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  Awards Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Ctr. Boston Medical Center Boston University Brigham and Women's Hospital Broad Institute Cambridge Health Alliance Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Ctr. Children's Hospital Boston Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Grants Harvard University Joslin Diabetes Center Lahey Clinic Mass. General Hospital Mass. Health Law McLean Hospital MIT New England Baptist Hospital Personnel Moves Public Health Research Short White Coat Tufts-New England Medical Center Tufts University UMass Memorial Medical Center University of Massachusetts VA Medical Centers    A Healthy Blog Running A Hospital Nature Network Boston SciBos - Corie Lok's blog Kevin, M.D. Blog, MD Nurse at small Dr. Gwenn Is In Healthy Children blog WBUR's CommonHealth Other Globe Blogs
Elizabeth Cooney is a health reporter for the Worcester Telegram &
Gazette.
Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
Scott Allen Alice Dembner Carey Goldberg Liz Kowalczyk Stephen Smith Colin Nickerson Beth Daley Karen Weintraub, Deputy Health and Science Editor, and Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor. Short White Coat blogger Ishani Ganguli Short White Coat blogger Jennifer Srygley  Week of:
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« Six Mass. hospitals recognized for performance improvement | Main | Today's Globe: cough medicine warning, abortion pill, China pig virus, prairie dog ban, Alzheimer's device » Wednesday, August 15, 2007Encouraging signs on drug reviews, critic saysThe voices of independent scientists are more important than ever, according to a critic of drug-company influence on government regulation, and there are signs they are being heard more than before. Writing in tomorrow's New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Jerry Avorn of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School warns that Congress's re-authorization of user-fee funding from pharmaceutical companies to support the Food and Drug Administration means unbiased outside experts are critical to proper drug evaluation. As an example, he compares the approval of Vioxx in 1999 to this year's rejection of Arcoxia. Renewed assertiveness by FDA's external advisers made the difference in reviews of the painkillers linked to cardiac risk, he writes. "Though the quiet voice of science may often be no match for powerful vested interests or ideology, some encouraging signs may be in the air," he writes. "The same reauthorization bill, disappointing in so many respects, may tighten somewhat the conflict-of-interest rules for outside advisers." Posted by Elizabeth Cooney at 07:05 PM
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