This is quite worrisome news from the Associated Press. Scientists aren't certain the FDA is properly checking the safety of the nation's drugs.

About two-thirds of Food and Drug Administration scientists are less than fully confident in the agency's monitoring of the safety of prescription drugs now being sold, according to an internal survey.

Also, more than one-third of those scientists have some doubts about the process for approving new drugs, the survey found.

Complete results of the survey, conducted by the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, were released only after an advocacy group filed a Freedom of Information Act request. The release comes in the wake of safety concerns forcing removal from the market of Vioxx, an arthritis drug, and Congressional testimony by an agency scientist that the F.D.A. mishandled safety concerns about other drugs.

Link.

This is not the first recent story that calls FDA practices into question; just two days ago The New York Times' Barry Meier reported on possible deaths stemming from lax oversight. The fact is that the Bush administration has done everything it can to get the FDA off the backs of the pharmaceutical industry -- one of Bush's biggest backers -- to the detriment of the American people.

Something must be done, but it will take some real action by Congress (which probably isn't going to come from the Republican side of the aisle). One thing is becoming increasingly clear to this blogger: it's going to be a long four years.