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| | We Salute Coverage of FDA Investigation by Times Reporter By John Millrany - April 17, 2001adjustercom.com salutes the Los Angeles Times for winning its 25th Pulitzer Prize, American Journalism’s most distinguished honor for keepers of the fourth estate. We take particular notice of this event, which was announced April 16, because of reporter David Willman’s investigation of the Food and Drug Administration approval of seven drugs suspected of causing the deaths of more than 1,000 patients.
Times media critic David Shaw wrote in today’s editions: "Willman’s two-year examination of the FDA—highlighted by a 12,000-word package of stories published on Dec. 20—disclosed that the agency had approved drugs ‘while disregarding danger signs or blunt warnings from its own specialists’ and had then been ‘slow to seek withdrawals’ of the drugs, even after having received ‘reports of significant harm to patients.’"
The Pulitzer Prize board of directors called Willman’s work a "pioneering expose" and cited his "analysis of the policy reforms that had reduced the agency’s effectiveness."
Willman won his award, which carries a $7,500 stipend, in the Investigative Reporting category of the Pulitzer, which was established in 1917 by the Graduate School of Journalism at New York’s Columbia University. Runners-up in the category were Jack Dolan and Mike McIntire of the Hartford (CT) Courant on the secrecy surrounding doctors who have been nailed on disciplinary actions.
Times reporter Virginia Ellis attained the finalist designation in Beat Reporting for her coverage of State Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quakenbush’s questionable financial dealings and his subsequent resignation. The Times had a total of six Finalists, more than any other newspaper.
The 44-year-old Willman said his excitement over taking the top prize was tempered "in a very sobering way by the fact that I’ve gotten to know quite a few families who have lost loved ones to (the drug Rezulin) and can’t be brought back by this."
According to Shaw, "After Willman’s stories prompted the withdrawal of Rezulin from the market in March of last year, he focused on other drugs (and) wrote about how, in the aftermath of demands for quicker approvals of AIDS drugs, ‘Congress told the FDA to work closely with pharmaceutical firms in getting new medicines into market more swiftly.’
"As Willman wrote, ‘The FDA achieved its new goals, but now the human cost is becoming clear.’ The seven drugs whose history he examined were ‘cited as suspects in 1,002 deaths,’ he wrote, and ‘Because the deaths are reported by doctors, hospitals and others on a voluntary basis, the true number of fatalities could be far higher, according to epidemiologists." |