| BrentB 2006-10-18, 9:32 pm |
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Ilena Rose wrote:
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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.
good news. he should have been sneaky like Rumy and his tamiflu. While
obvious, I doubt anything can be proved.
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