David Graham Receives APHA Award for Excellence

David Joseph Graham, MD, MPH, today received the 2005 American Public Health Association Award for Excellence for his scientific work aimed at improving community health through greater medication safety.

Currently the associate director for science and medicine at the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Drug Safety, Graham’s 20-year career in drug safety has contributed to the withdrawal of 10 marketing drugs, including the diet drug Fen-Phen (Rezulin) that was linked to heart problems. He also has shown that most FDA risk management programs have had little or no effect in improving the safety profile of problem drugs. Within FDA, Graham is the only medical officer ever to be promoted to the rank of master medical reviewer.

In August 2004, Graham completed a study linking myocardial infarction risk with the drug refecoxib, marketed under the brand name Vioxx. He estimated that 88,000-141,000 Americans had experienced myocardial infarction because of Vioxx use, and 61,000 of them had died. He testified before the Senate Finance Committee in November and described structural, cultural and scientific biases within the FDA that he said lead to the approval and continued marketing of unsafe medicines.

“In many ways, it is not an exaggeration to say that David Graham’s leadership and courage is standing between the American public and the use of marketed medications with potentially serious risks that, in many instances, are not warranted or are seriously delayed in public awareness of such risks,” said APHA member Julie M. Zito. “His work demonstrates an ability to identify questions of great consequence, to help engage the resources to design and conduct the studies to assess the question and to be fearless in bringing interpretation to the policy level.”

Graham graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and trained in internal medicine at Yale and in adult neurology at the University of Pennsylvania. After his clinical training, he completed a three-year fellowship in epidemiology with the U.S. Public Health Service while earning a master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins with concentrations in epidemiology and biostatistics. He has written numerous articles and book chapters covering adverse drug reactions and trends in drug use. His many awards and honors include the Cliff Robertson Sentinel Award from the Association for Certified Fraud Examiners, the FDA Outstanding Service Award for identification, evaluation and acquisition of new data resources, and the FDA Commendable Service Award for market withdrawal of troglitazone.

Founded in 1872, APHA is the oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world. The association works to protect all Americans and their communities from preventable, serious health threats. APHA represents a broad array of health officials, educators, environmentalists, policy-makers and health providers at all levels working both within and outside governmental organizations and educational institutions. More information is available at www.apha.org.

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