Janet Woodcock

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Person.png Janet Woodcock  Rdf-entity.pngRdf-icon.png
(civil servant, health bureaucrat, Big pharma/Lobbyist)
Janet Woodcock.jpg
BornAugust 29, 1948
NationalityUS
Alma materBucknell University, Northwestern University
SpouseRoger Miller
Member ofOperation Warp Speed
Big Pharma civil servant responsible for the approval of opioid drugs, creating the United States opioid epidemic killing hundreds of thousands. In August 2021, responsible for giving permanent US approval of COVID-19 vaccines.

Employment.png Commissioner of Food and Drugs

In office
January 20, 2021 - Present
Acting

Janet Woodcock is a civil servant in the Food and Drug Administration. In August 2021 as acting Commissioner of Food and Drugs, she gave the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, so far administered under emergency use authorization, a permanent approval.

It seems she parachuted into the job only for the purpose of being a fall person for fully approving new COVID drugs and vaccines.[1]

Earlier in her career, she played a big part in the regulatory approval of opioids, including for children ages 11 – 16, a practice that made addicts of and killed several hundreds of thousands Americans.

Career

Woodcock joined the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1986. From May 1994 to April 2004 Woodcock served as Director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) of the FDA, and again from January 2007 until April 12, 2021.

In 2002, she led the Pharmaceutical Quality for the 21st Century Initiative using a risk based approach to "modernize" pharmaceutical manufacturing and regulation.[2]

Opioids

As head of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, the FDA department responsible for approving new prescription opioids, she was instrumental in the approval of a powerful opioid, Zohydro, even though the FDA’s own scientific advisory committee voted 11-2 to keep the drug off the market because it was unsafe. The FDA leadership has the authority to override the decisions of its advisory committees.[3]

A January 2021 letter from a coalition of nonprofit advocacy groups stated that “recent reports that the pharmaceutical industry enthusiastically supports Dr Woodcock’s candidacy for FDA Commissioner do not surprise us.”[3]

She “consistently put the interests of opioid manufacturers ahead of public health, often overruling its own scientific advisors and ignoring the pleas of public health groups, state Attorneys General, and outraged victims of the opioid crisis”.[3]

The letter accused Woodcock of “dereliction of duty” for allowing opioid manufacturers to spend years disseminating false claims that narcotic painkillers were less addictive and more effective than they really were, contributing to the rise of mass opioid prescribing.[3]

It has earlier been revealed that FDA-officials responsible for opioid approvals were taking part in “pay to play” schemes where manufacturers paid tens of thousands of dollars to attend meetings to draw up the criteria for approving prescription narcotics.[3]

Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

In August 2021, it was reported she as acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, will give the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, so far administered under emergency use authorization, a permanent approval, making the push for mandatory vaccinations far more intensive.[4] She will not be nominated permanent head of the Food and Drug Administration.[5]


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