...Former FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan made some progress moving the agency to speed up the drug approval process. But he was pulled away to run Medicare, and agency bureaucrats have since been working feverishly to turn back the clock. The latest evidence of backsliding was a recent vote of the Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) to recommend against approving Johnson & Johnson's leukemia drug Zarnestra.... This is a special shame because ODAC used to be a bastion of common sense, wherein clinicians who treat cancer patients would often buck FDA statisticians to approve new drugs. But ODAC is now chaired...
