Sam Farr: “I was going to introduce an amendment, but I just want to make a statement and I'll withhold the amendment. The…”

“I was going to introduce an amendment, but I just want to make a statement and I'll withhold the amendment. The statement I want to make is about what this underlying bill does to FDA. It cuts FDA, Federal Drug Administration, by 21 percent, about $580 million. On top of that, the FDA has to absorb another $37 million in higher rent costs. So we're really talking about a reduction to FDA of about $600 million. And yet we keep the law in place so they have to continue all the current requirements and activities that are mandated to them. This kind of cut means that 2,000 fewer domestic and foreign inspections of firms that manufacture food and medical products can be made. This kind of cut means that more than 9,000 fewer FDA import inspections to verify that imported food and medical products meet safety standards. This kind of cut means there will be 4,000 fewer food and medical product samplings to identify safety problems. The amendment that I was going to introduce would have moved some funds from the Commissioner's Office to the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, or known as CDRH. The Center for Devices and Radiological Health is responsible for bringing new technologies to market, and to make the medical devices that are already on the market safer and more effective. The FDA has implemented a more streamlined process by which medical devices can get to market called the Innovation Pathway.…”