FDA gets new chief
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Hamburg appears to be a very level-headed person who understands the concept of harm reduction as it applies to public health. She is not thrilled with having tobacco under the control of the FDA, either. I hope she spends more time reorganizing a disheveled agency than worrying about our little harm reduction habits.
This is potentially good news....if Kennedy/Waxman passes (and it looks like it will) having the head of the FDA who understands harm reduction might get our gizmo's fast tracked to acceptance.
I am really confused about this.
She is supposed to be more science than politics but her first and highest priority is swine flu?
That is completely contradictory. Swine flu is insignificant causing fewer than 10 deaths in America despite it being used as a political vehicle. Google 'number of deaths from flu' and it shouldn't take long to figure out that swine flu is not very significant in the statistics.
There are thousands of deaths per year from various forms of flu. Making one paticular form that has caused fewer that 10 deaths is quite obviously a political pandering, not a display of scientific commitment.
I would like to be optimistic but this does not look like any kind of improvement to me. Josh Sharfstein will still be there with a slightly less prestigious job title and I do not see this bringing about any change.
DW
She is supposed to be more science than politics but her first and highest priority is swine flu?
That is completely contradictory. Swine flu is insignificant causing fewer than 10 deaths in America despite it being used as a political vehicle. Google 'number of deaths from flu' and it shouldn't take long to figure out that swine flu is not very significant in the statistics.
There are thousands of deaths per year from various forms of flu. Making one paticular form that has caused fewer that 10 deaths is quite obviously a political pandering, not a display of scientific commitment.
I would like to be optimistic but this does not look like any kind of improvement to me. Josh Sharfstein will still be there with a slightly less prestigious job title and I do not see this bringing about any change.
DW
Just want to point out that the 1918 Influenza pandemic started out as a "weak" virus and then mutated to very virulent and deadly strain. Perhaps that is why they are keeping an eye on it?
Just a thought.
Honestly I really think the media is to blame on this one. God, they had updates every xx minutes on this. Politicians/government have to cater the the media sadly.
Most years in the US during the summer, at least in the midwest area, we hear a whole bunch about west nile virus. It makes news stories, a lot of talk, and the result is always small. Same thing.
Most years in the US during the summer, at least in the midwest area, we hear a whole bunch about west nile virus. It makes news stories, a lot of talk, and the result is always small. Same thing.
That is what I heard on the radio from a fellow that owns a company that does nothing but track contagions (sp?). He said that the 1918 pandemic started out as a weak virus similar to the swine H1N1 and it too initially primarily killed apparently healthy people. Then when flu season started, it mutated with the common flu and became the pandemic that it was. We should soon find out if that will happen with this one because the flu season has started in the southern hemisphere.
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