U.S. Food and Drug Administration
FDA Consumer magazine
November-December 2000
Table of Contents
By Lawrence Bachorik, Ph.D.
"Our government," wrote Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis in Olmstead v. U.S., "is the potent, the omnipresent teacher." That was in 1928, the year of the discovery of penicillin--16 years before the invention of synthetic cortisone, 45 years before the first gene was spliced, and 69 years before the cloning of Dolly, the celebrity sheep in Scotland. And it was 11 years before the introduction of commercial television, and about 60 years before the onset of the Age of the Internet.
As in the 1920s, government agencies have the obligation of providing valid and useful facts, although the job has become much more demanding. Knowledge about nutrition, medications and medical devices has become enormously more complex, all the while multiplying at an exponential rate. The audience has also changed, and so have the sources of its information.
In 1920, the United States population was just over 100 million, less than 40 percent of today's 275 million; one out of every two Americans lived in a small town or on a farm; and life expectancy, education level, and cultural diversity were a fraction of what they are now. Health-related information, which used to be severely limited, now saturates the airwaves and the World Wide Web and fills countless columns of print.
Unfortunately, much of this abundance is far from objective. Stories of health fraud abound; the Internet, in particular, allows anyone to claim expertise. The resulting cacophony is blamed for confusion that adds to the reported public skepticism about authorities and purveyors of news.
At FDA, we are encouraged by signs that when it comes to public health information, this distrust has been exaggerated. The most recent heartening evidence comes from last year's poll by the prestigious Pew Research Center, which measured constituent opinions about FDA and other federal agencies.
Asked whether they "trust FDA to do what is right," 72 to 85 percent of medical professionals, consumer advocates, industry officials, and patients answered, "Yes." Asked if "FDA's decisions use good science," 74 to 87 percent of respondents expressed the same aproval.
There is good news in recent polls also for the cutting-edge research of our nation's scientists. In January, a National Science Foundation report showed undiminished U.S. public support for genetic engineering, despite the widespread speculation about human cloning that followed the publicity about Dolly.
In Europe, where public support for biotechnology is substantially weaker, some of the difference is attributed to the public trust enjoyed by FDA. We're frequently asked by European officials how FDA keeps its credibility. A big part of the answer is our agency's 94-year record of integrity: insistence on high public health standards, fair and science-based decisions, and dedication to the protection of consumers. But another part of the answer is FDA's culture of transparency and disclosure.
This takes many forms, including the open discussions of the pros and cons of product submissions in FDA's advisory committee meetings, the publishing of FDA's proposed rules for public comment, the public exchanges with stakeholders about FDA guidelines and policy changes, and the scrutiny of the agency's processes in open congressional hearings.
At FDA's Office of Public Affairs, we bring the agency's public health information to all who need it. One major transmission belt is the 100-odd press releases, backgrounders and talk papers we publish each year. Rigorously factual, they are widely picked up by the media, and they give new product approvals and public health alerts nationwide resonance.
Since the start of this year, for example, FDA has warned the public against potentially contaminated dips and smoked fish, and alerted consumers to a recall of frozen cheeseburgers. In addition, FDA Consumer discusses consumer-oriented issues in longer articles, many of which we translate for Spanish-speaking communities.
We also serve the needs of health-care professionals, academicians, and industry by providing FDA data for their specialized publications. Another prodigious source is our Freedom of Information staff, which annually answers more than 25,000 requests for data, much of which is sensitive. Our staff's effort to be forthcoming without divulging trade secrets is a daily testimony to FDA's commitment to openness.
And currently, we are opening the information floodgates still wider by augmenting FDA's Web site and making it more user-friendly. By logging onto www.fda.gov, anyone can find data as simple as the address of the nearest certified mammography facility and as complex as dosage guidelines for oncology drugs.
FDA's Web site is already averaging 50,000 visitors a day. People depend on us for the right answers, and we are trying to live up to Justice Brandeis' compliment.
Lawrence Bachorik, Ph.D., is FDA's Associate Commissioner for Public Affairs.
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