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A disappointingly small group of students
heard a progress report Wednesday on one
couple's exploration of the sexual equality
movement. . L . . .
And in a way, the sentiments of the articulate
Feigen Fasteaus echoed the stance of the entire
movement.
Quick-witted; chatty Brenda Feigen Fasteau
told the audience she is no longer angry; she no
longer feels the utter impotence of being in a
situation she can't change. t ,
"I don't feel the way I felt in those days, she
said of being a Harvard Law School student five
years ago, caught in a bastion of male supremacy
where women were ridiculed in class and banned
from the squash courts.
"As trivial as that may seem, I was angry at the
Institution. It was important that I vented that
rage, that I realized the importance of women
showing their anger."
Perhaps she was implying to students that
anger lies behind most of us; that dealing with the
irrational institutions of a still sexist society is
what remains ahead.
Assume then that we are beyond oppression of
a sex; that women deserve and will demand an
equal status in society. What does" that leave for
men? '
As Marc Feigen Fasteau noted, more men are
appearing in his audiences (probably about 30 per
cent at the Wednesday speech). Maybe they
realize the problem really embraces their roots.
"You may wonder why I'm here," Marc said in
opening, speaking slower and a little less strident
than his wife, but with a message just as
immediate.
"Men pay an enormous price for playing the
male stereotype-and not all of it is even related
to women," he said.
What does it mean to be a man, a "John Wayne
image of a man?"
"Strong."
"Silent.".
"And boring."
Leaving a carefully chosen array of socially
acceptable feelings for a man to express-and the .
resultant frustration of not being all that one can
be.
"What is so striking to me, is it makes you ask
just what is so important about the ceremony of
brandy and cigars?" Marc said of th nether
regions of power denied women in past years.
"If you add one woman, the image is gone.
Before you could say, "I'm here, and that means
I'm a man. If a woman is a member of a group,
then men feel it doesn't, prove anything."
Men are being shaken to the roots, to the
assumptions on which they were raised.
"I'm not saying we should give up being tough,
playing football, but just those aren't the only
feelings we have, not all the time," Marc
concluded.
So where does that leave men and women, at
a state university stuck out in the middle of
nowhere and yet everywhere?
Marc pointed out that men, too, will "have to
go through their anger phase." Perhaps they will
and realize their full potential Some already
have.
Brenda exemplified women who have moved
on, who have attacked oppression and who have
made peace with society. Making waves and yet
secure enough to enjoy a partnership with
someone else and thrive on it. And in Brenda's
case evert to be justifiably proud of motherhood
well chosen and deliberate. . .
Yet a reminder serves to illustrate that every
thing isn't fair yet.
"I couldn't believe'my fortune-to be in one of
the two states that has rescinded their support of
the equal rights amendment," she said.
"We've got to fight back-my advice is we can't
let it go. Our fear is that if twenty states decide to
rescind the amendment, Congress may decide it
hasn't been properly ratified. . . .please unelect
people who oppose the amendment."
Social changes, private and public, are involved.
Equality is a chance, as Brenda said, for a "greater
dream than an equal share of the pie.
"It's terribly important that we be what we
want to be. We can't be restricted by pictures in
our head."
Vince Boucher
con
House FDA report must not gather dust
ByNeilKIotz
A. U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee has
issued a damaging indictment of the way the Food and
Drug Administration (FDA) approves drugs for consumer
use, charging the agency with inefficient, lax and illegal
procedures.
The little-known report, based on a study by the House
intergovernmental relations subcommittee, rakes the FDA
for a number of questionable practices involving use of
advisory committees to approve drugs. In particular, the
subcommittee found that:
-FDA attorneys dissuaded an advisory panel from
recommending that Alka-Seltzer (which contains aspirin)
be taken off the market as an antacid. The panel was con
cerned that regular use might lead to aspirin poisoning or
cause permanent damage to the stomach lining.
After the paner reversed its decision and approved the
drug, the panel chairman reported that he and his
colleagues had been subjected to a "necessity of twisting
nA dierrttnrHntififi facta tn makft It fit lecal lansuaoe
"requirements."
officers that further experimental use of the contraceptive
Depo Provera be stopped because of cancer risks and the
danger of permanent sterility. '
Instead, the FDA asked an advisory board panel to
evaluate the drug, then withheld the information gener
ated by its own scientists that showed a cancer rate in
users almost twice as high as claimed by the manufacturer.
-The FDA convened ah v advisory panel to consider
approving the drug DES as a "morning-after" pill even
though the chief manufacturer of the drug hadn't applied
for approval because he thought he couldn't prove the .
drug was safe.
. The advisory panel initially concluded on the basis of
several cancer risk studies, that there was "insufficient
evidence for its efficacy and its safety." Three months
later the FDS csiled the panel back and told it the drug
could be found effective on anything more than a
"scintiLV or a "smidgeon" of evidence.
After the panel reversed its recommendation, the FDA
then prematurely announced to doctors that it had
.approved the drug for contraceptive use and. according to
the House report, it permits the drug to be shipped inter
state illegally to this day. ,
The House subcommittee also found that Significant
conflicts of interest embroil the experts on FDA advisory
Pan,The pool of experts In drug investigation is quite
limited so that the same experts may serve both govern
inm t sod industry, th .report said. . ... p ,,
In addition, the subcommittee criticized the FDA for
composing its panel primarily of doctors, a group that
makes decisions "more favorable to the practicing
physician than to the public at large."
For instance, doctors on FDA panels have talked about
watering down warnings on drug labels to make it harder
to sue them for malpractice. The report quoted one FDA
committee member as saying, "Now, is it not our duty to
get the practicing physician as much legal defense as we
can?"
Finally, the House report found that the FDA's entire
review process for nonprescription drugs may be illegal.
In 1972, the FDA decided to review ail non-prescription
drugs on a category-by-category basis. At the same
time it suspended prosecution of new drugs put on the
market without legal approval until that drug's entire class
" K --5 tlAMit 4M)n la
Even when the FDA's own scientists and medical
officers recommended action against an allegedly unsafe
drug ingredient, the agency still wouldn't act, said the
report.
In a recent case an FDA advisory panel found that
aerosol anti-perspirants, which contain zirconium, can
cause lung disease, and recommended that the FDA com
misioncr "take immediate steps outside of the normal
OTC (over the counterdrug review process to stop move
ment of these agents in Interstate commerce."
The commissioner refused. More than a year later, the''
drugs, which include Sure, Secret, and Arrid XX aerosols
remain on the market while the FDA's drawn out appeal
and comment processes go on.
To the extent that FDA's review procedures allow
illegal interstate commerce in such products, the House
report said, "they contravene stated purposes of the
Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic act and are therefore
not legal.
Although the report did not look at the evaluation of
non-prescription sleeping pills by the FDA, the Somincx
drug scandal embraced many of the same abuses. In fact
the most disturbing part of the House subcommittee'
report is its familiarity, for it shows that blatant conflicts
of interest and ciiminal unconcern for public safety are
not periodic lapses, but have marked much of the FDA'i
work tor the last decade.
Mixed with the mounds of other reports issued to the
full House, the FDA report may well languish unnoticed.
Although public outrage could provoke changes in the
FDA, the commercial media probably would be too busy
chasing the primaries and snippets about the Central Intel
ligence Agency to notice the report or bring it to their
readers' attention.
Whether any congressman or congresswoman will, in
the public interest, take on the powerful drug indsutry
lobbies and try to legislate FDA reform remains to be
seen. A $10 billion industry doesn't eo down without i
fight. ' .