Who Funds the FDA and CDC?
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are two federal agencies that provide public health services. Their mission is to collaborate with partners to create the expertise, information, and tools needed for health promotion, disease prevention, injury and disability, and preparedness for new health threats.
Taxpayer Funding
The fda and cdc are public health agencies that regulate the food, drugs and medical products we buy. They are also responsible for protecting us from dangerous chemicals in medicines and tobacco products. They are fully funded by the taxpayers. However, the public trust in these organizations is fragile. There are many factors that may contribute to this weakened trust, including slow responses to emergencies, inconsistencies between agencies, and differences in public health policies from different federal departments.
The FDA and CDC are funded through various sources, including user fees (i.e., payments from drug manufacturers and other industries to the government to finance drug research and product approvals), tax dollars, and private sector funding. These sources of funding are crucial for the health of Americans.
Since the 1980s, user fees for branded drug companies have grown to account for three-quarters of the fda’s budget. In 2017 alone, the agency received $1.1 billion in user fees from branded pharmaceutical companies.
In addition, pharmaceutical companies pay to have physicians and caregivers sit on advisory panels that evaluate their drugs. These doctors and caregivers receive consulting fees, expense payments and other forms of remuneration from drug companies.
While this money is important for ensuring that we have safe and effective drugs, it also provides the drug industry with a powerful tool to manipulate public policy. It can influence the decisions of public health officials about what medications should be made mandatory and what vaccines should be given to children.
This sway of public policy can lead to a deterioration in the quality of our healthcare. As such, it is important that we understand the source of this funding.
The FDA has been dominated by the drug industry’s money for decades, and this has created a monopoly on pharmaceutical research. This is why so many new drugs are not available for sale to the general public.
One reason for this is the fda’s drug review process. It is a highly regulated process that requires substantial investment in human and animal research and testing.
In order to protect the public from dangerous drugs and ensure that drugs are tested safely, the fda relies on a user fee system for funding its work. These user fees are reauthorized by Congress every five years and help to pay for the majority of the FDA’s human drug regulatory activities.
User Fees
The FDA and CDC receive funding from three sources: user fees, private sector funding and federal budget authorization. The FDA receives about 61 percent of its budget from federal authorization and about 39 percent from user fees.
The user fee program allows pharmaceutical, medical device and biotech companies to pay the agency partially for the drug, device or biotechnology product they sell. This has increased dramatically since the program began nearly 30 years ago and now accounts for more than half of the FDA’s budget, financing 6,500 employees at the agency.
While user fees are often criticized for their regressive nature and for their impact on low-income households, they can be used as a way to raise revenue. Unlike taxes, which can only be collected by the government if individuals actually use or benefit from certain services or facilities, user fees can be levyed by governments as a way to finance their infrastructure and other programs.
For example, the FDA has a number of different user fee programs that support its mission to protect the public health. These include the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, which was passed in 1992 and is reauthorized every five years by Congress. This law authorizes the FDA to collect drug and device user fees that support its responsibilities to review applications for new drugs and devices.
These fees are earmarked for specific activities, such as monitoring research, review of application submissions, and post-market safety activities. These funds are used to help the FDA meet its goals and improve patient health by ensuring that new drugs and devices are safe, effective and provide value for money.
Because the FDA is required to spend user fee funds on specified activities, it is more willing to discuss the details of a new drug or device application with manufacturers. This helps reduce the time it takes for the FDA to make a decision on a drug or device. This has decreased the time it took to approve new drugs by as much as a year and made it more likely that a new drug will be approved before it is too late.
Private Sector Funding
A big part of the fda and cdc’s work involves bringing products from the laboratory to the market. In order to do this, they need funding. These funds come from three sources: taxpayers, industry and user fees.
Taxpayer funding comes from the federal, state and local governments. These funds can be used for everything from research and development to operations. The fda and cdc also receive money from the private sector.
For example, pharmaceutical companies fund the fda’s drug review process through user fees. These fees are charged on drugmakers whenever they file a new application for a drug or biologic product. These fees have been used to hire more FDA staff, improve the drug approval process and enhance access to drugs and medical devices.
However, this type of financial support may cause conflict of interest. For instance, in 2017 the FDA received 75% of its scientific review budget from pharmaceutical companies, and many of the physicians and caregivers that sit on FDA advisory panels also receive consulting fees or remuneration for their work.
The CDC also receives financial support from industry through its foundation. The CDC Foundation is a separate non-profit entity that accepts donations from corporations to fund public health programs. It has been criticised for accepting large contributions from companies that manufacture vaccines and other pharmaceutical products, as well as from companies that make medical devices or chemicals.
These donations are subject to strict rules that require the CDC to disclose their donors’ names and their role in the grantee’s work. This information can be used by activists to challenge the foundation’s funding decisions, and to promote transparency within a government agency.
One CDC program is the “SAVE” group, an interagency influenza epidemic response team made up of 60 to 70 scientists who are experts on different aspects of the disease and its transmission. Members include researchers from NIH, CDC and the FDA, as well as virologists from universities and other research organizations.
The CDC also works with a group of pharmaceutical companies to help identify and develop new vaccines. This is called a public-private partnership, and the group has been successful in reducing the time it takes to bring a vaccine to market.
Conflicts of Interest
Conflicts of interest can arise in research and medicine when professional judgments or actions are unduly influenced by a second, competing interest. These conflicts may include financial and non-financial interests, and they are often conscious or unconscious biases that can compromise the integrity of scientific research and clinical trials.
In a study published in Science, researchers found that nearly 40% of the medical advisers who voted on drug approvals at the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had financial ties to the drug companies that had lobbied those panels. These included payments to travel, consulting, and lectures, as well as research support from pharmaceutical companies, according to Science’s report.
However, many of the 107 medical advisers who participated in those advisory committees did not disclose their financial ties to the agencies. That is in part because the laws that regulate such meetings, 21 U.S.C., impose a broad definition of “conflict of interest,” which can allow doctors to be on the committee while also receiving post-hoc earnings or research support from drug companies that have lobbied for their drugs to be approved.
But that’s not all; a House Government Reform Committee has condemned the rules used by FDA and CDC to regulate their vaccine advisory committees as “weak,” and alleged that “enforcement has been lax.” The committee also claims that members with substantial ties to the pharmaceutical industry routinely receive waivers to participate in committee proceedings.
A spokesman for the FDA said the agency believes that its funding is independent of where it comes from. He added that user fees provide instrumental funding for the FDA’s independent review of medical products without compromising its commitment to scientific integrity, public health and regulatory standards, patient safety, and transparency.
The CDC, like other government organizations, accepts gifts from philanthropies and corporations. These gifts are used to expedite funds for public health challenges.
But watchdog groups have raised concerns that a significant portion of the CDC’s industry donations go through its government-charted foundation. The foundation was created to help connect CDC with the private sector and expedite gifts from corporations, philanthropies, and individuals. In a petition, Public Citizen, the Project on Government Oversight, and U.S. Right to Know are demanding that CDC be transparent about the industry funding it receives through its foundation.