Some of the panalists on the FDA advisory committee which endorsed the Yaz and Yazmin branded birth control pills, had ties to Bayer, the manufacturer of those pills.
The panelists of the Reproductive Drugs Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory committee jointly voted 15 to 11 that the benefits of drosperinone-containing BCPs outweighed the risks.
Some members reported their financial ties to Bayer, and the FDA thought that was just fine, and not a conflict of interest sufficient for their exclusion from the advisory groups.
Sidney Wolfe, MD, of Public Citizen comsumer advocacy group had opposed that class of birth control pills due to risk of thromboembolism. His role on the advisory committee was reduced to non-voting status due to his ‘intellectual conflicts’.
Intellectual conflict = bad. Financial conflict = good.
What goes around, comes around, and Bayer has to feed the lawyers now, after years of untoward post-marketing experience.
Was this an purposefully constructed food chain?
