When the Senate Finance Committee held hearings in November 2004 to investigate whether the US Food and Drug Administration had ignored safety warnings about the painkiller Vioxx, David Ross was, by his own account, "furious." Not that he had any personal involvement with Vioxx; he was a scientist and midlevel manager overseeing other drug reviews at the agency. But he was furious that anyone would speak badly of the FDA—"my organization," as he called it—in public.
A lot can change in two years. In 2006, Ross left "his organization" in frustration, after higher-ups ignored his repeated warnings of serious liver problems with the antibiotic Ketek. In the past, "people tended to be very invested in the agency and its mission and feel very proud of it," says Ross, now an associate clinical professor at George Washington University. "But there was more and more pressure to just get the review done. ...
