A bill currently in the Senate would establish BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency, to research future drugs, vaccines and treatments in cooperation with private industry. The problem? It would be exempt from public scrutiny.

By creating a federal agency shielded from public scrutiny, some lawmakers think they can speed the development and testing of new drugs and vaccines needed to respond to a bioterrorist attack or super-flu pandemic. . . .

The legislation also proposes giving manufacturers immunity from liability in exchange for their participation in the public-private effort.

“We must ensure the federal government acts as a partner with the private sector, providing the incentives and protections necessary to bring more and better drugs and vaccines to market faster,” Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said when the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions approved the bill [Oct. 18]. . . .

But it is the secrecy and immunity provisions of the legislation that have alarmed patient-rights and open-government advocates. The agency would be exempt from the Freedom of Information and Federal Advisory Committee acts, both considered crucial for monitoring government accountability.

“There is no other agency that I am aware of where the agency is totally exempt either from FOIA or FACA,” said Pete Weitzel, coordinator of the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government. The coalition is an alliance of journalism groups, including the American Society of Newspaper Editors and Associated Press Managing Editors, that wrote (PDF) to lawmakers seeking amendments to the bill. “That is a cause for major concern and should raise major policy concerns,” Weitzel said.

Burr spokesman Doug Heye said the provisions would keep competitors from gaining proprietary information through FOIA. However, confidential business information already is exempt from FOIA. . . .

Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s Health Research Group, said the agency as proposed would represent a setback to decades of progress in opening up to the public the process of testing the safety and efficacy of drugs.

“These provisions are extremely dangerous,” Wolfe said. “The fact that they are being proposed, really exploiting people’s fears about pandemics and epidemics, is outrageous and goes backward on the progress on the use of the Freedom of Information Act and Federal Advisory Committee Act to increase public scrutiny and increase the correctness of decisions that are made.” — Associated Press

There’s no reason to eliminate oversight of any government agency. Not even intelligence agencies, which hold our nation’s most critical secrets, are exempt from FOIA.

Effect Measure points out that the lack of oversight in such an agency is likely to result in another Brownie, that is, a useless crony mismanaging the agency.

Not to mention the potential for uncaught waste, fraud and abuse, and the restriction of actual information sharing, critical in scientific research.

Judging by the government’s track record so far from the response to Katrina to bioterrorism preparedness, the public has good reason not to trust the government. Keeping BARDA’s activities under wraps and saying “trust us” might defer some negative newspaper articles for a while, but it won’t make the agency more effective. Transparency and the pressure that comes from public scrutiny will keep the government working better than it would in secret. — Project on Government Oversight

In short, the bill, S. 1873, would protect pharmaceutical companies and useless government cronies at our expense.