The Whistleblower Who Exposed An FDA Scandal

Sirota talks with Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, the Harvard researcher who last month touched off national headlines when he resigned from a panel that advises the Food and Drug Administration on drug approvals. Kesselheim resigned because the agency approved a pharmaceutical company's unproven Alzheimer's treatment, even though the panel of overseers was nearly unanimous in finding that the therapy had not displayed compelling evidence that it worked. In a co-authored New York Times oped, Kesselheim warned that "in recent years, under steady pressure from the pharmaceutical industry and the patient groups it funds, the F.D.A. has progressively lowered its standards of effectiveness and safety required for drug approvals."