Tone Deaf

I wish I had been invited to yesterday's briefing by Food and Drug Administration commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. According to this morning's New York Times, the former cancer surgeon expressed dismay that patients may be getting the wrong message from the media about drug safety concerns. He also believes his agency should be working more closely with industry to develop new ways to get new drugs approved faster. And when pressed on the latter point, he demurred by saying the agency should be working more closely with academics, too.

Meanwhile, over in the FDA press office, ABC News ("Nightline," tonight at 11:35 p.m. EST) is reporting that a former drug industry p.r. guy now working for the FDA is running a disinformation campaign against Steve Nissen, who published the study warning of heart risks from the diabetes drug Avandia in the New England Journal of Medicine last week.