WASHINGTON - When asked about the effectiveness of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA ) in an interview Sunday on ABC News’ “This Week,” President Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card said the FDA was doing “a spectacular job.” Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3), a member of the House Committee on Appropriations Agriculture Subcommittee and critic of the agency’s oversight of drugs, today issued the following statement.

“It is unconscionable that the Administration would credit the FDA with doing a ‘spectacular’ job after a litany of failures and doubts expressed by its own scientists -particularly regarding the competency of federal programs to monitor drugs once on the market. Recent events show FDA is operating in a very close relationship with the manufacturing companies it regulates and appears to be in a constant regulatory conflict of interest - hardly surprising, given that the President has left the agency without a permanent leader for almost two-thirds of his first term.

“The result is that the American people are being put at risk. I hope this Administration will act quickly to appoint a strong leader at the FDA who is independent of pharmaceutical company interests, and work in a bipartisan manner to reform this agency so that Americans will have confidence that the medicines they are taking are safe.”