“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
Story Highlights The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) increasingly applies “fast-track” licensing status to experimental drugs and vaccines in the research pipeline. The accelerated pharmaceutical product licensing approval system was originally created to give patients suffering with serious diseases or disorders quick access to important new drugs where no—or inadequate—treatment options were otherwise available. The […]
In a confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Energy, Labor, and Pensions on April 5, 2017, the nominee to be the next commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Scott Gottlieb, MD, stated categorically that there “is no causal link between vaccination and autism.” Dr. Gottlieb serves on the board of directors of pharmaceutical companies…
The federal government’s legal authority to detain and quarantine persons infected with certain highly communicable and deadly infectious diseases historically primarily has involved detaining people entering the U.S. by boats and airplanes or traveling across state lines. Federal government officials have long had the…
The foundation of scientific research on human health is the clinical study, and the strength and reliability of conclusions reached is a direct reflection of the study methods used in that research. If the trial design is sound and the research methods followed with integrity, the results will be robust. If not, the results are going to remain…
U.S. Representative Tom Price has been nominated for the position of Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) by President-elect Donald Trump. The six-term Republican congressman from Georgia’s 6th District currently serves as Chairman of the House Budget Committee. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Rep. Price, 62, would lead a…
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Thomas Frieden, MD, reportedly has blocked a request by Morgan & Morgan law firm attorneys Bryan Smith and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to allow CDC senior vaccine safety scientist and whistleblower, William Thompson, PhD, to testify in a court case in Tennessee. The plaintiff in the case is a 16-year old boy, who…
A Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM): Control of Communicable Diseases was published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on Aug. 15, 2016 that will amend federal public health law to allow health officials to take into custody and involuntarily quarantine travelers, who have symptoms of or have been exposed to someone with symptoms common to measles, chickenpox…
The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) regularly monitors meetings held by federal vaccine advisory committees, including the Advisory Commission on Childhood Vaccines (ACCV) and the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (NVAC). Both ACCV and NVAC were created under the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 and committee members are…
After several Food and Drug Administration employees exposed alleged flaws in the agency’s approval process for medical devices to Congress and the press in 2009, the FDA retaliated with a controversial email-monitoring program, sparking a lawsuit against the federal agency and ongoing questions about the legality and ethics of the surveillance. In January 2009, FDA…