ICN’s Milan Panic Apologizes for Calling FDA Commissioner a ‘Jerk’

Milan Panic, volatile founder and chairman of ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc. in Costa Mesa, doesn’t deny that he called Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Frank Young “the jerk commissioner” during a interview published last Sunday.

But he says he regrets the name-calling, which occurred as Panic was complaining of the treatment his company’s drug, ribavirin, has received at the hands of the FDA.

Calling Young a “jerk,” Panic says, can only hurt ICN. He says he has called Young to apologize.

ICN repeatedly has tried to win FDA approval of the drug for varied maladies, including symptoms of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. But the FDA has rejected ICN’s test data and criticized the company for self promotion.

The anti-viral drug has just one approved use in the United States but is sold throughout the rest of the world for a treatment of a wide number of viruses.

Research into new uses is continuing. For example, five Spanish researchers published a study in the January, 1987, Journal of Virology. Their paper suggests that ribavirin can be used to help cure foot-and-mouth disease.