officials from Health Canada — the FDA’s equivalent in Ottawa — who were aghast that our advisory committee meetings were regularly attended by members of the media, financial analysts, patient groups, and politicians — and that the meetings were recorded for public consumption.
I explained that such transparency was what made the meetings so valuable. When any FDA advisory committee is in session, the agency is put to the test, to explain and defend its scientific thinking in public, before a panel of experts with the breadth and depth of experience to dissect the results, to challenge conclusions and to make sure that no clinical stone goes unturned. Talk about “radical transparency”!
