| Ilena Rose 2006-10-18, 4:34 pm |
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http://www.newstarget.com/z020783.html
NewsTarget.com printable article
Originally published October 17 2006
Former FDA commissioner Crawford to plead guilty after charged with
lying
about conflicts of interest
(NewsTarget) Former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner
Lester
Crawford is set to plead guilty today to charges of filing false
financial
disclosure forms and conflicts of interest, according to court papers
filed
yesterday by the Justice Department.
The government charges that Crawford and his wife owned stock in
several
companies that fell under FDA regulation, and failed to fully disclose
that
information as required by federal law. The court papers also charge
that
Crawford assured federal ethics officers that he and his wife had sold
stock
in those companies, when they had not.
Crawford's attorney, Barbara Van Gelder, said that under a plea
agreement,
her client would not dispute the government's charges, and would
likely face
fines and a possible prison term of up to two years.
"At the end of the day, he owned these stocks and he will admit he
owned
them while he was at the FDA and he will take responsibility for
that," Van
Gelder said.
The Justice Department found that Crawford and his wife owned stock in
Pepsico Inc., Sysco Corp., Kimberly-Clark Corp., Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
and
other companies regulated by the FDA. At one point, Crawford -- who
owned at
least $140,000 of stock in soda maker Pepsico and food distributor
Sysco --
acted as chairman of an FDA panel charged with studying the obesity
problem.
Crawford's decision on that panel would have affected both companies.
The court papers also charge that Crawford did not disclose his income
from
exercising stock options in agricultural biotechnology company Embrex
Inc.,
for which he had been a member of the board of directors.
Crawford -- a food safety expert and veterinarian -- unexpectedly
resigned
from his position as head of the FDA in September 2005 without giving
reason. He'd officially held the position for two months, though he
had been
acting head of the agency for more than a year.
FDA critic Mike Adams, author of "Grocery Warning," calls the FDA a
"criminal organization" and claims it puts pharmaceutical and food
industry
profits ahead of public safety. Adams called the charges against
Crawford
"yet another serious blow to the illusion of FDA credibility.
"Crawford's guilty plea now establishes as indisputable fact what
myself and
other FDA critics have been saying for years: The agency is headed by
white-collar criminals who deliberately make regulatory decisions that
are
in the best interests of drug companies and junk food giants, rather
than
protecting the health of the public," Adams said.
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