The Food and Drug Administration has booted Curt D. Furberg, M.D. of Wake-Forest University Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina from an upcoming federal advisory panel meeting because he publicly criticized the painkiller Bextra, the Wall Street Journal reported today.
"'They'd said because I had taken a public position, I was disinvited,' Dr. Furberg said. He added that he felt he wasn't biased, and he was 'trying to be evidence-based' in making findings about Bextra from an analysis of data. 'I collected the information to get evidence to contribute to the debate, I drew a conclusion, and I'm off,' he said. Dr. Furberg said he still is on the FDA's drug safety and risk management advisory committee, but won't be part of the February Cox-2 meeting."
Dr. Furberg had accused Pfizer of trying to suppress the connection between its own painkiller and Vioxx, a drug in the same class of Cox-2 inhibitors, which Merck was forced to pull off the market.
It's good to see a doctor from a red state standing up for his "evidence-based" scientific opinion, even if it means he's shut down by this faith-based administration.
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