In a June 21 Washington Times column, Milton Wolf attacked Food and Drug Administration (FDA) official Richard Pazdur as a “one-man death panel” over the FDA's approval process for the cancer drug Avastin, claiming that “Pazdur's hand-picked team retroactively moved the goalposts to block the drug.” However, as Media Matters has noted, Avastin -- which was given “accelerated approval” in 2008 with the requirement that further studies confirm its benefits -- has serious side effects without significantly prolonging life.

From Wolf's column, headlined, “The FDA's one-man death panel; If you have breast cancer, your life is in the hands of Richard Pazdur”:

In 2009, our bureaucratic ruling class suddenly declared that women in their 40s no longer needed mammography screening. This came as a shock to me and to the 20 percent of my breast cancer patients who are women in their 40s. They were livid, as were their families and millions like them across America, and they proceeded to melt Washington's phone lines to express their outrage. This will pale in comparison to the fury of women's scorn if Richard Pazdur, the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) cancer czar, gets his way.

[...]

Genentech, the creator of the anti-cancer drug Avastin, successfully met all of the FDA's own fast-track requirements only to find that Dr. Pazdur's hand-picked team retroactively moved the goalposts to block the drug anyway. More than 17,000 metastatic breast cancer patients who are currently taking Avastin have become Dr. Pazdur's pawns. Sadly, these women know they won't be cured, but many have seen their cancers go into remission for months and some for years because of this drug.

Previously:

Beck's latest evidence for “death panels”: FDA may rescind approval of ineffective drug

Right-wing blogs falsely claim Avastin issue is example of government “rationing”

Fox's Johnson Jr. Falsely Claims Avastin Is An Example of “Obamacare Rationing”