Well, let's see. The FDA has sent Sam Waksal to jail, destroyed the market capitalization of Martha Stewart's company, and allowed tens of thousands to die of colon cancer. All in a days work for the Gub'mint.
The Wall St. Journal Editorial Page has been relentless on this topic, but you don't hear of it anywhere else. The bureaucracy is so stagnant that promising drugs cannot get reviewed in decades, while people die of the diseases they cure. It's a crime.
In WSJ.com - Topic of Cancer, (paid site only, sorry!) they connect the dots. Erbitux actually does work. Sorry Martha, sorry Sam.
"The latest good news on cancer is that ImClone's Erbitux drug works after all. Despite American regulatory delay, Germany's Merck (which owns rights overseas) says an independent panel has confirmed positive assessments of a recent trial and it now expects approval in Europe by next year.
"Forgive us if we claim a little vindication, having defended the drug amid the howling about ImClone and corporate greed last year. The potential treatment for dying cancer patients always mattered more than Martha Stewart's ImClone stock trades. The continuing problem, however, is that every new cancer therapy has to endure a Food and Drug Administration obstacle course of needless delay."