Should Steve Nissen Be The Next FDA Commish?
30 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // November 5th, 2008 // 1:38 pm
Is Nissen a love-him-or-hate-him kind of candidate? Is he too closely tied to some drugmakers, given that the Cleveland Clinic cardiologist runs clinical trials? Or is he too critical of pharma to weigh industry’s interests? What do you think? Barack Obama will nominate someone to succeed Andy von Eschenbach. Here’s a chance to deliberate…
Should Steve Nissen Be The Next FDA Commish?
- No (76%, 344 Votes)
- Yes (24%, 110 Votes)
Total Voters: 454
Loading ...
Lisa Van S
Hey Ed,
Thanks for this post, it brought on a healthy chuckle!!
adam feuerstein
Nissen is not The ONE needed at FDA.
anon
Oh my god, NO !!! He would be a disaster. He is clearly biased, loving those that do studies with him (Pfizer, Astra Zeneca) and vindictive against those who don’t (Merck, GSK).
Rob Califf would be a much more reasonable and prudent choice.
B. Martin, MD
The initial reaction is a definite No. But on second thought, let Nissen know what it’s like to deal with the truckloads of finger-wagging criticism that go with the job, instead of being the guy who shovels it out.
Justice in MI
Agree would be an awful choice. Also won’t happen. Obama will choose someone with more solid administrative experience and less _obviously_ controversial.
Knowledgeable
He comes across as a white knight, but he is dangerous, vindictive, has his own agenda, and has his own skeletons. . . if only someone would look seriously.
Sandman
Agree with the statement that Califf would be an outstanding choice.
Bill
Nissen is too tainted from the incident where he took confidential data from his position on an FDA advisory committee and ran separate statistical analyses which he published. He cannot be trusted!
Sophie
Of all the FDA hearings I’ve ever attended or spoken before, Steve Nissen was the only person who ever stuck up for patients, urging his committee to recommend black box warnings on all ADHD drugs for children. His committee voted 8-7 for this proposal.
Of course, the very next day, the Pediatric Advisory Committee, with who knows how many lucrative industry ties, voted the other way. And so the FDA did nothing. No surprise there.
I don’t know what Nissen’s conflicts might be but anyone who would speak up for the safety of patients over the greed of the industry is a friend of mine.
P.K
I disagree. He is a great choice. I think he willl stand up for patients and public. He has the guts and the grey matter.
KB
ABSOLUTELY NOT! He is completely biased, and will say anything to get face-time, regardless of the validity of the statement. The FDA has enough issues, it does not need a self-absorbed, arrogant blowhard on top of everything else.
Marcos
Nissens conflicts are many and his ties to Senator Grassley and Henry
Waxman are legend. He denied to the Heart.org within the last year that he was positioning himself or was even interested in an FDA post. Let’s see if he is man enough to live up to his earlier statement or was he just being political because it would have looked bad if he would have admitted the truth.
annieb
Nissen is completely biased, and appears to be out for his own grandification. He does not stand up for patients, he only apprears to. It’s very easy to get the general public riled up by printing the kind of data he does. The public doesn’t understand a good scientific study from one that is not. They hear something negative and beleive it to be gospel. The public never jumps on good data,nor the researchers who present it. Only bad news gets press, and Nissen has figured that out. How many patients has he actually hurt by his faulty publicatons??
Jack
In addition to Steve Nissen, I am encouraged to hear that Dr. Susan Woods is also being considered by Barack Obama to be the new FDA Commissioner. Dr. Woods actually resigned from the FDA in protest over the allowed politics that dictated the decision on Plan B.
The GAO’s final report on the matter described an appalling level of manipulation and suppression of science. Congressman Henry Waxman described the Plan B decision “as preordained from the outset.” Like Plan B, it is clear to many that the science and normal process has been overturned by a small group of people with inordinate influence at the FDA and have subverted the normal process.
Susan Wood has stated that she believes “the FDA must put an end to outside advisers with financial ties to the drugs and other medical products they are recommending. It is unacceptable for the FDA to allow doctors and scientists with stock in a company or consulting relationships with that firm to advise FDA to approve that company’s new product. The FDA regulates one-fourth of the American economy. The agency should be accountable to the American people, not to the companies it is supposed to regulate.”
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/08/01/transparency_strength_at_the_fda/
Justice in MI
As far as I know, we have no idea whom the Obama team may be considering. At this point, it is all speculation.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t interesting to discuss our own nominees. Only that we don’t know if that discussion articulates at any point with the discussions that will lead to an actual nominee.
Jack
Justice in MI,
Among names surfacing this week for FDA Commissioner, Dr. Steve Nissen and Dr. Susan Wood.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:zd0SwsNNNDcJ:www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2008/11/obama_consumer02.html+obama+susan+wood&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=8&gl=us
Justice in MI
Thanks, Jack. What remains unclear to me is whether any of this speculation is connected with discussions actually going on within Camp Obama at this point.
