On NPR today on my way back from lunch, there was a discussion of the FDA and user fees. Apaprently, this is a system under which part of the cost for testing and certifying drugs is borne by the drug companies themselves. They had a former editor of the New England Journal of Medecine on the show, and he commented that this was in the way of a conflict of interest and should be abolished, since companies that are being regulated shouldn’t have any sort of financial control over the regulator. The FDA, he said, should be funded solely using public money.
As I understand it, the Big Pharma companies all receive significant subsidies from the government. So why shouldn’t it be the case that the pharmaceutical companies get cut out of the equation: the government cuts subsidies to the drug companies and uses it to fund the FDA directly?
Or am I missing something?