Katherine Eban is testifying before Congress and elsewhere about her book, “Bottle of Lies,” which paints a stunning, deeply researched picture of FDA being unable to ensure the safe manufacture of most drugs we take.
As a New York Times preview summarized it: “The fake quality-control data, bird infestations and toxic impurities at the overseas plants that could be making your medication.”
Among other horrors, Eban explains that sloppy manufacturing is one thing that can lead to substandard antibiotics that could contribute to microbes’ resistance to the drugs used to control them. Researchers fear such resistance will kill millions of people in the future.
“Eighty percent of active ingredients for both our brand and generic drugs come from abroad, the majority from India and China. America makes almost none of its own antibiotics anymore,” Eban said in the New York Times piece.
The book took Eban 10 years to write, while people most certainly died due to poor drug quality. During those years reporters usually were not able to talk to people in FDA or not able to talk to them without censors, because FDA prohibited that many years ago. It’s been over two decades since the agency kicked reporters out of its building.
That kind of contact is at the heart of reporting. It’s no wonder we did not know what was happening and it took a top investigative reporter a decade to do what might have taken less than half a year, if people weren’t silenced. Indeed, reporters might have been regularly covered this story indepth.
The book is critical journalism that reveals massive, long-term failures in journalism. Reporters are happily unaware of dangerous agency failure. We publish stories mostly from FDA releases, briefings, public meetings or other highly controlled information, knowing all the while the approximately16,000 staff are officially silenced and usually actually silenced. However, we make money. FDA looks good.
Here in the U.S. is a book which according to official FDA rules is banned information flow, since it exists because someone did defy the rules to provide information to a journalist.
Of course, as Society of Professional Journalists’ surveys show, such rules for silencing employees are now widespread across the country. They are a cultural norm, a system for burning books and other information before they exist.
Among other horrors, Eban explains that sloppy manufacturing is one thing that can lead to substandard antibiotics that could contribute to microbes’ resistance to the drugs used to control them. Researchers fear such resistance will kill millions of people in the future.
“Eighty percent of active ingredients for both our brand and generic drugs come from abroad, the majority from India and China. America makes almost none of its own antibiotics anymore,” Eban said in the New York Times piece.
The book took Eban 10 years to write, while people most certainly died due to poor drug quality. During those years reporters usually were not able to talk to people in FDA or not able to talk to them without censors, because FDA prohibited that many years ago. It’s been over two decades since the agency kicked reporters out of its building.
That kind of contact is at the heart of reporting. It’s no wonder we did not know what was happening and it took a top investigative reporter a decade to do what might have taken less than half a year, if people weren’t silenced. Indeed, reporters might have been regularly covered this story indepth.
The book is critical journalism that reveals massive, long-term failures in journalism. Reporters are happily unaware of dangerous agency failure. We publish stories mostly from FDA releases, briefings, public meetings or other highly controlled information, knowing all the while the approximately16,000 staff are officially silenced and usually actually silenced. However, we make money. FDA looks good.
Here in the U.S. is a book which according to official FDA rules is banned information flow, since it exists because someone did defy the rules to provide information to a journalist.
Of course, as Society of Professional Journalists’ surveys show, such rules for silencing employees are now widespread across the country. They are a cultural norm, a system for burning books and other information before they exist.
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