OPINION:
If the people at the Food and Drug Administration were more concerned about keeping people alive than they were about them not dying, we’d all be a lot better off. The agency’s ability to be agile, and creative, and to balance risks against potential rewards is stifled by the immense bureaucracy it has become.
It is OK to be careful. It’s not OK to be overly cautious to the point of paralysis in the face of an oncoming crisis, which is what we all saw as a SARS-adjacent virus of unknown origin swept through the United States with deadly results.
The FDA should have been at the forefront of efforts to find a cure or to arrest its spread. Instead, at least until then-President Donald Trump conceived and authorized Operation Warp Speed to cut through all the red tape, the agency we trust to keep our food and drugs supplies secure stood in the way of keeping people safe and healthy.
It isn’t the first time it’s happened and won’t be the last, at least not without major reforms. The vaccines produced by Warp Speed are among the most innovative, monumental breakthroughs in defensive medicine in the last century. They made a difference in bringing the pandemic to an end and allowed the U.S. economy to reopen.
The ineffective response to the pandemic, in which the FDA played a major part, almost broke us spiritually and financially. It’s going to take a long time to get back to where we were before the outbreak.
Some states are still not back to the employment rates they were before COVID-19. This makes it more important that steps be taken now to minimize the chance something like that ever happens again.
During the lockdown, which post-pandemic studies suggest strongly were both ineffective at stopping the spread of the virus and costly, millions of workers stayed at their posts, keeping hospitals open, groceries available for purchase, and fuel available for cars, trucks and planes that kept distribution systems from shutting down.
It was a lifesaving endeavor. Advances in technology, meanwhile, made it possible for others to keep working from home, safe from exposure to the virus while fulfilling vital functions throughout the economy.
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the number of people working from home tripled between 2019 and 2021, probably as a direct result of the lockdowns. Now that the official emergency is over, people are going back to the office.
The tolerance of working from home daily or even for part of the week is dwindling as employers increasingly expect to see people at their desks, clicking away at their keyboards.
That’s at least how it goes in the private sector. Among federal workers, the results are mixed.
Federal agencies have not cracked down on the “working from home” scam the cynical among us believe federal workers have exploited for years, even before the pandemic struck.
This is a problem, especially at the FDA. When Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington Republican and chair of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, earlier this year asked FDA Commissioner Robert Califf how many people at his agency charged with moving new and potentially lifesaving treatments into the medical supply chain were coming into the office, his answer was far from forthcoming.
“Many of our employees aren’t in the office, to begin with, and we have not added back in-person meetings. The industry told us they like both virtual and in-person meetings,” he said.
Quelle surprise.
The contemporary workplace needs to be made safe, or at least safer. The estimated 7 million people suffering from illnesses that compromise their immune systems face an exceptionally challenging time. They tend to get sicker and take more time to recover from illnesses like COVID-19, which is still out there, than those with healthy immune systems.
This makes the development and approval of new treatments, including monoclonal antibodies, essential. As Rep. Dan Crenshaw, Texas Republican, has said, the FDA needs to expedite the approval of alternatives for people who, for whatever reason, either cannot or will not take the vaccines approved for COVID-19.
The same is true for cancer treatments, heart conditions, and even weight problems that produce longtime adverse health issues for many Americans. The promise found in the off-label use of drugs developed to treat diabetes has the potential to save millions of lives and billions of dollars.
None of that happens, of course, at least not at the pace that’s needed if the people responsible for making any of that happen don’t come to work.
Someone once said that 90% of life is showing up. It’s time the people at FDA and other federal agencies took that to heart.
• Peter Roff is a veteran Washington commentator, former contributing editor at U.S. News & World Report, and former United Press International senior political writer. He now writes regularly for various publications and appears regularly on international television talking about U.S. politics. You can reach him at RoffColumns@gmail.com and on Twitter @TheRoffDraft.
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