But he, too, soon began following the Henney line - if I’m going to print anything about the information he shared, I’d have to go through the Press Office. I did that, but the head of that office, George Strait, wasn’t helpful. “The so-called ‘trade press’,” he sneered in one exchange. Meanwhile, the people staffing that office turned over completely, and few knew me or cared about my role in FDA journalism.
I was too independent for them and resisted the rules every other reporter apparently had succumbed to. Strait once allowed that he saw the office’s job as “to spread the good news about FDA.” Obviously we were at cross purposes because I’d never seen that as anything I wanted to do.
Later, Strait was sidelined and replaced by politicos Beth Martino and Meghan Scott, neither of whom was responsive to me. My inquiries would be processed sometimes, not at all other times, interviews were withheld, or if allowed were monitored, my written questions were screened and answers when given were expressed in stiff, non-conversational bureaucratic English.
Informed human-interest, color and context left my writing. After 35 years of insider contacts and reliable, exclusive FDA reporting, I’d been all but shut down by the FDA Press Office. As in the old Soviet Union and Communist China, they are in control now.
All without a word of prior notice or “due process.”
The FDA has been muzzled? Good!
(If only.)
Next step? Abolish.
Jim,
You do not need to quote the FDA to air the FDA's historical and current records (failures, crimes, aggression). The FDA has its own bully pulpit: the central monopoly on the use of violence and coercion everywhere, a.k.a., Washington D.C.
Your last thoughts above, on state control, are your best. You should use that fire to blaze a trail of discussion on the role of govt: who should control whose personal habits, health and wealth, and whether agencies like the FDA should even exist. By doing so, you might even encourage your FDA buddies to seek honest work in the private sector, where they actually would be economically and socially productive.
All the best,
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Tue 7 Dec 2010 at 06:24 PM
Jim -
This story is bigger than the FDA, it goes throughout the government, especially in areas where "objective reality" might differ from "the good news" -- science, economics, and the military. It is the most destructive from the point of view of science, as that should never be subjective, horrible when applied to economic numbers (rather than to economic matters of opinion) and most traditional, although still quite questionable, in the military. It is nearly impossible to construct rational policies or decide between policy alternatives when the actual on-the-ground information on which such decisions should be based is controlled, limited, suppressed, or otherwise distorted. Rather than indicating that regulatory agencies should be shut down, your story should be expanded to include the reporting on climate change and many other areas where the government seems to be more intent on suppressing results than openness.
And Dan, as someone who actually eats luncheon meats or peanut butter products on occasion: viva FDA, give 'em what they need to get their jobs done and protect American consumers from the kind of adulterated food horror stories that happen in China all the time. You may find them to be a PITA in your work or you may be arguing on the grounds that all government is bad government, but there is a reason all of these social protection organizational structures came into existence, and it's not just for the heck of it. Power derives from the people, but it can certainly be perverted by sufficient applications of Big Money, and our only defense against that is our government; you individually do not stand a chance against Monsanto, let alone Monsanto plus AT&T plus Golman-Sachs plus Exxon-Mobil. So please, get involved, don't assume that a world run by just those corporations with no governments to moderate their effects would be a better thing. Think of Bhopal or the BP spill, with no one to demand accountability or attempt damage control or cleanup. Think of working for Don Blankenship; it's a job, yes, but if he has no fear of regulatory agencies, he does not correct dangerous violations, and you have an increased chance of paying for that with your life. Strengthen the inspectors and regulators, give them back the powers that have been systematically stripped from them since 1981. Getting rid of them is exactly what the Don Blankenships of the world want you to do.
#2 Posted by Heather, CJR on Mon 13 Dec 2010 at 04:55 PM