So What Does the FDA Do, Anyway?
Just last week, the Food and Drug Administration announced that it would ramp up its transparency efforts, beginning with the creation of a task force focused on the issue. In keeping with other transparency efforts within the the new administration, the FDA now has its own transparency blog.
Paul Blumental explains the importance of the task force over at the Sunlight Foundation Blog:
This transparency effort may be one of the more important ones for the administration, as most Americans rely on the FDA to provide accurate information as to whether a drug or device is not to be used, or what dangers may exist. An FDA that does not have the trust of consumers would assuredly cause increased risks in health decisions and lead to profit loses for companies manufacturing drugs and devices. Transparency is essential to instill trust in this area.
For the moment, posts on the blog indicate that the first order of discussion will be the questions posed in the Federal Reister notice of last week requesting comment on the agency’s operations. First up, “How can the agency better explain its operations, activities, processes and decision making?”
In effect, the blog functions much like the Office of Science and Technology Policy blog did when collecting information on the president’s scientific integrity memo. It puts the contents of the official Register notice online and grafts comment functionality onto the content—offering a method for simple feedback that should have been available on Regulations.gov long ago. The advantage here is that the conversation happens on the agency site, where it can include ideas presented in the voice of key policymakers, be surrounded by information and branding specific to the agency, and attract input from those already paying attention to agency efforts. Feedback is still welcome in the official online docket system, but the discussion in the comments is, at the moment, far more lively.
(HT: GenomeWeb)
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