FDA admits to staffing, turnover problems
It's not that I hate the FDA. It's just that I think it's an under-achieving bureaucracy that is so inbred with the drug companies that it doesn't know where it's lawn ends and Big Pharma's begins.
And guess what? The FDA – albeit unintentionally – is admitting that I'm right.
The FDA just announced that it's in the middle of a recruitment drive to hire 1,300 new, professional staffers— such as biologists, chemists, field inspectors, pharmacologists, medical officers, microbiologists and statisticians. You could start a car plant with that many people – not that you'd want to, with the current state of the auto industry.
But here's the kicker -- the largest chunk of these new employees will be hired in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. You know, the folks who assess new medications and compile data on the safety of meds. The FDA is admitting that the department that is in charge of safeguarding us from dangerous drugs is so woefully understaffed that it became the target of a recruitment drive!
How did it get to that point? Under-funding plays a roll, for sure. But the FDA is also admitting that it's become a bit of a revolving door, where many staffers move quickly out of the agency and into (or back into) the industries they are regulating. So much for the separation between regulator and the regulated.
The good news is that there appears to be some political will in Washington for increasing staff levels at the FDA. The bad news is that hiring more people won't bring about the culture changes that have gotten the FDA into trouble to begin with. It's still in Big Pharma's back pocket and, based on its staff turnover rates, the FDA's workers don't seem to mind one bit.
