Oppose Cures Act

What’s one of the most common ways for Americans to die? FDA approved prescription drugs. The president-elect’s 100-day plan says reforming health care “will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA.” We are now one of the worst industrialized countries regarding safety of the approval process. We need more red tape, not less. We need to focus on the dangers of prescription drugs that keep increasing.

Instead, more ways to “fast track” drug approval are created. Armies of lobbyists for Big Pharma successfully promote legislation that lower safety standards and put more Americans at risk of being guinea pigs for dangerous new drugs. We chuckle at the end of the drug commercials fast-talking through side effects: intestinal bleeding, blurred vision, irritability, dying. That last side effect is tragic for about half a million people in this country every year.

Prescription drugs have a place but continuing to erode the integrity of a corrupted FDA enterprise and its sickening nepotism with pharmaceutical companies is not the direction we need to head. Oppose the 21st Century Cures Act or any legislation that undermines the FDA’s ability to ensure the safety and efficacy of prescription drugs.

Nichelle Bonner

Spokane Valley