Sometimes we can avoid irritation in our work lives, sometimes not. Sept. 20 was a day when some pretty annoying themes crept back into my workday via coverage of a session dealing with the NIH budget. Regular readers of the MDD Perspectives blog know this is something of a pet peeve of mine, but when one considers the laggardly budget at FDA, the NIH budget discussion is nothing short of mind-numblingly over the top. To wit: During a Sept. 20 press briefing at the National Press Club, Rep. Ed Markey said the prospect of 8-10% cuts to the NIH budget...

There’s a lot of consternation and maybe even a little constipation of late about the U.S. federal budget, and rightly so. If the White House and Congress can’t come to some resolution about budget sequestration, the FDA budget could tighten enough that user fees would disappear, which would cripple the agency. Complicating matters further is the series of tax issues – a convergence dubbed the fiscal cliff – that ripen at the end of this year, giving everyone inside the Beltway more to worry about. This is all difficult enough without an election, so it’s easy to be pessimistic. And...

There isn’t much that stays behind closed doors these days, and the case of Jim Mazzo, the outgoing CEO of Advanced Medical Optics, might be nothing more than a case of camaraderie-loosened lips … or something more toxic. To recap, Mazzo, has been charged by the SEC with insider trading violations thanks to trades made by several former professional baseball players. The thread of the story seems to be that Mazzo told Doug DeCinces in 2008 of the then-impending move by Abbott to acquire AMO. It appears DeCinces then relayed the scoop to a couple of other former major league...