Bush picks von Eschenbach as FDA chief
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President George W. Bush on Wednesday picked physician and cancer survivor Andrew von Eschenbach as head of the Food and Drug Administration.
But the nomination of the current acting FDA chief quickly became embroiled in a debate over the long delays in the FDA’s decision-making on access to emergency contraception without a prescription.
Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Patty Murray of Washington announced they plan to put a hold on von Eschenbach’s nomination until the FDA makes a decision on a pending request for approval of the Plan B emergency contraceptive.
“It is past time for the FDA to stop dragging its heels and make a decision on Plan B,” the senators said in a statement.
Von Eschenbach, 64, has been acting FDA chief since September. He succeeded former FDA commissioner Lester Crawford, who resigned less than three months after surviving a tough Senate battle for confirmation.
Von Eschenbach will face a confirmation hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Both Clinton and Murray are on the Committee.
Last summer, Crawford’s hearings were stalled by Democratic objections to repeated delays over Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.‘s bid to sell its Plan B emergency contraceptive - which can reduce the chances of pregnancy after unprotected sex if taken within 72 hours - without a prescription.
Democrats allowed a full Senate vote after they thought the FDA would act on the company’s request. But a final decision has still not been made on the proposal, which has lingered at the agency for three years.
DRUG SAFETY CONCERNS
Last week, an aide to Senate health committee chairman Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, said the FDA would need to address the contraceptive issue before the panel acts on a nomination. Enzi issued a statement on Wednesday praising the nomination but did not address the controversy.
In addition to the debate over emergency contraceptives, the FDA also faces recent concerns over drug safety.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, whose panel oversees spending on drugs and other supplies by the federal Medicare and Medicaid health programs, has criticized the FDA’s handling of a trial of blood substitutes that tested them on some patients without consent.
He said the agency has “entrenched cultural problems” and likened it to an aircraft carrier in saying it would be hard to turn around.
“It’ll take a very determined, reform-minded individual to do it,” the Iowa senator said.
When he took the acting FDA job, von Eschenbach stirred controversy by initially keeping his other position as head of the National Cancer Institute. Some consumer advocates viewed that as a conflict of interest and feared his work pushing cancer treatments would cloud his judgment on drug safety.
Von Eschenbach later relinquished his daily duties at the cancer institute.
During the late 1980s, while he was chairman of the urology department at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, a colleague noticed a scalp lesion, which turned out to be melanoma, a dangerous form of skin cancer. But doctors caught it early enough that they were able to treat it. He also has been treated for prostate cancer.
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