Developing the Alliance’s FY 2025 Recommendations

I am already getting requests for the Alliance’s “ask” on FDA funding for FY 25. This is mostly from Alliance members who have Hill days planned over the next 8 weeks. We are grateful that they want to include FDA in their own “ask,” which is most often focused on NIH funding. 

Formulating the FY 25 Alliance “ask” is quite a bit more challenging than it might seem. Unlike NIH, there is no “right” advocacy number that can be determined prior to, or independent of 1/ the President’s budget request and 2/ the prior year’s (in this case FY 24) base funding. Optimally, we will have the first by March 11 and the second by March 1. 

Every year, the Administration request helps us determine an Alliance “ask” that is aspirational without being so unrealistic that we are not taken seriously. In some years, the Administration has requested substantial funds for FDA and we have followed their lead (although we usually propose more money for food than they have requested). 

In other years, the Administration's request has been disappointing and our “ask” is set well above the President’s request. In those years, we have focused on the value of critical activities and new initiatives that FDA might not be able to undertake absent our suggested increase.  

Those years when the budget comes out in early February, we are usually able to get the “ask” assembled and cleared by the Alliance board before our members have their own Hill days and, also, with plenty of lead-time for the Alliance to schedule its own Hill days. 

When the budget is delayed–as it will be this year– we have put together a few sentences or a paragraph that FDA advocates and others can use in their own Hill days. Admittedly, it is a short-term placeholder approach, but one that seems unavoidable until the FY 25 budget request is released and analyzed.

Here is a short formulation that advocates might use: 

• FDA provides a core function of government: assuring safe foods and safe and effective medical therapies. Its expanding mission and growing responsibilities–combined with increasingly complex science–require additional resources every year. 

Some additional points that are always good to make (as the situation permits): 

• FDA’s uniquely difficult mission impacts the lives of every American multiple times every day. 

• FDA oversees products and services that encompass 20% of all consumer spending in the U.S. (about $2.7 trillion).

• Underfunding FDA is a threat to public health and commerce.

• If FDA cannot do its job, no public or private agency is capable of replacing its functions. 
  

If this Analysis and Commentary column resonates with you, please consider joining the Alliance. We welcome new members to further strengthen our advocacy and educational efforts.


 

Editorial Note:
The Analysis and Commentary section is written by Steven Grossman, Executive Director of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.