WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday announced it would name Ned Sharpless, the director of the National Cancer Institute, the acting commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration next month.
The announcement came just a week after the current commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, announced he plans to resign in early April.
Health secretary Alex Azar confirmed the announcement at a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee. The news was first reported by Fox Business Network.
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So, he plans on focusing mostly on costly cancer drugs which are not a guaranteed treatment, but chronic pain patients who could easily function in society for many years get no mention! Is there any plan to reinstate the primary practitioner to order pain meds for their patients truly in need? Yeah, we know which one takes precedent. No money in it for pain patients since the drugs are already on the market and are a minute cost of chemotherapy agents!! I guess they just want all of us to commit suicide or use the illegal drugs being imported which is the real opioid crisis!! Why are cancer patients more important than people with severe degenerative spinal disorders, arthritis, neuropathy from diabetes or previous nerve injuries, etc? I am sick of being considered part of the opioid crisis when all I need is Tramadol!!
I hope Sharpless pays equal attention to medical and dental device safety as to drug development and cancer care. The fastest way to cures is to prevent harm, and thereby reduce the incidence and burden of cancers, autoimmunity and toxicity reactions, infections, inflammation, and chronic diseases.
FDA badly needs to set a new standard for pre-screening all non-emergency medical and dental patients for biocompatibility with device materials before they are installed, in addition to stronger upfront screening of each device for safety, and periodic review as new information comes to light.
It is time to add precision devices and precision dentistry to precision medicine. Why? Patients have wide diversity in genetics, prior and synergistic exposures, methylation pathways, allergies, autoimmunity, toxicity, and more. It pays to get it right the first time.
P.S. With a name like his, it doesn’t look good for the needlestick industry (joke)…
Now NCI may get a real DIRECTOR.
Another industry insider. He must own stock in IBM, if he is peddling the Wilson failure, as AI. “Commercialization” is how our healthcare sytem bcame so broken. At least the Cancer Industry is profitable.