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Schenectady, New York
Separate CDC, FDA science and politics
An insufficiently appreciated impact of
the COVID-19 pandemic has been to
reveal tension within the CDC and FDA
between doing science and making
policy. The CDC and FDA often have
compromised science for politics. This
has undermined the credibility of both
agencies and of the administration.
Science advising and policy advising
are properly separate roles. Recently,
President Biden separated the role of
science adviser from that of director of
the Office of Science and Technology
Policy. This decision might signal
administration interest in resolving
other intrinsic agency conflicts.
Agencies pursuing conflicting missions
may find themselves in an untenable
position. For example, the U.S. Atomic
Energy Commission (AEC) had the
conflicting missions of promoting and
assuring the safety of atomic power.
As a result, AEC was disbanded, and
replaced with the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, whose mission is to
assure safety, not to promote atomic
power.
CDC’s mission includes conducting
applied research on disease
prevention and control and promoting
application of research findings into
protective public health policies. FDA’s
mission likewise includes protection
and promotion functions. For
example, FDA must assure safety and
efficacy of pharmaceuticals
protectively, but also promote medical
innovation to advance public health.
The time has come to examine critically
the missions of CDC and FDA to see if
they embody untenable conflicts. If
they do, maybe the time has come to
separate the agencies’ health
protective functions from their medical
innovation promotion functions.
Maybe, in short, the time has come to
restructure the CDC and the FDA.
Robert A. Michaels, PhD, CEP
Schenectady