Newswise — Society for Women's Health Research president Phyllis Greenberger issued the following statement on Wednesday, July 18, in response to the U.S. Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee recommendation yesterday to increase the FDA's budget by $186 million.
"The Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, led by Chairman Herbert Kohl and Ranking Member Robert Bennett, has proposed that we increase funding for the FDA by $186 million for 2008, $33.2 million of which would go to the Critical Path Initiative and drug safety programs. We applaud and support this recommendation, which goes well beyond what the president and House subcommittee have called for.* The Senate subcommittee numbers are the ones that should receive final approval.
"The Society for Women's Health Research has been fighting for years to secure more funding to improve information technology at the FDA. The agency does not have the resources it needs to adequately perform its vital public health functions, including the ability to efficiently gather post-market reports on the adverse effects of treatments. The FDA is still using a manual paper system to gather much of its information about how drugs work once they are available to the public and data often gets stuck in computer systems that don't communicate well with each other.
"This hampers the agency's ability to conduct research, including analysis for sex and gender differences, which is critical to understanding if a treatment affects women and men differently. These antiquated processes need to be updated, and there is no excuse for the world's premier drug monitoring agency not to be fully online, integrated and operational in the computer age. We hope that a significant portion of the Senate subcommittee's recommended increase will be dedicated to improving the FDA's information infrastructure."
Phyllis Greenberger, M.S.W.President and CEOSociety for Women's Health ResearchWashington, D.C.
*The Senate subcommittee's full FDA funding proposal for FY 2008 is $1.75 billion. The president's budget request and the House subcommittee proposal are $1.6 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively.
On the Net:
Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition & Forestry: http://agriculture.senate.gov/
Society for Women's Health Research: http://www.womenshealthresearch.org
RSS