Scripps Clinic Chief to Lead Probe of FDA

Dr. Charles Edwards, president of Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation, was named Friday to lead a committee that will review the operations of the Food and Drug Administration, a federal agency that has been hit by a scandal involving the regulation of generic drugs.

In the past year, three former FDA employees and several drug company executives have been convicted in connection with alleged bribery involving the testing and certification of generic drugs. Federal regulators are investigating cases in which brand-name products evidently have been substituted for generic drugs undergoing testing for FDA approval.

Edwards will chair a 12-person committee that will review the FDA, which Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan on Friday called “one of the most important guardians of American public health.” Sullivan, who appointed the committee, said it is “crucially important that FDA carry out its missions in the most effective manner possible.”

Edwards served as FDA commissioner from 1969 through 1973 and was assistant health secretary from 1973 through 1975.

“It’s important to recognize that the FDA regulates more of American industry than any single agency of government,” Edwards said Friday. “And the changes in the industry that it regulates have been enormous.”

Edwards said his committee will try to determine if “No. 1, its laws are adequate for the purpose . . . secondly, we need to know if the agency is organized correctly and if it has the resources needed.”

Although committee members are still being selected, some members already are meeting, Edwards said.

“We hope to have our first (general) meeting in four to six weeks. And I think the secretary would like a report within a year.”