Sen. Schumer Turns up Heat on Tissue Transplants
BY JOHN MCCORMICK, JANUARY 16, 2006
It has now surfaced that Sen. Charles Schumer has sent a letter to the acting head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach calling for more oversight of the tissue transplant industry noting that he was "deeply disturbed" over the BTS incident last fall.
In a statement Schumer noted that "We're turning the heat up on... how the industry is regulated" as a part of his desire to see more (i) FDA oversight and (ii) regular (vs. random) inspections of the tissue bank industry. In addition, he said in the letter that the industry "is especially subject to impropriety due to the profitability of tissue trade."
