In today's New York Times, there appears a story by reporter Gardiner Harris about FDA's new guidance intending to reduce conflicts of interest on agency advisory boards. (Note: The story refers to the proposal as "rules" but it is actually "draft guidance" which, unlike rules/regulations, does not carry the force of law.) The guidance is a response to an increasing problem at FDA: Scientists determining the public safety of drugs and medical devices often have financial ties to the products or industry on which they are commenting. There are pros and cons to the draft guidance. The good:

Can you guess which disaster this Washington Post article is about? In a stinging, wide-ranging assessment of..efforts, .... said that...had no strategy for restoring either government institutions or infrastructure. And in the years since, other agencies joined the effort without an overall plan and without a structure in place to organize and execute a task of such magnitude. Lines of authority remained unclear in the...effort. With a demand for speed and a shortage of government personnel, much of the oversight was turned over to the contractors doing the work. There was little coordination among the various agencies. The result was a series of missed opportunities to address the unraveling situation.... A. Hurricane Katrina. B. The Iraq war reconstruction C. The Afghanistan war D. It's an article from the future- it's about how they'll handle the next disaster.

According to BNA news service (subscription), House members grilled an Occupational Safety and Health Administration official as to why OSHA has only addressed the danger of a pandemic flu outbreak with guidance memos, instead of regulation. Unions and Congressional members have asked for a temporary standard to protect health care workers. Since no flu strain presents danger in America, the official claims, the agency cannot expedite regulation. I'm no epidemiologist, but I'm fairly certain pandemics do not announce their arrival nor move in an orderly and predictable fashion. As usual, the tangled mess that is the federal regulatory system has blocked a crucial rule. The big story of the day is a U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board report which faults OSHA for the BP oil refinery explosion in Texas City in 2005. The report finds, despite repeated fatal accidents over the years, OSHA failed to conduct adequate safety inspections at the plant. The 2005 blast killed 15. Read more from The Pump Handle here.

Be sure to check out the latest issue of our biweekly newsletter, The Watcher. Regulatory policy articles this time: Mine Safety Concerns Remain after Sago Leaders of Finance Committee Respond to IRS Outsourcing Program