Diana M. Zuckerman (born 16 June 1950[1]) is an American health policy analyst who focuses on the implications of policies for public health and patients' health. She specializes in national health policy, particularly in women's health and the safety and effectiveness of medical products. She is the President of the National Center for Health Research (formerly National Research Center for Women & Families) and the Cancer Prevention and Treatment Fund.[2]
She was on the faculty at Vassar College and Yale University, and directed a longitudinal study of college students as director of the Seven College Study at Harvard University, publishing books and articles on the impact of media on children, the impact of religion on the health of the elderly, and how women's life experiences influence their mental and physical health. She left academia in 1983 when she was selected as a Fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional Science Fellowship program.[3]
From 1985 to 1993 she worked at the U.S. Congress in a House subcommittee where she was responsible for a dozen Congressional oversight investigations on health and social policy, including political manipulation of government grants to prevent child abuse, lack of safeguards for infertility treatments, financial conflicts of interest among National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant recipients, and the lack of safety studies on breast implants. Information from the hearings received widespread public health, government, and media attention, resulting in several policy and regulatory changes, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requiring implant manufacturers to submit safety studies for the first time.[3]
Her work focuses on improving the quality of medical products and healthcare in the United States. She has been highly critical of scientific and medical research paid for by companies, who then use this to promote their products, as well as the lack of media coverage on independently funded research that challenges industry-funded research. She has said:
You've heard of junk science — a term coined by corporations to describe research they don't like — but the real danger to public health might be called "checkbook science": research intended not to expand knowledge or to benefit humanity, but instead to sell products.[4]
In February 2011, Zuckerman and colleagues Paul Brown and Dr. Steven Nissen published a study in the peer-reviewed journal Archives of Internal Medicine, which evaluated the FDA's recalls of devices that the agency considered potentially deadly or otherwise very high risk.[5] Based on FDA data, the authors determined that most of the devices that were high-risk recalls had never been studied in clinical trials prior to FDA approval, and that the FDA needed to use more stringent criteria for implanted medical devices and those used to diagnose serious illnesses, and an editorial in the same issue agreed.[6][7][8][9]
In April 2011, Zuckerman presented the results of the study at a hearing by the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging.[10]
Zuckerman frequently writes articles regarding medical drugs and devices, as well as public health policy. Recent articles published in peer-reviewed journals include:
Zuckerman, D.M. (2021). Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) Versus FDA Approval: Implications for COVID-19 and Public Health. American Journal of Public Health. 111(6): 1065-1069.
Fox-Rawlings S, Gottschalk L.B., Doamekpor L., Zuckerman D.M. (2018) Diversity in Medical Device Clinical Trials: Do We Know What Works for Which Patients? Milbank Quarterly, 96 (3); 499-529.
Ronquillo, J.G. & Zuckerman, D. M. (2017) Software-Related Recalls of Health Information Technology and Other Medical Devices: Implications for FDA Regulation of Digital Health. Milbank Quarterly. 95(3): 535–553.
Rupp T., Zuckerman D.M. (2017). "Quality of Life, Overall Survival, and Costs of Cancer Drugs Approved Based on Surrogate Endpoints". JAMA Internal Medicine. 177 (2): 276–277. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.7761. PMID27898978. S2CID12752771.
Zuckerman, D.M. & Silcox, C.E. (2016) The Challenges of Informed Consent When Information and Time are Limited. In Informed Consent: Procedures, Ethics and Best Practices, Winston Hammond (ed.), Nova Science.
Zuckerman D.M., Jury N.J., Silcox C.E. (2015). "21st Century Cures Act and similar policy efforts: at what cost?". BMJ. 351: h6122. doi:10.1136/bmj.h6122. PMID26597099. S2CID206908512.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Gonsalves G, Zuckerman D (2015). "Commentary: Will 20th century patient safeguards be reversed in the 21st century?". BMJ. 350: h1500. doi:10.1136/bmj.h1500. PMID25814537. S2CID19510018.
Doamekpor, LA; Zuckerman, DM (October 2014). "Lack of diversity in cancer drug clinical trials may exacerbate racial disparities in mortality rates". Cancer Epidemiology. 38 (5): 645–6. doi:10.1016/j.canep.2014.06.007. PMID25048155.
^Redberg RF, Dhruva SS (June 2011). "Medical device recalls: get it right the first time: Comment on "Medical device recalls and the FDA approval process"". Archives of Internal Medicine. 171 (11): 1011–2. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.27. PMID21321286.
