Government agencies for citizen protection?

Hardly.

According to government records obtained by NRDC through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, EPA officials met secretly more than 40 times with representatives from atrazine's main manufacturer, Syngenta, while the agency was evaluating the weed-killer's toxicity. Ultimately the agency agreed to allow atrazine to stay on the market even though the chemical has contaminated drinking water sources across the country. The EPA also has been involved in private negotiations with the chemical company Amvac over the status of the insecticide DDVP (dichlorvos), which it sells under a number of trade names, including "No-Pest Strips."
  Memory Blog article

I know I've said this before, but when I was doing some college work, I did a report on the EPA. At that time (early 1990s), the majority of the EPA officials were also board members of various corporations. I have no reason to believe it's otherwise at this time.

I also used to work for the State of Missouri's pest management liaison to the federal agencies that regulate and monitor pesticide use and toxicity. Our office was charged with researching and promoting least toxic agricultural pest management. At that time, atrazine had just come under the microscope of environmentalists. The boss told us that our priority for that year was to make sure that atrazine stayed on the market! Why? Because he was also a farmer whose corn production was heavily dependent upon using it for weed control.

Last night I was listening to an author talk about natural remedies for health problems and how the FDA is tied into the pharmaceutical industry. Appalling and discouraging. But not surprising. It appears that the FDA has designated that only a drug can cure or treat a disease. Therefore, any distributor of a natural remedy (including vitamins) cannot advertise or claim that the product is useful for the treatment or cure of a disease or health condition unless they get a federal drug registration for the product. And that costs something like three-quarters of a billion dollars to pursue. He also said that the food industry is still putting additives in their products that cause increased hunger, obesity, and addiction.

And don't expect the average doctor to tell you any of this. They have been trained and taught whatever it is that keeps the AMA and BigPharma in business.

Update 9:35am:

In an attempt to head off further criticism of the FDA, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Mike Leavitt, announced a new independent Drug Safety Oversight Board would be created within the FDA to monitor medicines once they are on the market and to update physicians and patients with emerging information on risks and benefits.

[...]

Dr [David] Graham, who has accused the FDA of ignoring worrying evidence about Vioxx when it was still on the market, said he wanted to include in his testimony tomorrow details of a study he completed with Gurkirpal Singh of Stanford University School of Medicine.

This study "talks about the risks of Cox-2 agents and other drugs that are widely used," he said. "We think the findings are important. The committee might not think so, but it should have the opportunity to consider it," Dr Graham said.
  Memory Blog article

Dr. Graham won't be able to present testimony on new information he has, however, as he has been barred from doing so by the FDA.

Last November, the FDA publicly repudiated comments by Dr Graham naming five drugs, including AstraZeneca's cholesterol lowering pill Crestor and GSK's asthma drug Serevent, that he thought could be too dangerous for use.