FDA Conflict of Interest: Maybe It Continued Because the Press Was Not There

Below is a letter I sent to the New York Times some weeks ago. It was not chosen for publication.

To the editor of the New York Times:

The article He Regulated Medical Devices. His Wife Represented Their Makers is impressive journalism.

Unfortunately, it comes many years after this harmful conflict of interest has been in place. That’s an illustration of the horrific impact of the information control in the federal government and elsewhere. Over three to four decades agencies have implemented, or had imposed on them, bans on employees speaking to reporters, or on speaking to them without involving the authorities through public information offices.

Journalists gripe about this “minder” system, but with suspicious consistency quickly assert some version of, “Good reporters get the story anyway.”

They continue to make that claim even in the face of numerous stories like this one documenting longtime malfeasance that the entire press corps was oblivious to.

A newsletter editor has chronicled the rise of these constraints in FDA. A former communications head for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has detailed how each administration since President Reagan tightened these restrictions, motivated by the lack of pushback from the press or anyone. It’s bone-chilling given CDC’s tragic pandemic missteps that could have been reported earlier had journalists walked the halls and talked to staff without censors.

Last year, in an apparent first, journalist Brittany Hailer sued on her own behalf against gag rules in the Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh. She won a good settlement with solid free press language.

The Society of Professional Journalists has called on all journalists to oppose these unconstitutional restrictions. With history’s horrors in mind, it’s time the media recognize press manipulation for the successful system it is.


Kathryn Foxhall