WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of seven former FDA Commissioners are uniting to advocate for breaking the Food and Drug Administration out of the Department of Health and Human Services and making it an independent agency.
The idea is to make the FDA less vulnerable to political pressure, so it can focus instead on protecting public health. While FDA’s mission has always been politicized, the issue is particularly salient now given President Trump’s propensity for pressuring the agency to prioritize politically popular policies. Current commissioner Scott Gottlieb has been a good soldier for that effort, even implementing the Right to Try pathway that previous commissioners said would “create a dangerous precedent.”
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It is kind of late now. They really should have spoken up sooner, but they chose to ignore the dead Americans. They were too influenced by industry to do their jobs for years now.
Funding without accountability. The bureaucrat’s dream.