FDA “needs this money now” Specter says
WASHINGTON Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., in a letter sent Tuesday to Health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt, accused the administration of hindering the appropriation of funds to the Food and Drug Administration. Funds that Specter claimed were necessary to “save lives.”
Specter’s letter stated that, while the additional $275 million amendment to the federal budget for fiscal year 2009 submitted Monday by the White House Office of Management and Budget was an effort to be applauded, the timing of the request will “undermine” Congress’ attempts to provide more immediate funds to FDA. “While I applaud the effort to provide additional dollars for protecting the food supply, assuring safer drugs and modernizing FDA buildings,” the letter read, “I do not understand the timing of this request.”
While Specter has been working to get an additional $275 million in FDA funding included in a fiscal 2008 supplemental appropriations bill—a figure FDA commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach had suggested would provide FDA adequate resources needed to protect the country’s health—he acknowledged that current debate could lead to the elimination of the FDA emergency funding portion from the bill. “Currently, negotiations are underway to reduce the domestic portion of the supplemental bill,” Specter wrote in his June 10 letter. “The FDA funding is among the items being discussed for elimination.”
“The submission of your budget amendment at this time undermines the work we have been doing to obtain these additional dollars on an expedited basis,” Specter continued, adding that by including the funds in next year’s budget instead of supporting the supplemental dollars in the fiscal 2008 budget means “no additional dollars will be available until March or April of 2009—at the earliest.”
The letter shows Specter’s frustration with what he views as a lack of urgency on the part of the administration to get the FDA additional funding this year. “The 81 deaths due to contaminated heparin and the one suspected death in the ongoing salmonella outbreak [linked to tomatoes] show that we cannot wait nine months to give FDA the resources needed to protect the public.”