Most of the coverage of the departure of Rep. John Dingell (D., Mich.) from the powerful chairmanship of the House Energy and Commerce Committee has focused on his anti-environmentalism and his staunch defense of the interests of dysfunctional Detroit auto manufacturers ("The Waxman Democrats," Review & Outlook, Nov. 21).

But there is much more to Mr. Dingell than his having propped up a failing industry instead of a tougher approach that could have required it to improve and become competitive. He has fashioned a congressional career of bullying behavior. During the 1980s, while chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Dingell intruded constantly in federal agencies' domestic policy-making and their negotiation of international regulatory agreements. His committee's ideologically motivated investigators continually harassed scientists from various regulatory agencies (of whom I was one), although the congressional staffers lacked any understanding of the subject area and were, in fact, lobbying against both a sound scientific approach and a climate that would encourage American innovation.

Research and development in fields such as agricultural biotechnology and pharmaceuticals still bear the scars.

Mr. Dingell was a master of the politics of personal destruction. In acrimonious hearings, he made vile and untrue accusations against prominent scientists, university administrators and business executives, relying on his congressional immunity to avoid being sued for slander.

In performing his committee's oversight role over the FDA, Mr. Dingell acted as a kind of self-appointed grand inquisitor. He and his staff often summoned agency officials to humiliating and abusive hearings and demanded that they produce mountains of documents on unrealistically short deadlines. His investigators even helped themselves to FDA files that contained confidential business information, a clear violation of federal law.

Mr. Dingell lost track of the constitutional division of powers between the executive and legislative branches of government. His actions were often grossly inappropriate.

Congressional committees have responsibility for oversight of government agencies, not of individual companies or universities. Congressmen don't get to play drug regulator, park ranger, soldier or air-traffic controller at their whim.

Mr. Dingell's abusive behavior was an affront to effective and enlightened government. He will not be missed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dr. Henry I. Miller is an academic researcher, author and commentator. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a Bachelor of Science degree in Life Sciences and attended the University of California, San Diego, receiving the M.S. (Molecular Biology) and M.D. degrees. After completing his clinical training in internal medicine as a Clinical Fellow in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Miller was a Research Associate in the laboratory of Philip Leder at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Miller joined the FDA in 1979 and served in a number of posts involved with the new biotechnology, among them Special Assistant to the FDA Commissioner and founding director of the FDA's Office of Biotechnology. During his government service, Dr. Miller wrote and lectured frequently on the regulatory requirements for biotechnology products, and participated frequently on various expert and policy panels as a representative of the FDA or the US government. As the FDA's contact person for the Securities and Exchange Commission, he reviewed the accuracy of claims made by companies in their prospectuses about the likelihood and timing of drug approvals. Dr. Miller is currently at Stanford University, where he is a fellow at the Hoover Institution. His research focuses on the relationship between science and regulation, the costs and benefits of government regulation, models for regulatory reform, and federal and international oversight of biotechnology. Other research areas include various aspects of bioterrorism and the need for better oversight of nutritional supplements. Dr. Miller is the author of more four hundred articles in scholarly and popular publications. He writes frequently for such publications as the Financial Times (London), Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Times, Biotechnology Law Report, Trends in Biotechnology, and Nature Biotechnology. He is the author of Policy Controversy in Biotechnology: An Insider ' s View (R.G. Landes Co. and Academic Press, 1997) and ' To America ' s Health: A Proposal to Reform the Food & Drug Administration ' (Hoover Institution Press, 2000). Dr. Miller is a director of Consumer Alert, a national consumer advocacy organization; a director of the American Council on Science and Health; an Adjunct Scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute; and a scientific advisor to the George C. Marshall Institute.