newly elected president donald trump nominated Dr. Marty Makary led the Food and Drug Administration on Friday and selected a surgeon and author who opposed vaccine mandate And some other public health measures during this time corona virus pandemic.
Macri, a professor at Johns Hopkins University, is the latest in a series of Trump nominees who have declared the US health system “broken” and in need of change.
Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for HBO
Macaree has written books and articles criticizing the overprescription of drugs, the use of pesticides on foods, and the undue influence of pharmaceutical and insurance companies on doctors and government regulators.
“I'm part of the generation that says, 'As a medical generation we've made some mistakes, we've done things that have resulted in a loss of public trust and we need to be open and honest about our problems. 'I'm going to fix it,' Markie Said In an interview with “CBS Mornings” in 2012.
Trump announced the nomination in a statement Friday night, saying Makri “will restore the FDA to the gold standard of scientific research, and cut bureaucratic red tape at the agency to ensure Americans get the medical treatments and cures they need.” Get what they deserve.” Macri must be confirmed by the Republican-led Senate.
Headquartered in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, the FDA's 18,000 employees are responsible for the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs, vaccines and medical devices as well as other consumer goods, including food, cosmetics and vaping products. Collectively these products represent an estimated 20%, or $2.6 trillion, of annual U.S. consumer spending.
Macri gained prominence on Fox News and other conservative outlets for his contrarian views during the COVID-19 pandemic. He questioned the need for masks and, although he was not opposed to the COVID-19 vaccine, Macri had concerns about vaccination in young children.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that COVID-19 vaccinations prevented more than 686,000 U.S. deaths in 2020 and 2021 alone. While children suffered much lower rates of hospitalization and death from the virus, medical societies including the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded that vaccination significantly reduced severe disease in the age group.
Trained as a surgeon and cancer specialist, Macaree was part of a vocal group of physicians who were calling for a greater emphasis on herd immunity to stop the virus, or the idea that mass infection would kill the population. There will be security at the level.
in february 2021 Wall Street Journal excerptHe wrote that “COVID will be nearly over by April, allowing Americans to resume normal lives.” The Delta variant of the virus spread in the US that summer, followed by Omicron in the winter, causing hundreds of thousands of additional deaths.
If Macri is confirmed and he is an anti-vaccine activist robert f kennedy jr Trump's choice to oversee the Department of Health and Human Services, which also includes the FDA, has also been confirmed, with McCree likely reporting to Kennedy. Maceri does not agree with Kennedy's discredited views on vaccines, but shares his distrust of the pharmaceutical industry.
Macri laments that drug makers used misleading data to convince doctors to prescribe OxyContin and other opioids as low-risk, non-addictive painkillers. Marketing had been permitted under FDA-approved labeling since the 1990s, suggesting that the drugs were safe for common ailments such as back pain.
In recent years, the FDA has come under criticism for approving drugs for Alzheimer's, ALS and other conditions based on incomplete data that failed to show meaningful benefits for patients.
A push toward greater scrutiny of drug safety and effectiveness would be a major reversal at the FDA, which has focused on rapid drug approval for decades. That trend has been fueled by industry lobbying and fees paid by drugmakers to help the FDA hire additional reviewers.
Kennedy has proposed eliminating those payments, which would require billions of new funds from the federal budget.
The administration's other priorities will likely face similar obstacles. For example, Kennedy wants to prevent drug manufacturers from advertising on TV, a billion-dollar market that supports many TV and cable networks. Experts say the Supreme Court and other conservative judges would likely overturn such a ban on First Amendment grounds that protect commercial speech.
Makri will also inherit several ongoing projects at the FDA started by outgoing Commissioner Robert Califf, including a restructuring of the agency's Food Division and a plan to regulate artificial intelligence in medical technology.
In the case of other controversial initiatives under Trump, career employees could easily pull out the work until the new administration comes to power.
“The bureaucracy can wait for anyone, and I think that's an attitude you'll hear a lot,” said Wayne Pines, a former FDA official under Republican and Democratic administrations.