Mark Senak is a lawyer and works at the public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard. This week, Senak’s Eye On FDA blog tallies up members of FDA advisory committees without online CVs. Why are some committees posting all their members’ biographies, and others only doing so sporadically?

It’s an excellent point. Senak notes that back in the day, you had to file a Freedom of Information act request to learn about the backgrounds of advisory committee members. Now some committees post them. Others don’t.

To take just an excerpt from his full post, Senak writes:

“If you look at just the CBER and CDER committees, there are several exceptions.  Many of these members do not have a link to their CVs.  Why?  They must all have CVs.  Why do some have links while others do not?  An examination of 21 committees finds that of there are a number of deficiencies.  Of the 16 CDER committees I examined, only 1 roster was complete with links to all of the member resumes (Anti-Infective Drugs Advisory Committee). CBER did somewhat better - of the 5 committees in CBER, 2 had complete links (Blood Products Advisory Committee and the Vaccines and Related Biologics Advisory Committee).”

It’s a great point. In an increasingly transparent age, an age in which the FDA is (fairly or not) less highly regarded than it was prior to the Vioxx withdrawal, consistency should be ... well, consistent.