Will Janet Woodcock, MD Be Dangerous To America If She Is Appointed FDA Commissioner?
Over the years, I have written many articles regarding Janet Woodcock, MD, Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and her role in the opioid epidemic killing and addicting people in the hundreds of thousands. Links to some of my published articles are shown below.
This week it was announced that Woodcock has been appointed Acting Commissioner of the FDA and was being considered to head the agency that many refer to as “the watchdog for the American people.” Over the years, the FDA has been relegated to being referred to as “the lapdog for pharma” in approval of dangerous drugs — even overriding their own Advisory Committee recommendations to “not” approve drugs potentially dangerous to Americans — and approving them.
In addition to my concerns over the years with Woodcock’s own version of “pay to play” with pharma by approving controversial opioids, there may be even more concerns in her involvement with pharma and currently a new COVID-19 vaccine. On January 22, Johnson & Johnson (J & J) announced they would have enough vaccines for 100 million Americans by April. This according to Dr. Mark McClellan, a Johnson & Johnson board member and former FDA commissioner.
Yes that is correct — McClellan was former FDA commissioner and is now on J & J’s board with another revolutionary COVID-19 vaccine approved by the FDA. Now back to concerns over Woodcock’s potentially dangerous appointment as Commissioner of the FDA.
In March 2010, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette wrote a scathing expose entitled “Drug firm investigated FDA officials.” Woodcock was referenced in the article with accusations of possible impropriety by some FDA officials. One pharmaceutical company was concerned that the FDA was favoring a competitor, Massachusetts-based drug manufacturer Momenta Pharmaceuticals and suspected that Woodcock, the official they blamed for approval delays relating to their drug was somehow allied with Momenta. In April 2009, a complaint was filed with the FDA alleging that Woodcock and Momenta had an improper relationship.
Now while this could have been all smoke and mirrors — on October 1, 2020, Johnson & Johnson acquired Momenta Pharmaceuticals — and J & J has FDA approval for a new COVID-19 vaccine.
Again, is Janet Woodcock, MD a threat to the American people further than the opioid epidemic, but now with a fast-tracked COVID-19 vaccine and a potential conflict of interest? Hopefully, there will be serious thought given to making Woodcock the Commissioner of the FDA.
I will be continuing to give Woodcock “serious thought” and being certain anyone involved in the approval process making her Commissioner of the FDA — also gives her serious thought.
Sometimes where there is smoke, there is fire.
The link will not show the complete article, but here is the article pasted referencing Janet Woodcock being investigated as to her ties to Momentum Pharmaceutical, recently acquired by Johnson & Johnson:
Drug firm investigated FDA officials
EAMON JAVERS, Politico
MAR 31, 2010, 1:30 AM
For more than two months in late 2008, private investigators working for a drug company gathered information on a high-ranking official at the Food and Drug Administration — unearthing details about her husband, two daughters, and in-laws, and re-tracing her steps on a business trip she took to Thailand.
The drug company, Amphastar Pharmaceuticals Inc., paid more than $100,000 to Kroll, the New York-based private investigative firm, to uncover the information about Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, who overees the agency’s new-drug approvals.
At stake for Amphastar, a generic drug maker, was whether the FDA would allow it to bring to market a version of a prescription drug for blood clots, and gain access to a market worth more than $3 billion.
On behalf of the drug company Kroll also investigated a second FDA official — Moheb Nasr, director of the FDA’s Office of New Drug Quality Assessment, creating a file on him that included his birth date, the price he paid for his home, and details of his education and professional background.
Amphastar says the investigation was done in order to find out if Woodcock or Nasr were unfairly favoring a competitor in the drug approval process, and that it did nothing wrong.
“I feel like as a citizen you have a right to question your government and a right to look a at public information,” said Amphastar’s general counsel, Jason Shandell. “There was no impropriety here.”
Shandell said the investigation was limited to public records, database searches and other information available to the general public.
But the case has attracted the attention of investigators working for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), who said it was “an outrage,” and has demanded that Kroll tell him how often private detectives target public officials. He also had harsh words for Amphastar.
“Pharmaceutical companies should be focusing on getting their drugs approved based on health research and science rather than wasting their resources hiring private investigators to snoop around the lives of FDA regulators and their families,” he said.
The details of the drug company investigation, which came to light after committee investigators requested documents from Amphastar last fall, offer a rare glimpse inside the world of high-stakes corporate detective work.
At one point, the investigators hired a freelance reporter to file Freedom of Information Act requests, using her status as a journalist to request Woodcock’s emails, phone records, voicemails, calendar and expense reports, among other documents — without mentioning that she was being paid for her efforts by a private investigative firm.
“I am making this request as a journalist and this information is of timely value,” Melanie Haiken, a San Francisco-based freelance reporter wrote to the FDA. “As a journalist, I am primarily engaged in disseminating information.”
Haiken did not disclose that she was working for the private investigators at the time. In an email explaining its fees, Kroll told Amphastar that the expenses related to the FOIC covered “the cost of the person we are using to make the requests untraceable to you, the client.”
