Do YOU remember Lester Crawford? well why would you- after all he was FDA commissioner for about 2 seconds. But he managed to blatantly lie to investigators during his short stint as head of one of the most influential regulatory bodies in the country.
So I remember the Republicans having a field day when Clinton went through his impeachment...what is that saying about people in glass houses?
Now, my mother always taught me not to point fingers and as liberal thinkers, we should resist the temptation to do the same but I do think that we need to let people know and especially the swing voters in the states this november that we won't stand for this behavior and if we are going to appoint people to really make important decisions, we are going to at least go through a basic ethics screen which I think a ten year old can do on google.
What really makes me sick is how blatant Crawford's lies were. He claimed to not know that PepsiCo was regulated by the FDA. He also claimed that his shares in companies regulated by the FDA had been sold. I guess he thought the F in FDA was fraud and drug adminstration, for which he was ready, willing and able.
According to DOJ prosecutors, government ethics officials told Crawford in 2002 that he and his wife needed to sell shares in 12 companies that were regulated by FDA (Washington Post, 10/17). The couple sold shares in nine of the companies -- which included Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Boston Scientific, Pfizer, Medtronic and others -- but kept shares in three companies: food and beverage maker PepsiCo; food distributor Sysco; and Kimberly-Clark, which makes some consumer health care products, DOJ said. In addition, Crawford's wife held shares in Wal-Mart, which also is regulated by FDA, but Crawford did not include those holdings in his 2002 financial disclosure, DOJ said. Crawford also failed to disclose that he held options to buy 41,500 shares in Embrex, an FDA-regulated poultry biotechnology company on whose board he once served. According to DOJ, Crawford reported on his 2003 and 2004 tax returns that he exercised some of those options -- earning $8,150 in one transaction and $20,627 in another -- but failed to disclose the filings and the remaining options. When Crawford was appointed acting FDA commissioner in 2004, HHS reviewers again inquired about his ownership of Sysco and Kimberly-Clark shares. Crawford wrote in an e-mail message to an ethics official that the shares "have in fact been sold." However, the DOJ filing states, "In truth and in fact, as Crawford then knew, Crawford and/or his wife held shares" in Sysco and Kimberly-Clark "throughout 2003 and 2004" (New York Times, 10/17)
The FDA has been rocked with scandal in this administration from the resistance to approve the Next Day pill to this...and WE (dems, republicans, indies, all of us) are suffering for it. In nominating Crawford, the Bush administration sends a clear signal to you and me: we could care less what you think and don't give a drug patent about ethics.
thanks to goodasgold for reminding me to make sure you get the latest and best....crawford did plead guilty.