Bush picks von Eschenbach as FDA chief

By Caren Bohan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President George W. Bush on
Wednesday picked physician and cancer survivor Andrew von
Eschenbach as head of the Food and Drug Administration.

But the nomination of the current acting FDA chief quickly
became embroiled in a debate over the long delays in the FDA’s
decision-making on access to emergency contraception without a
prescription.

Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and
Patty Murray of Washington announced they plan to put a hold on
von Eschenbach’s nomination until the FDA makes a decision on a
pending request for approval of the Plan B emergency
contraceptive.

“It is past time for the FDA to stop dragging its heels and
make a decision on Plan B,” the senators said in a statement.

Von Eschenbach, 64, has been acting FDA chief since
September. He succeeded former FDA commissioner Lester
Crawford, who resigned less than three months after surviving a
tough Senate battle for confirmation.

Von Eschenbach will face a confirmation hearing before the
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Both
Clinton and Murray are on the Committee.

Last summer, Crawford’s hearings were stalled by Democratic
objections to repeated delays over Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s
bid to sell its Plan B emergency contraceptive — which can
reduce the chances of pregnancy after unprotected sex if taken
within 72 hours — without a prescription.

Democrats allowed a full Senate vote after they thought the
FDA would act on the company’s request. But a final decision
has still not been made on the proposal, which has lingered at
the agency for three years.

DRUG SAFETY CONCERNS

Last week, an aide to Senate health committee chairman Mike
Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, said the FDA would need to address
the contraceptive issue before the panel acts on a nomination.
Enzi issued a statement on Wednesday praising the nomination
but did not address the controversy.

In addition to the debate over emergency contraceptives,
the FDA also faces recent concerns over drug safety.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, whose
panel oversees spending on drugs and other supplies by the
federal Medicare and Medicaid health programs, has criticized
the FDA’s handling of a trial of blood substitutes that tested
them on some patients without consent.

He said the agency has “entrenched cultural problems” and
likened it to an aircraft carrier in saying it would be hard to
turn around.

“It’ll take a very determined, reform-minded individual to
do it,” the Iowa senator said.

When he took the acting FDA job, von Eschenbach stirred
controversy by initially keeping his other position as head of
the National Cancer Institute. Some consumer advocates viewed
that as a conflict of interest and feared his work pushing
cancer treatments would cloud his judgment on drug safety.

Von Eschenbach later relinquished his daily duties at the
cancer institute.

During the late 1980s, while he was chairman of the urology
department at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, a
colleague noticed a scalp lesion, which turned out to be
melanoma, a dangerous form of skin cancer. But doctors caught
it early enough that they were able to treat it. He also has
been treated for prostate cancer.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Jeremy Pelofsky and
Peter Kaplan)