Its Time for an FDA Makeover!
Have you heard the latest presidential news?? Well, maybe its not the “latest” anymore, but President Obama has announced that the Food and Drug Administration has some serious problems that need to be addressed. He emphasizes the importance of food safety. He has announced that the new Food and Drug Administration Commissioner is Margaret Hamburg and Deputy Commissioner Joshua Sharfstein. Many consumer groups have applauded this decision.
The white house speaks of Hamburg as “a nationally and internationally recognized leader in public health and medicine, and an authority on global health, public health systems, infectious disease, bioterrorism and emergency preparedness. She served as the Nuclear Threat Initiative’s founding Vice President for the Biological Program. Before joining NTI, she was the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to this, she served for six years as the Commissioner of Health for the City of New York and as the Assistant Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. ”
And about Sharfstein, they say this: “He was the Commissioner of Health for the City of Baltimore. “He has been recognized as a national leader for his efforts to protect children from unsafe jewelry and over-the-counter medication, and ensuring Americans with disabilities have access to prescription drugs. He is a member of the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice of the Institute of Medicine.”
Obama has also started a new group within the organization called the Food Safety Group. He knows that the FDA has a lot of work to do when it comes to examining all food processing plants across the nation. It has obviously not done its proper job in recent years. Obama vows to change that.
Considering what happened when Reagan was first elected and Donald Rumsfeld got to choose the new FDA commissioner, a duty he profoundly abused for his own benefit, the new decision made by the president is indeed a great step towards change in this nation. I only hope that the new commissioners dont stop at just inspecting food plants, but the overall condition of the government agency.
Thank you President Obama, for seeing what needed to be done and making the change. I cant wait to see what happens!
Now I recall the president’s exact quote: The FDA is a “hazard to public health.” Ha ha! Nailed it!
We can all thank the Obama administration for making some much needed reform of the FDA. Lou Dobbs has reported on the deficiencies of the FDA extensively, and now something will finally be done about it. Thanks for your contribution to Take Charge of Your Health Care Carnival.
Absolutely. I hope this is the first of many FDA reforms.