Suhas Subramanyam Asks Former FDA Commissioner About How Agency Cuts Will Affect The Spread Of Avian Flu

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During a House Oversight Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA) questioned Dr. David Kessler, the former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, about how cuts to the FDA will affect the spread of Avian Flu.

Transcript

00:00Mr. Subramaniam. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Dr. Kessler, I was very interested in your testimony about how

00:08these cuts are affecting, you know, our food safety and really just, you know, our ability to

00:14have a functioning FDA. And so, could you just tell me a little more, you know, these firings

00:21at HHS and FDA in particular, you know, we're trying to find effective strategies to bring new

00:27drugs to the market in a safe manner, but an expedient manner. But how do these cuts affect

00:32our ability to do that?

00:35Imagine, ranking member, that you were this, you know, there was a major airline. And that

00:47major airline decided today that it was going to fire everyone except the co-pilots. It was

00:57going to run that airline, and it only had the co-pilots. No pilots, the senior people

01:04are gone. People who fixed the planes were gone. People who got people on the plane were gone.

01:11I think that's what we're facing with these cuts. Imagine if you try to run this Congress,

01:21and there were only congressmen and congresswomen in the building. Right? That's what's going

01:27on at FDA today. I have major concerns. We are at risk. I think we are less safe today.

01:36I've talked to farmers who talked about the outbreak of avian flu. And, you know, we actually

01:44had the first mammal case of bird flu in the state of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia,

01:48and my district on Monday. How would these cuts impact the FDA's ability to deal with

01:55the bird flu epidemic?

01:57The leading experts on avian flu, certainly at FDA and at NIH, this is not just about FDA.

02:09FDA. Dr. Jeannie Miraza, who is running NIAID, taught me everything about avian flu. She is

02:16no longer there. We are at risk from infectious diseases. Look, I can't tell you whether we're

02:26one mutation away or two mutations away. It's had devastating effects on our animal livestock.

02:34It gives me great concern. But that day is going to come. And those people that we need are

02:44not there.

02:45And I'd like to, in terms of the record, Washington Post article titled,

02:49Worries Grow Over Risks to Americans as Trump Cuts Health Safety Agencies.

02:53With that objection to order?

02:56April 6th. And so how would these firings at the FDA impact its ability to make sure that

03:05infant formula is safe and that we don't have another infant formula crisis?

03:10Absolutely. You're exactly right. What we heard, I think, from my panelists, these are all complicated,

03:21regulatory decisions. You have industries asking at this table, please, we need thoughtful regulations,

03:37right, that are well balanced. Those people who are in charge of that policy at FDA to be

03:44able to work through, to get to the right answers with the Congress, even to answer your request

03:51for information. They're not there.

03:56And you said recently it's not too late to undo at least some of the damage that's been done.

04:01How much time do we have left before we can't fix what's been broken? And what would you do to fix it?

04:07I always believed that things were fixable. I think we've seen that. You can always go in and fix.

04:19The problem is, especially in the sciences, I've been the dean of two major medical schools.

04:26This is about expertise. This is about pipeline. If we lose a generation of young people,

04:35young people got hit with COVID, I think we can't underestimate the effect. They couldn't go into the laboratories.

04:43They had to sacrifice their training. If we now have these cuts, right, at NIH, and, you know,

04:52a second time they can't get jobs as postdocs, we're going to lose a generation of scientists.

04:56They're going to set back this country, and that's true at FDA. We've lost thousand person years of expertise in a few weeks.

05:06I don't think, I mean, if we let this go on for much longer, I mean, I think it's a matter of weeks,

05:13I don't think, you know, this may not be fixable. This may affect us for decades.

05:19Thank you, Dr. Kassler. I yield back.

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