Alliance Releases FDA Shutdown Toolkit

As indicated last Friday, The Alliance for a Stronger FDA has just released its promised FDA Shutdown Toolkit. During the current shutdown, there are limited activities in which the FDA can engage. Those activities that the agency can perform include:

• Activities necessary to address imminent threats to the safety of human life and

• Activities funded by carryover funds, notably but not exclusively, user fees.

As quoted in this toolkit, Wayne Pines, Vice President of the Alliance of a Stronger FDA states that:

The FDA regulates products that make up twenty percent of consumer spending. Despite that, forty percent of FDA’s workforce has been shut down because of an unrelated issue in an appropriations bill that doesn’t involve FDA. The Alliance will now redouble our efforts to make sure that policymakers and the public understand that FDA provides public health services that are core functions of government. When FDA is unable to perform them, the public is at unnecessary risk.

Alliance staff are available to talk directly with the media and Alliance members, and can be contacted by e-mail: Steven Grossman (sgrossman@strengthenfda.org) or Ladd Wiley (lwiley@ofwlaw.com).