Don't Get Sick

I have written before about my fondness for Dr. McClellan. I was saddened to hear of his promotion because he is so needed at the FDA. The Wall Street Journal Ed Page agrees. The following is Drugs and the Man, stolen in its entirety from the good folks at Dow Jones.

Ever wonder why elected leaders have so little influence over the federal bureaucracy? Consider the migration of FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan, who President Bush just nominated to run Medicare and Medicaid at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Don't get us wrong, Medicare needs an able manager, especially with HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson said to be eager to leave after the election. Dr. McClellan has demonstrated the political skills that will be essential to giving the new Medicare reform law even a tiny chance to succeed by attracting private insurance options.

But Dr. McClellan also leaves the Food and Drug Administration after only 16 months in the job. He was finally confirmed in October 2002, after the White House struggled to find a candidate who could run Ted Kennedy's anti-private-sector traps in the Senate. (Dr. McClellan came from academia, which Teddy believes is less corrupted by profit.) If Democrats block a new Commissioner's confirmation before the election, President Bush will have had his man running the FDA for only one-third of his entire first term. This is happening more frequently across the entire government, too often making Presidential leadership a mere formality.

So the probability is that the FDA will once again return to bureaucratic autopilot, and to its institutional overcaution in approving even life-saving new drugs. The Bush Administration has never seemed to appreciate how important the senior FDA post has become, and how faster approvals for cancer drugs for the terminally ill fit naturally into "compassionate conservatism." We hope Mr. Bush challenges the Senate with a replacement who is every bit as aware as Dr. McClellan has been of how bureaucratic delay costs lives.

Maybe I am a broken record on this, but this bureaucracy is costing tens of thousands of lives every year and stifling pharmaceutical innovation. Sadly, the "new sheriff in town" is leaving. Who else can get by Senator Kennedy?

It's a sad day for anyone who needs medicine that hasn't been invented yet.

Posted by jk at February 23, 2004 11:01 AM