RFK, Jr. as HHS Secretary? Don’t get your knickers in a twist. It’s time to focus on the opportunities that such an appointment affords.
Welcome to creative destruction, potentially at its finest. Creative destruction, purposeful and channeled can be a positive force for change. I’m excited about regular, respectful, and fractious conversations – right out of the box. If the gloom-and-doomers want to focus on crying over spilt (raw) milk, they are taking their eyes off the prize.
Let’s spill some milk!
There are bigger issues at hand. Bigger opportunities. For example:
Mr. Kennedy wants to talk about vaccines? By all means! A top issue. Vaccines are at the foundation of our healthcare system. More data transparency, yes! That’s the way to start rebuilding faith in our federal healthcare agencies. Sharing the best science is in everyone’s interest – and no person or agency has all the right answers all the time. The result? A better educated public. Lots of good things come from that.
Mr. Kennedy wants to talk about vaccines? Let’s talk about reforming the way we develop and regulate animal vaccines. When’s the last time you heard the Secretary of Health and Human Services talk about that? Stay tuned.
Mr. Kennedy wants to talk about the FDA’s nutrition programs? They’re not perfect. Diet and nutrition are the twin engines that should be helping drive down the cost of healthcare and extending the lively longevity of American lives. This is a critical conversation.
And speaking of food, dietary supplements are regulated (by law) as foods. FDA regulation of dietary supplements is both out of date and woefully underfunded. Mr. Kennedy let’s work with Congress to finally update and reform the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. Now that’s creative destruction.
Mr. Kennedy, let’s maximize the assets of the Department of Health and Human Services and put them to work to drive innovation. Create an “Innovation Czar” to oversee and coordinate the effort and expertise of the department’s public health crown jewels – the FDA, the CDC, and the National Institutes of Health. Smart leadership from the Secretary’s fifth floor aerie atop the Humphrey Building can bust bureaucratic barriers, driving a new and elegant design for a more efficient, egalitarian, and impactful use of taxpayer dollars.
Friction causes heat. And as the old Beltway hand, Senator Everett Dirksen said, “When I feel the heat, I see the light.”
Mr. Kennedy, let’s turn up the heat on embracing the patient voice, in fixing the fragile state of our national pharmaceutical supply chain. Let’s end drug shortages for penicillin, cancer medicines, and generic drugs. And, lest we forget – baby formula. Let’s use some of that heat to think about real world evidence and value-based reimbursement policies. Hello CMS (the Centers Medicare and Medicaid Services – another piece of the HHS healthcare reform puzzle).
Mr. Kennedy, what about turning the FDA into a competitiveness hub? Don’t snicker. Let’s create an FDA Center for Healthcare Competitiveness. Make the FDA a potent ally in lowering costs and advancing patient access to new and important medical technologies.
An FDA center that can help in developing, coordinating, and driving agency initiatives that allow new medical products and technologies to come to market faster and less expensively without sacrificing sound regulatory practices.
A center with both the portfolio and the power to eliminate regulatory ambiguity (across the entire FDA spectrum) to the greatest extent possible. A center steering the FDA towards faster, less costly reviews, more aggressive anti-monopolistic actions and smart and directive regulatory policies that, in a post-Chevron world, recognizes and incorporates the importance of practical free-market principles and working across all agency centers and other assets of the Department of Health and Human Services (CMS, NIH, etc.) as well as the White House Council of Economic Advisors to drive competition through smart policy development, process enhancement and resource allotment.
Mr. Kennedy, let’s add a lane (or two) on to the American health care super-highway.
Peter J. Pitts, a former FDA Associate Commissioner, is President of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest.
