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Home » COMMISSIONER HEARING MEANT TO PRESSURE DEMOCRATS
COMMISSIONER HEARING MEANT TO PRESSURE DEMOCRATS
July 27, 2006
Sen. Mike Enzi's (R-Wyo.) hearing to consider Andrew von Eschenbach's nomination as the next FDA commissioner will be used to pressure Democrats to drop their threat to prevent a Senate vote on it, numerous sources said.
Enzi, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee chairman, will hold a hearing Aug. 1 on the White House's nomination of von Eschenbach. "Chairman Enzi believes that it is important for Dr. von Eschenbach to have the opportunity to have his day before the committee to discuss his vision for the future of the FDA," an Enzi spokesman said.
The FDA is applauding the move as necessary to further the agency's goal of protecting public health. "FDA's important work touches the lives of every American, every day. The agency needs permanent leadership to spur more innovation, improve drug safety and help life-saving drugs reach patients faster," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a statement.
The hearing comes even as Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) continue to promise to hold up the nomination once it passes out of committee. The lawmakers have pledged to block the Senate from voting on the nomination until the FDA sets a timeline for deciding whether to grant Barr Laboratories' application to sell the Plan B contraceptive OTC. The agency is currently being sued by the Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) over its failure to make a decision on Plan B.
The hearing will allow von Eschenbach's proponents to pressure the senators to drop their hold by focusing on the importance of a permanent commissioner to protection of public health, congressional observers such as Peter Pitts, director of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a former FDA associate commissioner for external relations, said. The Democrats' argument that politics has improperly taken a role in Plan B "rings hollow" when Murray and Clinton are using a political maneuver to force the agency's hand on that issue, he added. (http://www.fdanews.com/did/5_146/)
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