Nine Penny Savings

•To expedite new drug approvals, since 1992 the brand name drug companies paid the FDA more than a billion dollars. In the first five years (i.e. from 1992-1997) the FDA’s new drug approval efficiency increased dramatically and new medications caught in FDA red tape were approved without further burden to America's taxpayer.

•In exchange for reducing the burden on taxpayers, there were no new drug approval efficiencies after year five. U.S. citizens pay nearly twice as much for their medications as anyone else in the industrialized world. U.S. citizens have become the world’s guinea pigs by testing newly released medications first. An unethical partnership was created between the regulated and regulators. U.S. citizens can no longer trust the FDA to protect them. Known deadly medications are given FDA approval and remain on the market far longer. Very few new breakthrough medications have been produced, and the well-being of Americans by the tens of millions have been put in jeopardy: more than 200,000 Americans died.

Regardless of the negative outcomes, Washington politicians consider the FDA's collection of drug industry funds a success...since 1992, to save American taxpayers less than "nine pennies" a month, Congress has twice voted to reauthorize the law that puts millions upon millions of Americans at unnecessary risk.

The FDA's dependence on drug industry funding is a conflict of interest that makes the FDA’s motives suspect. Until the drug industry funds are eliminated and/or the pro-drug industry strings attached to the money are removed, the nation's oldest, largest and historically, most respected, consumer protection agency can no longer be trusted to objectively protect and safeguard citizens.