Policy
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s health department has consistently touted radical transparency as being key to its mission. Recent instances—the FDA’s decision not to disclose the recipients of three Commissioner’s National Priority Vouchers and FDA and CDC choices not to publish vaccine-related papers—call this intent into question.
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While requests by government officials for anonymity when speaking to the media are nothing new, the practice attracts more scrutiny when the Department for Health and Human Services has pledged a commitment to “radical transparency.”
TrumpRX and DTC sales may expand prescription drug access, but they will not solve the affordability crisis by themselves.
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Erica Schwartz, a former deputy surgeon general and member of the U.S. military, will take over from what has amounted to a rapid succession of CDC leaders over the past year.
Greater transparency in FDA decision-making was possibly the most common theme for stakeholders interviewed by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review in a new report focused on strengthening the agency’s accelerated approval program.
Industry leader Steve Ubl has served as PhRMA’s CEO for more than a decade, the longest tenure of any head of the trade group.
Humira will be available on TrumpRx at an 86% discount, according to media reports, as part of AbbVie’s deal with the White House to avoid tariffs. The news comes less than a week after the president announced up to 100% levies on pharma products.
Former ACIP vice chair Robert Malone claimed that Andrew Nixon, spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, “trashed” him with the media, adding that he resigned because “I do not like drama.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services refuted the claim, made Thursday on social media by ACIP Vice Chair Robert Malone, calling it “baseless speculation.”
A Massachusetts judge called Kennedy’s efforts to reform the CDC’s vaccines advisory panel a “procedural failure,” adding that the new committee members do not “comport with governing law.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has become increasingly unpopular among several government officials, largely as a result of his antivaccine rhetoric and actions. Other contentious issues reportedly include the approval of an abortion pill and other controversial FDA decisions.
The senator, who has long advocated for expanding access to experimental therapies, reportedly called the FDA’s request for a sham surgery–controlled Phase 3 trial for uniQure’s Huntington’s disease gene therapy “bureaucratic idiocy.”
The settlement, which requires Moderna to pay the plaintiffs $950 million upfront plus up to $1.3 billion in contingent commitments, is an outcome “better than feared,” according to analysts.