STAT+: Lawmaker wants to know how FDA can police drug ads after cutting its oversight workforce
A U.S. senator is asking the FDA how it will enforce regulations on pharmaceutical advertising after it let go of numerous employees from the office that oversees the issue.
Amid ongoing controversy over pharmaceutical advertising, one lawmaker wants to know how the U.S. government will enforce regulations after the Food and Drug Administration let go of numerous employees from the office that oversees prescription drug promotions.
In a letter to the FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) noted that four key leaders of the Office of Prescription Drug Promotion recently departed the agency, and the entire Division of Promotion Policy, Research, and Operations — a unit within the office that developed guidance on pharmaceutical advertising — also was reportedly laid off.
“These departures raise major questions about whether FDA has the personnel, expertise, and capacity to fulfill its mission to regulate prescription drug advertisements,” Durbin wrote, adding that the issue arises even as both Makary and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have expressed interest in scrutinizing pharmaceutical advertising.
