FDA Still Headless

The Washington Post is reporting that partisan politics and industry demands will delay the appointment of a new FDA commissioner until after the fall elections. The top slot at the agency has been open since Bush took office. The Post quotes "some who have been involved in the process" as attributing the delay in appointing a new commissioner to a struggle between the White House and Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), who leads the Senate committee that would recommend to the Senate whether to confirm any selection. The pharmaceutical industry -- which has provided significant and ongoing support to the Republican Party -- has strong opinions about how the FDA should operate and who should lead it, and White House chief political adviser Karl Rove has been their champion. But Kennedy, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has equally strong positions, and has said the next commissioner should not have direct ties to the drug industry. In the meantime, the Post reports, some pharma execs now claim the absence of a commissioner is beginning to slow the regulatory and approval processes.