One More Broken Federal Agency: FDA

George Bush's record of taking care of the citizens dropped to a new low, if that is possible, with the announcement that the Food and Drug Administration's morale is at an all-time low. FDA Commissioner Andrew C. von Eschenbach at an unusual hearing before the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations seemed to be Michael Brown-ish in his testimony.

The occasion was the reprising of a report, first released in December, in which several high-powered drug industry and academic experts dissected the FDA, saying that a persistent lack of resources over many decades had depleted the agency's ability to protect the citizenry.

"American lives are at risk," Gail Cassell, an executive at Eli Lilly and Co., who helped write the report, said at the hearing.

The Houston Chronicle reported on these findings of a report on the FDA which was the subject of the hearing:

• The agency's computer systems are antiquated.
• Its quality of science is backward.
• Its morale is poor.
• It is failing to protect consumers from the onrush of pharmaceutical ingredients and foodstuffs streaming in from overseas.

Rather than being energized to address these deficiencies, the Chronicle reported: "Eschenbach was more measured than effusive during his testimony. He complimented the report, which he had requested from the agency's advisory Science Board, and said its findings were not a surprise. He also described himself as hard at work implementing its suggestions."

'Hard at work.' Reminds me of 'You're doin' a heck of a job, Brownie.' All of the Bush men are hard at work, but few care about the results, especially the CEO.

Just one more failure of the Bush Administration; who has been keeping track of them? And they have nearly a full year of failure yet to create.