The Katrina Aftermath Debacle Finally Does Us Some Good

The Bush Regime took a lot of crap last week for naming veterinary scientist Norris Alderson to replace Susan Wood as Director of the FDA's Office of Women's Health. Wood quit her post last month in protest after the FDA delayed approval of the morning-after pill.

Here is an update from Tim Greive at Salon on this whole mess:

[S]ometime Friday, the FDA put up a new press release that said that Theresa Toigo -- who is (a) a woman and (b) not an expert in veterinary science -- is the new acting director. Alderson wasn't mentioned in the release, and the release that did mention him disappeared almost immediately from the Google cache, replaced somehow by an old post about insulin. It's as if the Alderson appointment never happened, but only sort of: Alderson is still listed as the acting director of the Office of Women's Health on a Department of Health and Human Services Web page. And the news release on Toigo says, rather cryptically, "This is a revision of this statement posted earlier on Sept. 16."

So what happened? Did someone in the press office at the FDA simply screw up? Or did the FDA name Alderson to the position and then change course once the agency realized that appointing an expert in veterinary science to the Office of Women's Health might send the wrong message or invite unwanted comparisons to another Bush administration appointee who had animals on his résumé? We'd like to know, and we've asked the FDA and Alderson to explain. We'll let you know as soon as they do.