One of my first actions at FDA was to remove all pharma and industry members of FDA advisory

committees wherever statutorily possible.

That's because the scientific evaluation process has to be impeccably independent.

In this exclusive interview, I spoke with FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty McCarrie about his first

hundred days in office and how

he's reforming the agency.

There's a routine animal testing requirement with drugs.

It turns out that 90% of drugs that pass on animal testing do not pass in human studies

on safety and efficacy.

We discuss everything from illegal Chinese vaping products to food guidelines to supply chain vulnerabilities,

and we address criticism of some of the FDA's recent decisions surrounding vaccines.

For people who think that we approved a COVID vaccine for, say, healthy children, that's incorrect.

That's not true. We're no longer going to push these COVID vaccines in healthy subjects.

This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Jan Yekkelik.

Marty McCarrie, such a pleasure to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Great to be with you, Jan.

A hundred days on into your job, I'm going to ask you a bunch of questions.

Yeah. And the big one that I have is, you know, what's it like to take on a massive agency like

this at the outset? Was it obvious to you what you were going to do? Was it clear how it was all working?

Did you step into something that was, you know, obvious do? Was it clear how it was all working? Did you step into something

that was, you know, obvious somehow, or was it just, you know, figure it out as you go?

You know, it was a range of emotions. I was in the operating room the day before my

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