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.
- Congress Was in Recess and the Alliance Was Busy. The Alliance held nearly 20 Hill meetings with staff of members of the House and Senate Ag/FDA appropriations subcommittees. We provided information about the President’s request -- expressing general support (pending more details) for the medical products increases and conveyed our concerns that the budget request had missed some opportunities for important investments in food safety. Once we have the budget-in-detail (300+ pages), we will meet again with those offices (and others) to provide a more comprehensive view of how new monies would transform FDA and benefit the American people.
In this week’s Analysis and Commentary, we examine the four major points that we made at each of these Hill meetings. Also, our one-page leave behind is linked here.
- Alert Members of Congress that You Need Their Support for FDA. Each year, Members of Congress formulate their funding priorities for the next fiscal year and convey those wishes to the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees. Consistent with this, the Alliance will be asking Senators and Representatives to support increased funding for FDA, both medical products and food safety.
In addition to our efforts, we urge Alliance members to fill out forms for Congressional offices with which they have a close relationship. We have provided a partial list of due dates for a number of Senators and Representatives who are on the relevant subcommittees or have been active on the funding of FDA. If you are interested in providing input to other offices, call or e-mail the LA that you usually work with.
Note that different offices have different deadlines, including some at the end of next week and others that are three or more weeks away. Some offices are not using forms, so an e-mail or visit will be sufficient. Key elements of request documents are the following questions: What is being requested? Reason for the request (describe the problem or issue)? What will it do and why is it necessary? If you have questions, please contact the Alliance’s Roger Szemraj.