Budget

As the partial government shutdown hits its third week, 33 Senate Democrats penned a letter to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb on Friday (Jan. 11) asking the agency chief how his staff has scaled back oversight of food and medical products; how a shutdown could hinder approval of new medical products and what the agency is doing to address the financial hardship of its staff, 41 percent of whom are furloughed.

As the partial government shutdown nears its third week, FDA is working to restart inspections of domestic high-risk food facilities, though the furloughed workers who perform those inspections will likely go unpaid until the shutdown ends, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted on Jan. 9

Over the holidays and the first days of January, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb issued a steady stream of tweets in a bid to answer stakeholders’ questions about which agency activities are on hold during the partial government shutdown, including user fee-related application reviews, certain medical and over-the-counter product reviews, and non-emergency work on certain biologic products.

HHS released a contingency staffing plan in anticipation of a possible government shutdown that showed, out of FDA’s 17,397 staff members, 41 percent or 7,053 employees would be furloughed.

The Labor/HHS conference bill agreed to late Thursday (Sept. 13) includes $90.3 billion in discretionary program funds for HHS, or $2.3 billion more than in 2018, invests more in medical research than the president's request, devotes nearly $4 billion to mental health and opioid treatment and omits cuts in the House version that would have blocked CMS' ability to administer the ACA.

The House Appropriations Committee approved 30-22 a fiscal 2019 HHS funding bill, following a marathon 13-hour markup, that includes a provision blocking any new funding for the Affordable Care Act and prohibiting the use of funding for existing navigator programs.

The House Appropriations health subcommittee on Friday (June 15) approved by voice vote a fiscal 2019 HHS spending bill that includes several provisions aimed at stopping implementation of the Affordable Care Act, including a prohibition on any new discretionary funding to implement the law.

A Senate Appropriations subcommittee on Tuesday (May 22) voted unanimously to send to the full committee a fiscal 2019 FDA funding bill that appears to give the agency $163 million more than its current level but still less than requested by the administration, coming after House appropriators also agreed to hike FDA spending.

FDA is seeking $70 million to create a Center of Excellence on Digital Health, which would be tasked with crafting a new regulatory approach toward these products, akin to what FDA is already piloting with its software pre-cert program, according to budget material sent to congressional appropriators.