Institute calls for label symbol, funding, and reorganization to fix drug safety

One could read recent headlines about Food and Drug Administration-approved new drugs that, within a few years of their approval, are the subject of serious health questions and get pulled from the market. Vioxx was the most prominent recent example, but there have been others. There was a time when FDAers would say that kind of thing only happened in Europe, so when critics asserted that some drugs got approved there that didn't get approved here, the FDA would counter by saying it is more careful, since the Europeans pulled more drugs back off the market after approval. It appears that is no longer so.