Trump Threatens 5% Spending Cut for Agencies, $700B Pentagon Budget

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.

• Trump Threatens 5% Spending Cut for Agencies, $700B Pentagon Budget. On Wednesday, October 17, 2018, President Trump signaled that his Fiscal Year 2020 (FY 20) budget request will likely include substantial cuts to government programs. He stated in a cabinet meeting that he expects his budget to contain a 5% reduction in spending, likely lower for some agencies and higher in others. There are no details as to how this would impact FDA, and those details likely wouldn’t emerge until sometime in late January or early February of 2019.

• Dr. Stephen Ostroff to Retire as FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine. A longtime public servant, Dr. Stephen Ostroff will retire from his position at FDA on January 5, 2019. Dr. Ostroff’s position will be filled in a similar deputy commissioner role by Walmart’s current vice president of food safety, Frank  Yiannas. Yiannas is expected to join FDA in November as Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response while Ostroff will serve as a Senior Adviser to the Commissioner until leaving FDA. Yiannas has been with Walmart for over 10 years and, prior to Walmart, he was director of safety and health at Walt Disney World Co. for close to 20 years.

• Analysis and Commentary. There was no "Analysis and Commentary" section to the Friday Update last week and there is none again this week, while Deputy Executive Director Steven Grossman has been away from the office. In his absence, Steven suggests that people re-read one of his favorite columns: see here.

• Next Friday Update. There will be no Friday Update on Friday, October 26th. The next "Advocacy at a Glance" and "Analysis and Commentary" sections will be posted to this web site on Friday, November 2, 2018.