There’s an old saying in organizational management that you shouldn’t let bad people drive away good people. It’s like the idiom that one bad apple can spoil the bunch. And unfortunately, there are a couple of bad apples at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that are spoiling the agency, its mission, and the future of everything.
Speaking of the future, the culture of death has taken over the FDA.
Early this month, Dr. Richard Pazdur resigned from the FDA, where he’d earned a reputation as one of the most respected leaders in cancer research and regulatory science over his nearly 30 years of federal service. Pazdur led the Oncology Center of Excellence and was recently tapped to stabilize the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). But after just three weeks there, he announced his retirement. Much of the blame for this is being pointed at Marty Makary, whose tenure as FDA Commissioner has driven the agency into disarray with internal scandals, forced staff resignations, and record staff departures.
Pazdur is the latest victim of the disastrous leadership problems that have beset the FDA, with the drama there lending itself to comparisons to Mean Girls and Real House Wives.
Losing Pazdur is an example of bad people driving away good ones, namely Dr. Vinay Prasad. Makary’s chief of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), Prasad has been a deeply divisive figure inside FDA known for his hostility toward Pazdur and many others.
Chaos could be Prasad’s goal. He describes himself as a far-left “Sanders/Warren progressive” who probably doesn’t want the FDA to be successful, knowing that if he sabotages the President’s Make America Healthy Again agenda, it will help his fellow Democrats in the upcoming mid-terms. This is a classic instance of the Democrats’ putting their Trump Derangement Syndrome first and the country second, which in this case includes sick people who need new medicine and vulnerable infants.
The person behind this chaos went to medical school and swore to “do no harm.”
Yet between advocating for Mifepristone and bullying colleagues, he has brought in a ‘culture of death’ to an agency quite literally responsible for our lives. A symptom of this disease is the pro-abortion ideology which kills thousands of innocent lives year after year.
Mifepristone, a drug which makes abortions readily available without a second thought, has been described by Prasad as “broadly efficacious,” which may be true if your goal is harming more women and more children year after year, degrading the value of a human life in society’s minds and hearts.
The culture of death seems to have been adopted by the rest of the FDA as well, with Commissioner Marty Makary delaying the promised review of mifepristone until after the midterms (because why would he want to enrage the liberal friends he’s hired?), and has approved a generic version of the pill earlier this year. Prominent pro-life groups are rightly angry about this, calling for Makary’s firing and relentlessly lobbying for the White House to stay true to their promise to the pro-life community.
Indeed, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr – who probably has the hardest job in Washington – is closely watching the collapse at the FDA like a train about to run off a cliff. He has privately discussed limiting Makary’s role due to the damage being done. Given that Pazdur was one of the last remaining credible scientific leaders at FDA, this might signal it’s finally time for RFK to clean house top to bottom and prioritize what really matters: Human life and the health of our citizens.
Lack of coherent leadership at the FDA bodes ill for America’s efforts to maintain global biotech leadership. If we can’t get our own house in order, why would other countries trust us? We can’t even agree on the value of our most vulnerable, newest members of society.
Our government and the rule of law it provides has long been driven by valuing precious human life, preserving and upkeeping its health, which is why about half of new life-saving drugs introduced every year are developed in the United States. But patients and the public are now left with an FDA run by chaos and political agendas instead of science, safety, and a deep reverence for human life. If our regulatory environment becomes prohibitive to humanity – or if the arbiters of that regulation cannot function – then the culture of death will overtake our society, a future none of us want.
The President has made huge promises in biotech: faster approvals, more cures, and lower prices, all while holding onto America’s biotech leadership. Everyone needs the FDA to function as well as it can, especially expecting mothers and babies on the way. New, reliable, trustworthy leadership there is essential. We need good people to drive away bad ones and protect the weakest ones. This is one case where a good apple a day can keep Dr. Prasad away.