DAN TROY'S LAST PUFF

THE FALL OF THE HOUSE THAT TROY BUILT


As many here know, former FDA Chief Counsel Dan Troy earned his stripes in his successful efforts on the part of Brown & Williamson to block FDA regulation of tobacco during the Clinton years. That effort, and other deregulatory struggles against FDA especially regarding off-label promotion, made him the perfect candidate for FDA's top lawyer--and close to de facto Commissioner--during the first four years of Bush II. He is now Chief Counsel and #2 of Glaxo.

Given the FDA's successful bid to regulate tobacco, much to the house that Troy built has now been successfully dismantled. His arguments in favor of preemption were dismissed as essentially irrelevant by both sides in Wyeth v. Levine. With the regulation of tobacco, another piece of the Troy legacy goes into the dustbin.

Of course, one should never underestimate the persistence of those who fight for the agenda that Troy championed, and almost certainly still champions, from inside the walls of Glaxo. The Washington Legal Foundation and other hard-right "think tanks" have not given up their aims. They are only a bit more quiet about it at the moment.

The take-over that the hard-right engineered that culminated in the Bush years was a long time in the making. They are patient people. And they continue to sit on more money, as Philip Morris once put it, "than God."