New report finds FDA is failing to track side effects of drugs it approves

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently issued a report on drug safety which concludes that the FDA is approving too many drugs via the fast-track approval processes and then it is failing to monitor those drugs’ effects on patients to ensure they are actually safe.   AboutLawsuits has more details and links here. 

Reports like this one are important because they provide support against the argument that the pharmaceutical industry and its supporters use all the time:  that issues related to regulation of drugs should be left to the agency with expertise (ie, the FDA) and should be taken away from the courts. Given that the FDA is underfunded, understaffed and has a history of doing a poor job of overseeing the industry it is supposed to be regulating, the argument is pretty weak.