Orrin Hatch: “I did a little research on this, and I found some information which may be of interest to my colleague, since he is the…”

“I did a little research on this, and I found some information which may be of interest to my colleague, since he is the very capable chair of the Labor-HHS Subcommittee. It might interest my colleagues to learn that the FDA, the government's most important consumer protection agency since it regulates over one-quarter of each dollar in goods sold, is severely at a disadvantage when its funding is compared to its sister public health agencies. For the past three fiscal years, the FDA's appropriation has grown an average of 6.9 percent. By comparison, the Centers for Disease Control's appropriation has grown an average of 12.5 percent; in fact, it grew 15.5 percent between fiscal year 2000 and fiscal year 2001. The National Institutes of Health's budget has grown an average of 14.5 percent.”