For Immediate Release

Contact: Mary DeLucco
Breast Cancer Action
(415) 243-9301 ext. 16

Breast Cancer Action Demands FDA Reform

San Francisco, CA—Breast Cancer Action (BCA), a national grassroots education and advocacy organization, announced today that it is joining with other health care advocates in demanding that Congress adopt legislation that will reform the Food & Drug Administration’s (FDA) drug approval process and protect the American public from unsafe drugs.

The legislative proposals for FDA reform include improving agency transparency, eliminating conflicts of interest among agency advisers, enhancing post-market studies of approved drugs and devices, and protecting safety whistle-blowers.

BCA joins the National Women’s Health Network, Our Bodies Ourselves, and the National Physicians Alliance in supporting these important legislative efforts.

“This legislation is essential to the public’s health,” says BCA Executive Director Barbara A. Brenner. “It is now clear, as it should have been before, that the FDA is no longer focused on drug safety from a public health perspective.”

BCA is also supporting legislation calling for the creation of an independent agency to evaluate drug safety.

“There is no question that the FDA’s dependence for funding on the pharmaceutical industry makes it impossible for the agency to do effective post-marketing safety studies,” says Brenner.  “We need an independent body to make these important decisions.”

Breast Cancer Action is a national grassroots education and advocacy organization that carries the voices of people affected by breast cancer to inspire and compel the changes necessary to end the breast cancer epidemic.

Since 1998, BCA has refused to accept funds from corporations that may create a real or apparent conflict of interest for BCA. Corporations covered by this policy include pharmaceutical companies.

For more information, go to: www.bcaction.org.

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