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.

• One Week until Congress’ Summer Adjournment. The House and Senate will be in session next week and will be racing to finish off any loose ends. After that, they recess for the conventions and August, coming back after Labor Day. There are a number of open items in the health care area. Each is beset by funding problems, as discussed in this week’s Analysis and Commentary.

• Despite Promises on Appropriations, either a Continuing Resolution or an Omnibus is the Likely Outcome. The appropriations committees are making excellent progress marking up appropriations bills in subcommittee and committee. However, few, if any, of the bills are likely to gain House/Senate agreement and be signed by the President. As a result, there is already talk of a possible continuing resolution, with the main point of dispute whether it goes until after Election Day or extends government funding until February or March 2017.

• Learning About FDA Priorities and Challenges. One of the major activities of the Alliance is to learn about the priorities and challenges at the FDA. As Congress is leaving Washington for almost 2 months, one of the focus areas for the Alliance will be meeting with FDA leaders to better understand their priorities and challenges – the more we can learn about the agency the better advocates we can become. As part of that effort, FDA CDRH Director Jeff Shuren has agreed to speak to the Alliance at our quarterly membership meeting, which is scheduled for September 6 at 1:00 p.m. In preparation for this speech, the Alliance will be meeting with Dr. Shuren in his offices towards the end of July -- if you are interested in joining us, please let us know. Also, we are working on meetings with various other FDA leaders over the next months -- we will be updating the membership as those meetings get scheduled.