“I am wondering if this is an isolated instance or if Kroll is using journalists, who purport to be working in the public interest, to file FOIA requests on behalf of clients in order to take advantage of reduced fees and expedited processing,” Baucus wrote in a letter to Kroll CEO Ben Allen, Woodcock and Nasr did not respond to requests for comment. Neither did the FDA.
Ahphastar turned to Kroll in late 2008, after becoming increasingly frustrated that the FDA was dragging its feet in approving the company’s generic-drug application for low-molecular-weight heparin. In addition, company’s executives became worried that the FDA was favoring a competitor, Massachusetts-based drug manufacturer Momenta Pharmaceuticals, and suspected that Woodcock, the official they blamed for the delays, was somehow allied with Momenta.
As evidence, Amphastar pointed to a paper Woodcock had co-authored with Momenta co-founder Ram Sasisekharan. And, they noted, Woodcock had been a featured speaker along with him at the Shangri-La Hotel in Bangkok in 2007.
Collusion between FDA officials and drug companies has happened before — a history Amphastar was well aware of when it launched its investigation.
In 1989, three FDA officials pleaded guilty to taking bribes and two companies said they had submitted false information to the government in a scandal that rocked the pharmaceutical world. And that scandal came to light only because an aggrieved drug company had hired private investigators to dig into suspicious relationships.
According to a document entitled “Suggested Items for Investigation,” Kroll’s plan for investigating Amphastar included digging up information on “[Janet Woodcock] and her relatives and friends; J.W.’s financial status and life style change since 2004; any entities … that JW, her relatives or friends, partially own or are affiliated with in the U.S.”
Other objectives included determining if Woodcock or any of her family members maintained any Swiss or Cayman Islands bank accounts or companies.
By the end of October 2008, Kroll had completed an “interim report” on Woodcock and Nasr.
In it, Kroll detailed Woodcock’s birth date, the state in which her Social Security number had been issued, the identity of her husband, Roger Miller, their home address and the value of her Brookville, Md., home. Kroll also uncovered similar details about Nasr.
But Kroll had come up empty — finding little evidence of an improper connection.
“To date, Kroll has identified no reports indicating that Woodcock’s relationship with Nasr [and another individual] are anything but of a professional nature,” Kroll concluded. “Kroll has identified no personal or business links with the Sasisekharan family other than Woodcock and Ram Sasisekharan’s well-publicized, jointly authored reports ???”
But despite the report, Amphastar in April, 2009 filed a complaint with the FDA, alleging that Woodcock and Momenta had an improper connection.
“Sure, we don’t have a smoking gun,” Shandell said, “but there appears to be some relationship between these two that goes beyond the typical FDA relationship.”
The FDA’s legal counsel, however, said in February that Woodcock’s interactions with Momenta did not constitute a conflict of interest.
Rick Shea, the chief financial officer for Momenta, also said his company acted properly in its interactions with the FDA. “There certainly was no inappropriate relationship between anybody at Momenta or anybody associated with Momenta and anybody at the FDA,” Shea said.
Haiken, the freelance journalist, confirms that she filed the FOIA on behalf of Kroll. But Haiken said her intent was journalistic, and that she hoped the FOIAs would yield an interesting story. “I’m not really an investigator, I’m a health writer,” she said. “I have a right to get a story tip from somebody, even if it’s somebody at Kroll.”
Individual investigators inside Kroll billed for their time like lawyers, with rates ranging from $125 to $390 per hour. By the end of November, the company had charged Amphastar more than $100,000. Its invoice included $596.25 for “Calls to Thailand regarding Woodcock’s hotel stay. Further research on ??? conference participants and board members. Further research on Woodcock schedule prior to and after the conference.”
Kroll also sent Amphastar a memo entitled “Woodcock/Miller Family Members.” That document detailed the biography of Woodcock’s husband and information about the couple’s two daughters.
An outside public relations consultant for Kroll issued a statement in response to POLITICO’s questions about its investigation.
“We have received Senator Baucus’ letter and will review the request, bearing in mind our obligations to our client and client confidentiality,” Kroll said.
My published articles over the years on the controversary involving Janet Woodcock and the opioid epidemic:
http://salem-news.com/…/
SALEM-NEWS.COM
FDA Should Examine the Watchdog, Janet Woodcock, MD – Salem-News.Com
FDA Should Examine the Watchdog, Janet Woodcock, MD – Salem-News.Com
http://salem-news.com/…/fda-
SALEM-NEWS.COM
FDA’s Continuing Arrogance and Indifference to the Opioid Epidemic as Death Toll Rages! – Salem-News.Com
http://salem-news.com/…/
SALEM-NEWS.COM
Is Janet Woodcock, MD, Director of FDA Guilty of Medical Malpractice? – Salem-News.Com
Is Janet Woodcock, MD, Director of FDA Guilty of Medical Malpractice? – Salem-News.Com
https://freedomoutpost.com/
“FDA Remove Sufentanil (Dsuvia) As You Did Palladone In 2005! It’s Dangerous!”
http://www.salem-news.com/…
U.S. Senators are Outraged by FDA Approving OxyContin for Children! – Salem-News.Com
https://freedomoutpost.com/
Marianne Perez
Investigative Reporter exposing the manufactured opioid epidemic, FDA and COVID-19 (facts or fears)
https://www.wired.com/story/
