" FDA" Portrait

Many thoughts and feelings came to my mind when I constructed this piece over a period of a few months in 2002.  I was wondering from an artists' perspective, what would the face of the FDA or the drug company be. It would be an ugly face, screaming at the public to 'take these medicines, they are safe" and it would be the face of a monster; a corporation that together in group decision where not one person can be guilty, but together in complete, conformity, railroads a drug onto the market. The two I-beams are the railroad of conformity that leads to murder of people's lives, of the tendons in their body's, of the nerves and connective tissue, of the cells in the pituitary that create the good hormones... the teeth are little steel cylinders, bottles of pills that the monster is spitting out to the doctors and the public.  The eye is one twisted steel cold universe of one track thinking.  It symbolizes a crime against humanity and continues the history of mass destruction but on a huge scale, one person at a time, rather than villages or trainloads or napalm; whatever evil damage humans do to others; it takes different forms, but it's the face of a killing machine that has lost it's soul.  That to me, is the FDA and a company, J&J that has NOTHING in patient information on DELAYED reactions that are devastating and lifelong.  It's also the face of a feeling of wanting to lie down between railroad tracks to finally stop the pain.  It's a thought only, not an action, but in chronic bad pain, the thought has been all too real and all these thoughts and anger and sadness comes out in a piece of art here to share with you.  paul cahan   January, 2014    Sculpture made: 2002; 3 years after Levaquin adverse reaction.