An FDA physician whose job it is to review the safety of new drugs was hospitalized involuntarily for an unspecified “mental disorder,” according to a new report Friday from Daily Wire.
The report said it was Dr. Jeffrey Siegel, chief of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Drug Evaluation Sciences, who posted online a report on what happened to him.
The Daily Wire said police dispatch logs from the Montgomery County, Maryland, police department show Siegel was “transported from his home to a hospital for ‘mental disorder’ at 3 a.m. on May 9.”
“Police declined to release a report on the incident despite a Freedom of Information Act request, but Siegel wrote about being taken from his home in a rambling note left on a neighborhood listserv,” the report said.
There, Siegel apparently wrote, “15 minutes later I saw bright red and blue lights (I may have the colors wrong) outside the house and then EMTs in our house who started to ask me to please come with them. Thinking I was being asked to go voluntarily I politely declined. They insisted. Finally, they turned me around in the steps of my front hallway on Moorland Lane, handcuffed me, forced me unto a gurney, tied me down, took me in the ambulance to the hospital.”
The note was posted about a week after the hospitalization, the report said.
The report said a biography of Siegel points out he is the head of an office in the federal agency that “oversees Clinical Outcome Assessments, Biomarker Qualification, Research and Bioinformatics.”
That would be under the “Office of New Drugs.”
The Daily Wire reported, “One neighbor who received the missive via Nextdoor expressed concern about Siegel’s ability to do his job, given that Siegel also wrote that he makes ‘major decisions that impact on public health.’”
“I am frankly left a little bit worried for the soundness of operations at our FDA, if indeed that is true,” the neighbor, who was unidentified, wrote.
The neighborhood chat procedure also included Siegel’s complaints that he was unable to get drugs he wanted.
He complained a doctor refused to provide him drugs over his “trouble” getting to sleep.
Siegel said he paid between $12,000 and $18,000 a year for a “concierge” fee.
“I had trouble sleeping so I asked Dr. Kammula for something to sleep. She refused,” he wrote. “The first night I got to sleep at 2:30. The following night I never got to sleep and, sleepless at 4:50AM, I called Dr Kammula, She again refused to help me.”
“I don’t know if anyone else has gone to work for 10 hrs after zero sleep but it’s not a pretty sight, especially if your job carries a lot of responsibilities – I’m an office director at FDA making major decisions every day that impact the public health. Tonight I’ve been trying to reach her since 6PM and she still hasn’t returned my phones calls (now 11:30).”
He wondered if anyone knew of a “good lawyer.”
That prompted further response from neighbors, with one saying, “I would suggest a psychologist, rather than a lawyer. Good luck getting the mental health help you need.”
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