JD
NOOOOOOOO…they guy is biased and uses his pulpit at the Cleveland Clinic to preach his angle and opinion…as a researcher and doctor, his comments in the past have hurt competitors and benefited those companies that used his IVUS technology in their studies….the guy is not well respected in the scientific community…but somehow the media continues to use him as an “expert”, which is a joke…thats why his name is always in the news, not because he is some great unbiased scientist…him running the FDA would be even more of a mistake!
Jack
Justice in MI,
I can’t answer whether Susan Wood has expressed an interest in becoming the new FDA Commissioner, but Susan Wood did serve on Obama campaign as an advisor on women’s health policy. I think she is seen by many as being a very positive choice.
PK
This is to be expected at such a website. Just the fact that BIG Pharma is reacting in such a way is justification enough. And BTW, we need a proactive FDA and not one where we have BIG pharma as the controller. Nissen is the guy as his agenda and that of Obama matches well..
Really?
Umm, PK, wouldn’t you want someone with just a bit more administrative experience and proven capability to lead an enormous organization like the FDA with significant challenges it faces?
Also, FWIW, being anti-”Big Pharma” isn’t a virtue, but rather a career choice.
Guy F Airey
Oh geez, don’t give it to Nissen. That character is totally committed to Big Pharma. Haven’t we had enough of those kind of MDs. Here is this fat cat, at the end of his career, so he wants a fat chair to sit in, instead of working. No thanks.
Gina Pera
My comment comes late here. I just Googled Steve Nissen to check out today’s CME senate committee hearings.
Then I see “Should Steve Nissen be the next FDA commish” and I almost had cardiac arrest!
Sophie wrote: “Of all the FDA hearings I’ve ever attended or spoken before, Steve Nissen was the only person who ever stuck up for patients, urging his committee to recommend black box warnings on all ADHD drugs for children. His committee voted 8-7 for this proposal.”
You think this is “sticking up for children”???? More like sticking it TO children. Ignorant and shameless headline seeking. Nothing more, or less. For those who fail to understand the complexity of this subject, however, not to mention the danger of a cardiologist (for petesake) windbagging his way into neuroscience, well, I hope they are not in a position to to vote on anything official concerning it. Support for Nissen in this area only betrays ignorance about ADHD and the adverse impact of this Black Box warning.
Others have it more accurately here — dangerous, not to be trusted, has an agenda. These all describe Nissen to a T.
Too many physicians are being led around by their noses — by pharma reps with cleavage, by grandstanding politicians like Grassley and egotistically grasping physicians like Nissen. But particularly by reformers who aren’t smart enough to assess where the profession went wrong. You can assail “Big Pharma” all you want, but that’s not coming close to The Problem with Physicians.
While I respect some physicians highly — place them right up there with brilliant scientsts and compassionate humanitarians — I also despair at the widespread physician focus on rote procedures/dogma and the entire lack of critical thinking, not to mention common sense. Like lemmings first lurching to pharma feasts and then lurching the other way, as if their stringent rejection demonstrates they are more virtuous than thou. It’s embarrassing to watch.
When showboating cardiologists like Nissen truly give a damn about the welfare of children and when more hospital physicians start washing their darn hands, that’s when I know the medical field has come of age. Until then, the collective should exercise some self-scrutiny and stop blaming everyone else for their troubles.
Thinking of Grassley and his ilk, along with Nissen, leading the reform charge…frightening. Extremely frightening.
Gina Pera, author
Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.?
Winner - ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year for Psychology 2008
riv
Salut Gina. Keep the light on.
Oh. By the way. Steve wants to know if you’ve had your CRP checked. Hurry.
Gina Pera
Don’t remind me, riv.
Nissen wants to give us all statins, never mind that they can decrease cognition (and worse). So, then the people with ADHD he wants to protect from stimulants will suffer even more neurocognitive deficits and, no doubt, just as many cardiovascular events.
But he doesn’t have a clue about other dietary factors that contribute to plaque. For example, magnesium deficiency is epidemic in this country, especially among African-Americans. Read research scientist Mildred Seelig’s work in this area (and others). A simple mineral could alleviate many of these cardiovascular risks. B vitamins, too. And Nissen doesn’t have a clue.
Physicians such as Nissen, in their ignorance, completely frighten me.
Gina
Hans Mendelson
He is a physician. You are not. What makes you think that you know about his occupation than him?
Just wondering.
The black box is a good idea. Parents need to know the facts before drugging their children.
Local doc
Go to your room, Hans Mettlesome (aka Don Potochny). You’re becoming a pest.
Hans Mendelson
Huh?
Portland window cleaning
Umm..
No way!
He’s definitely not the right choice.
Local doc
The DSM-V Task Force is debating whether to tag the mental illness label on people who text message and talk on a wireless device while they drive. Labeling this a mental illness will disqualify 3/4 of the Task Force.