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Reps. John D. Dingell (D-MI), current chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the US House and Representatives, and Bart Stupak (D-MI), chairman of that committee?s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said that moving the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act and other measures for drug and food safety will be a key priority for the next Congress.
Washington, DC (Nov. 18)-Reps. John D. Dingell (D-MI), current chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce in the US House and Representatives, and Bart Stupak (D-MI), chairman of that committee’s Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, said that moving the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act and other measures for drug and food safety will be a key priority for the next Congress. The lawmakers introduced a discussion draft of the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act in April 2008 and a revised draft in July 2008. The next Congress, the 111th, will convene in January 2009.
“Over the course of our investigation, the committee has found that FDA not only failed in its basic mission, but refused to admit its failures and take steps to protect Americans from unsafe food and drugs,” Dingell said in a Nov. 18 press release. “Now, the policy chieftains at FDA are scrambling to convince the new Administration that they are willing to do what they have failed to do for the past eight years. While this change of heart is welcome, I believe it is only because of the fine work of Chairman Stupak and the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. Regardless, in the 111th Congress, the committee will swiftly move FDA reform legislation that is needed to ensure FDA does its job.”
The legislators say FDA has recently taken enforcement actions that they and other members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce have urged over the last two years. These examples include:
In addition to urging for legislative reform through action on the Food and Drug Administration Globalization Act, the lawmakers also are seeking changes in personnel at FDA. “The investigations that Chairman Dingell and I have led over the past two years found that the Bush Administration’s political appointees and high-level FDA bureaucrats have lined their pockets with outrageous bonuses, while neglecting the agency’s core mission of protecting Americans from contaminated food and unsafe drugs,” said Stupak, in a committee press release. “Now, in the Administration’s final days, policymakers at FDA want to appear to be tough on industry. This latest posturing is no reason for FDA political appointees to retain their positions. I encourage the incoming Obama Administration to clean house among FDA’s political appointees and bring change to an agency that badly needs it.”
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