Going as far back as the 1950s -- and likely even much earlier than that -- the FDA has made it routine practice to ignore and even deny the dangers associated with drugs and medical devices when approving them. In the case of the Upjohn Company, for instance, which unveiled the antibiotic drug Panalba back in 1957, the FDA ignored many years of complaints about the drug's safety in order to protect the company's profits.
At the time, data showed that as many as 20 percent of patients taking Panalba had suffered severe allergic reactions to the antibiotic, and yet the FDA did nothing. Even Upjohn's own research studies on Panalba showed that the drug was less effective and less safe than alternative drugs on the market, and still the FDA did nothing, effectively sheltering Upjohn's enormous profits from Panalba, which represented 12 percent of its overall profit earnings.
Sadly, the same is true today, as the drug industry and the FDA essentially work in tandem to get dangerous, but highly-profitable, drugs and medical devices to market. It is a win-win situation for both groups as the FDA gets kickbacks in the form of exorbitant new drug and medical device application fees, and the drug industry rakes in billions of dollars for blockbuster drug and device products that would never have been approved had science and facts been legitimately factored into the equation.
