Federal obesity epidemic hits the FDA again!

Something is wrong with the FDA. They doubled their staffing at the beginning of the 1990’s, which lead to a temporary decrease in processing speed, but bureaucratic inertia soon set in and approval times slowed down again.

FDA is going to increase their staff with 1,300 people by October, which will be paid for increased industry fees. It is pretty drastic that a government agency increase their staffing with 13 percent, but industry can afford the increased fees right? It actually only means that the increased cost will be passed down to you and me, also known as Joe and Jill consumer. Grandma will have more expensive drugs at the pharmacy and your sister’s friend who is a single mom will not be able to afford that breast milk pump she needs to go back to work.

FDA also announced a blackmail plan, ehem, I mean incentive plan, to encourage industry to develop more medications against tropical diseases. If they do develop this, FDA will issue them a tradable voucher that will guarantee them a 6-month review time on other medications. That sounds like a great deal right? 6 months is the maximum review time that FDA is allowed for a drug application according to the law, the fact that they routinely disregards this means that people are suffering and dying, waiting for FDA to approve the drugs that helped them immensely when they participated in the trials. While FDA is dragging its feet on approving drugs that could save lives and alleviate suffering for regular people, the bureaucracy is bloating up like a balloon.

We have an obesity epidemic in the federal bureaucracy in my opinion.