Short answer: FDA is totally toothless these days after decades of industry lobbying and Republican budget cuts. The industry has decided how they want things to work.
And you're thinking this ability to bypass scrutiny must lead to problems.
Correct. When liabilities grow too big, the company will spin off the liabilities to a shell company without means to pay for damages caused.
(this is called a "Texas two-step" bankruptcy)
Please spend 30 seconds to search whether the fda budget has actually been cut over time (hint: it hasn’t)
The fda budget much like every other agency has grown incredibly in the last 50 years ( <1bnin 1992 to >6bn today). You can look at more recent numbers and see it’s still rising. When you hear cuts I’m spending it’s often cuts in proposed increases in spending which are often double digits. So you can grow an agency 10% a year for decades and then a single slow down or reversion to levels from just a year or two ago is seen as drastic cuts that will result in poison into our water.
You're not wrong about funding, but OP is correct about industry influence.
It varies a little by division/subject matter, but they basically have to run everything by industry and are subject to FOIAs and public shaming by senators and representatives beholden to industry.
Source: long-term partner of FDA employee, though this stuff is pretty widely understood.
You can educate yourself on the FDA process, including public access to all the FDA documentation, including meeting minutes and sponsorship slides. It’s all there on fda.gov
But instead of doing that you’ve decided to just write this comment instead and post something that looks quite silly for those that have taken the first approach.
When you navigate to the Clinical Trials section[1], the "View Clinical Trials Guidance Document" link[2] currently stalls, and then gives a 403 error page that says "Page Not Found". All of the information is not there on fda.gov, and whoever's in charge is doing a very sloppy job.
>Short answer: FDA is totally toothless these days after decades of industry lobbying and Republican budget cuts.
The funny thing about short answers is that they're often partly or wholly full of shit and don't describe the underlying reality. For example, see how different things get when you look at actual information instead of pulling ideological talking points out of your ass without knowing what the hell is even the case? (A common thing on this site among so many self-described highly intelligent people)
This is the FDA's actual funding history over the last 3 decades (page 6 of the PDF), showing a steadily increasing budget across both Republican and Democrat admins. Curiously, some of its bigger budget increases coincided with the first Trump administration even. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R44576.pdf
> after decades of industry lobbying and Republican budget cuts
If only the Democrats had been in power in that period. And if only lobbying weren't something that was impossible to prevent by a neutral third party paid for by taxes to do exactly that.
mentalfist|6 months ago
Correct. When liabilities grow too big, the company will spin off the liabilities to a shell company without means to pay for damages caused. (this is called a "Texas two-step" bankruptcy)
unknown|6 months ago
[deleted]
hulitu|6 months ago
Of course not. Side effects ? Which side effects ? /s
bko|6 months ago
The fda budget much like every other agency has grown incredibly in the last 50 years ( <1bnin 1992 to >6bn today). You can look at more recent numbers and see it’s still rising. When you hear cuts I’m spending it’s often cuts in proposed increases in spending which are often double digits. So you can grow an agency 10% a year for decades and then a single slow down or reversion to levels from just a year or two ago is seen as drastic cuts that will result in poison into our water.
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fda%20budget
scrozart|6 months ago
It varies a little by division/subject matter, but they basically have to run everything by industry and are subject to FOIAs and public shaming by senators and representatives beholden to industry.
Source: long-term partner of FDA employee, though this stuff is pretty widely understood.
refurb|6 months ago
But instead of doing that you’ve decided to just write this comment instead and post something that looks quite silly for those that have taken the first approach.
pharrington|6 months ago
[1]https://www.fda.gov/science-research/science-and-research-sp...
[2]https://www.fda.gov/node/358362
dmos62|6 months ago
southernplaces7|6 months ago
The funny thing about short answers is that they're often partly or wholly full of shit and don't describe the underlying reality. For example, see how different things get when you look at actual information instead of pulling ideological talking points out of your ass without knowing what the hell is even the case? (A common thing on this site among so many self-described highly intelligent people)
This is the FDA's actual funding history over the last 3 decades (page 6 of the PDF), showing a steadily increasing budget across both Republican and Democrat admins. Curiously, some of its bigger budget increases coincided with the first Trump administration even. https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/R44576.pdf
robertlagrant|6 months ago
If only the Democrats had been in power in that period. And if only lobbying weren't something that was impossible to prevent by a neutral third party paid for by taxes to do exactly that.