A little-known fact when patients testify before the FDA:
Brown’s message about the need to reduce disproportionately high mortality rates among African-American women, like herself, resonated whether she was testifying before the FDA, addressing the nation’s mayors, or speaking with members of Congress, where she was a staff assistant to former US House Majority Leader Jim Wright.What few in Brown’s audiences knew is that the patient advocate personally profited from her cancer-survival message, accepting funding from major pharmaceutical companies that produce cancer treatments, according to tax records.
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I testified before an advisory committee, and they asked every speaker to declare if anyone paid their expenses to be there or if they owned any stock in the company whose drug was in question. What’s hard about that? I paid my own way to a meeting because it was that important to me, but I’m sure not everyone can afford to do so. And why is it that no one questions whether Public Citizen has a conflict? They complain that speakers don’t represent the public, but they claim that their ideologically driven agenda represents “consumers” (they most certainly do NOT represent me!). But they could fund all the people they wanted to go to these meetings and still get a free pass becuase they claim to represent the public, while drug company money is somehow dirty.