Seniors leaders of the Senate Health Committee recently published two different articles from the U.S. government’s independent watchdog, stating that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have an adequate plan to keep up with science.
According to the articles, the FDA must improve its plans to meet the fast pace of science, enabling it to approve and authorize new medicines more efficiently. In turn, this would benefit countless patients throughout the U.S.
“These reports demonstrate the need for Congress to pass smart laws and then conduct rigorous oversight to ensure that an agency tasked with safeguarding the health of Americans isn’t falling behind,” Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-TN) said. “As we work to pass the most important legislation this year in 21st Century Cures, I will also be working to ensure FDA carries out provisions of the 2012 law that were intended to help its centers work together and help the agency keep up with the fast pace of science.”
The report emphasizes that the FDA needs oversight and smart legislation to guarantee that U.S. citizens receive cures and treatments faster.
“I authored the provisions of the 2012 law that required GAO to conduct this review because I want to make sure that FDA keeps pace with the medical innovation that holds so much potential for treating and curing devastating diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s,” Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), senior Senate Health Committee member, said. “Today’s reports reveal deep and concerning cracks in FDA’s foundation. This is not a matter of FDA not having enough money -- this is about FDA’s culture. I hope FDA takes GAO’s recommendations to heart and moves quickly to adopt commonsense reforms to better measure and manage how FDA fulfills its public health mission.”
