Friday, September 25, 2009

Knee Jerks

New Jersey Senators Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg joined Congressmen Frank Pallone and Steven Rothman in exerting "extreme" and "unusual" pressure upon the Food and Drug Administration to approve a knee patch that the agency's scientists repeatedly and unanimously determined was unsafe, according to a report in the New York Times.

Each legislator received substantial contributions from the devices manufacturer, ReGen Biologics Inc., of Hackensack. Menendez received $9,100, Rothman $11,300, Pallone $3,300 and Lautenberg $2,300.

Staffers for each lawmaker denied that the money had anything to do with their advocacy of the unsafe device.

Hat tip to Blue Jersey.

3 comments:

James Hogan said...

Seems like Chris Christie should investigate Pallone. Start the count-down, Pallone has some answering to do.

For the MMM record - this "issue" was first noted a while back in the WSJ on May 12: http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2009/05/12/pallone-lends-hand-to-device-maker-then-asks-for-fda-probe/

Art Gallagher said...

Thanks Jim. After reading the WSJ article, it seems that Pallone is playing both sides of the issue.

Anonymous said...

"Staffers for each lawmaker denied that the money had anything to do with their advocacy of the unsafe device."

Right. And the check is in the mail. Size doesn't matter ...