David Willman of the Los Angeles Times, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on Rezulin, elaborated: “senior government officials repeatedly played down the drug’s propensity to cause liver failure and death. Before it was withdrawn on March 21, the FDA assured doctors and patients that Rezulin’s potential benefits in lowering blood-sugar levels outweighed its grave risks. . . . As deputy director of the FDA’s drug-evaluation center, [Dr. Murray M. ‘Mac’] Lumpkin helped make Rezulin the nation’s fastest-approved diabetes pill and, to the end, resisted its withdrawal.”
