GovernmentExecutive.com

Here's the FDA reservation. And there's agency scientist David J. Graham way, way off it in the distance. Graham headed to the Hill yesterday to lob a grenade into the whole Vioxx mess, calling it a "profound regulatory failure" and saying the agency is "virtually defenseless" against preventing a similar situation from arising again. In fact, he went as far as naming five drugs he thought were similarly dangerous: Crestor, Meridia, Bextra, Accutane and Serevent. This unexpectedly harsh assessment forced Dr. Steven Galston, acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, to take the extraordinary step of going on NBC's Today show this morning to "categorically reject" Graham's claims. Let's face it: It just hasn't been a good week for muzzling civil servants.