NTEU Views on the FY 2003 FDA Budget

3/21/2002

U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies

Chairman Bonilla, Ranking Member Kaptur, and distinguished members of this Subcommittee, my name is Colleen Kelley and I am the National President of the National Treasury Employees Union. NTEU represents more than l55,000 federal employees across the federal government, including the employees who work at the Food and Drug Administration. I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to present testimony on behalf of these dedicated men and women who work to ensure the safety of our food, drugs, cosmetics, and medical devices.

The past six months have been a very trying time for the American public. In particular, the tragic events of September 11th and the anthrax outbreak in October and November brought to light how vulnerable our nation is to such a wide variety of attacks. Without question, these horrible events have focused the attention of the American public and our elected leaders on the need to invest in a highly trained, highly skilled, dedicated federal workforce to respond to and prevent these attacks. Our nation depends on these patriots who work for the federal government.

The men and women who work at the Food and Drug Administration have been on the front lines in our nation’s war on terrorism. They have been protecting the public against contaminated foods coming in through our ports and borders. They have been working overtime to facilitate the availability of safe and effective vaccines to protect Americans from anthrax or other bioterrorist attacks, even during a period when FDA’s own facilities were thought to be contaminated with anthrax. And they are working to protect the health of our troops abroad who are at great risk for exposure to biological and chemical weapons. This is only a sampling of the efforts FDA employees contribute to our nation’s war on terrorism. But it was not September 11th or the spread of anthrax that created these roles for FDA. Rather, the FDA workforce has been a critical component of our homeland defense for decades.

It has been the FDA employees day in and day out – during times of war and times of peace – who have responded to the call of the American people for ensuring our food supply is safe and more effective drugs and medical products are brought to consumers more quickly. In fact, the FDA regulates more than $1 trillion worth of products that account for about 25 cents out of every dollar of American consumer spending. The FDA is staffed with experts in an extraordinary range of fields. Microbiologists, chemists, consumer safety officers, and others are working around the clock testing, approving, and regulating new drugs, robotics, and other medical devices, that will not only improve the health conditions for millions of Americans, but in many cases actually save lives. They are working to ensure the food we eat is safe and free of disease-causing contaminants, and working to ensure new food products, food additives, and dietary supplements pose no threat to our health.

And the FDA employees who work in the field offices and laboratories located throughout the country have developed valuable working relationships with top scientists, health officials, and local industries. These employees help protect consumers from mislabeled foods, food borne diseases, defective medical devices, or unsafe cosmetics or drugs. And they work very closely with Customs, USDA, and others at our borders and ports, to inspect and test imported foods and drugs.

We would like to offer our feedback on a few critical areas of the FDA budget for fiscal year 2003. First, while the Administration has requested a $123 million budget increase for the FDA over last year’s funding level, more than half of that increase is attributed to a budget gimmick suggested by the Administration, that would, for the first time, require the agency to pre-fund future retiree health and retirement costs from current appropriations. On March 13, the House Budget Committee declined to include this proposal in its FY 03 Budget Resolution unless, and until, the appropriate authorizing committee makes this change into law.

Thus, the “real” increase in funding over last year’s levels is merely $60 million. Congress should not be misled about the impact these new creative accounting procedures being used by the Office of Management and Budget will have on the FDA and other agencies.

NTEU urges Congress to provide significantly more funding than the amount requested by the Administration so that FDA can better respond to the constantly changing and complex public health threats facing our nation. Denying FDA adequate staffing and resources to do its job will deny Americans the public health protections and benefits they expect and deserve. It is impossible to put a dollar figure on the lives saved by expediting the approval of a new medical device or detecting a food borne pathogen before that food product makes it to the supermarket shelf. But what is clear is that dollars spent in the FDA budget today will reap enormous benefits for the American public tomorrow.

With regard to programs aimed at ensuring the safety of our food supply, NTEU believes the FDA budget falls short. Each year in the United States alone, there are 76 million food borne illnesses, which result in 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,200 deaths annually. NTEU applauds Congress for providing funds in the current fiscal year for FDA to hire and train additional staff to inspect, test, and investigate food imports and our domestic food supply. But without more funding for staffing to conduct additional inspections, our food supply will remain vulnerable.

Next, regarding drug and medical device activities, the budget request for FDA does not come anywhere near the amount needed to match the dramatic increases in funding for research by the National Institutes of Health and the private sector. NIH, pharmaceutical companies, and academia have nearly tripled the amount of money spent on medical research over the past ten years, from a total of approximately $20 billion in 1992 to nearly $60 billion in 2002. Yet during this same period, the FDA budget, adjusted for inflation, has remained flat. If Americans are to benefit as quickly as possible from medical breakthroughs resulting from our research investments, then the Administration and Congress must ensure the FDA – the agency charged with regulating these new drugs and medical technologies – receives, at a minimum, funding increases proportionate to the increases for the NIH. While the Administration did request a modest increase for drug and medical device programs, the increase does not provide enough funding to staff the increased workload in approving and ensuring the safety of drugs and medical devices before they reach the public.

NTEU was also very disappointed the Administration requested only a $1 million increase for counter terrorism activities performed by FDA employees. Last year, in the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, Congress recognized the need for increased counter terrorism resources for the FDA by appropriating nearly fifty percent more funding than what the Administration had requested. Yet even with Congress’ strong endorsement of FDA’s role in the war on terrorism, the Administration requested an increase of less than one percent over last year’s funding level for FDA counter terrorism activities. If provided with additional funding, the FDA could rapidly train and place in the field an additional 500 employees to bolster counter terrorism efforts.

Next, I would like to express NTEU’s concerns about the proposal to transfer the FDA Offices of Legislative and Public Affairs to the Office of the Secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services. This proposal would also require the consolidation within HHS of communications, legislative, and public affairs offices from other agencies such as NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While NTEU recognizes the importance of keeping the Secretary involved in FDA activities, we believe the decentralized public information and legislative affairs structure within HHS has given lawmakers and the American public the access to experts they need to get specialized information in science and medicine. Consolidation of these important functions will likely slow the flow of information from the agencies and could also lead to inaccurate and/or incomplete communications to the public and to Congress.

Finally, we wish to express our concerns about a different consolidation proposal being floated by Governor Tom Ridge, the Director of the Office of Homeland Security. This proposal would consolidate the food inspection programs at the FDA with meat inspection functions at the Agriculture Department. While the FDA and Agriculture inspection activities are similar in many ways, they have many differences that should not be overlooked. Before moving forward with this consolidation, the Office of Homeland Security should work with the front-line employees actually doing the inspections now, to determine how best to improve our food inspection programs. Again, agencies should not consolidate merely for the sake of consolidating. There ought to be measurable operational efficiencies and benefits gained for the American public by doing so.

Thank you for giving NTEU the opportunity to share our views on the FDA budget for fiscal year 2003. We thank this subcommittee for its support of FDA programs in the past, and we urge you to work with the Administration to provide FDA with the staffing and resources necessary to protect and improve the health of the American public.