Advocacy at a Glance

Advocacy at a Glance offers you the bullet point summary of current advocacy issues associated with the goals of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.

• Continuing Resolution Through December 11. Congress went up to the last day, but finally passed a continuing resolution keeping the federal government working for the next 10 weeks. However, from a political standpoint, nothing was resolved, so we may face the same deadlock again in early December. At least one variable will be different: House Republicans will have a new leader to replace Speaker Boehner. Please read this week’s Analysis and Commentary for the prospects for FDA and whether we should be optimistic.

• FDA Science Board Report Calls for Funding to Meet Responsibilities. The new FDA Science Board report -- Mission Possible: How FDA Can Move at the Speed of Science -- describes significant progress since the 2007 report, FDA Science and Mission at Risk. The new report notes that FDA’s mission continues to be “at risk." This is “due to an expanding and extraordinary range of increasingly complex responsibilities and insufficient resources with which to address them.” The Alliance urges Congress, OMB, and HHS to review this latest report. It tells a compelling story of FDA’s agenda for self-improvement and the multiple areas in which it needs support for future progress. The Alliance issued a press release on the Science Board report.

• AACR Releases Cancer Progress Report and National Survey. The American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) (an Alliance member) recently released a national survey, along with its 5th annual Cancer Progress Report. Among other things, the AACR urges Congress and the administration to implement a strategy for providing annual budget increases of at least 7 percent for the NIH, NCI, and FDA beginning in FY 2016 and thereafter. This call to action is in line with the opinion of the majority of American voters, because three out of every four voters favor increasing federal funding for cancer research, according to results from the 2015 AACR survey.

• FDA’s Overseas Offices: An Update. One of the Alliance’s continuing themes is the impact of globalization on FDA and the industries regulated by FDA. This results in significant additional responsibilities for the agency. One response has been to create foreign offices to work more directly with the governments of countries that export to the United States. FDA recently provided an update on its philosophy and changes underway in each office.