The Life and Times of the FDA
On the Media
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 8.7K Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
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Summary
Earlier this month, a Texas judge issued a contentious decision about a drug named Mifepristone, widely used as an abortion pill and a medication to aid treatment of people who suffer miscarriages. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a Trump-appointee with documented anti-abortion views, ruled to suspend use of the drug across the entire country, saying that the Food and Drug Administration didn't properly vet the drug when it was cleared for market over twenty years ago.
The FDA has spent quite a bit of time in the national limelight the past few years, largely due to the pandemic. But despite its occupation of headlines, the FDA’s history–and at times contentious relationship with the government that created it–aren’t always as widely covered. This week, Brooke sits down with Daniel Carpenter, the Allie S. Freed Professor of Government at Harvard University and author of the book, “Reputation and Power: Organizational Image and Pharmaceutical Regulation at the FDA,” to talk about the agency's origins and complicated task in the face of our modern political arena.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So the Supreme Court is about to make another abortion-related decision. |
| 0:06.0 | About a well-regarded, often used abortion pill, Mithapristone. |
| 0:10.0 | This is possibly going to be the most important abortion decision after Roe v. Wade. |
| 0:15.0 | The Justices will evaluate a contentious decision about the drug that came down and |
| 0:20.0 | a Texas court earlier this month. |
| 0:22.0 | The conservative Trump-appointed federal judge in Texas has ruled to suspend the FDA's approval of Mithapristone. |
| 0:28.0 | That suspension is currently on hold at the request of the Biden administration until the high court decides otherwise. |
| 0:37.0 | But the Texas decision was odd, not just for its scope, but also for its target. |
| 0:43.0 | Mithapristone isn't a new medication. |
| 0:45.0 | It was originally approved by the FDA over two decades ago. |
| 0:50.0 | The reasoning here is basically that the decision-making process, the FDA, was improper and therefore if it was improper |
| 0:57.0 | than the approval simply can't be affected nationwide. |
| 1:00.0 | The FDA has spent quite a bit of time in the National Limelight the past few years, largely due to the pandemic. |
| 1:07.0 | The agency continues to draw the eye of conservatives and sometimes liberals too. |
| 1:12.0 | And yet despite its regular place in the headlines, the FDA's history is far less familiar. |
| 1:19.0 | Daniel Carpenter is the Ali S. Fried Professor of Government at Harvard University and author of the book, |
| 1:25.0 | Reputation and Power, organizational image and pharmaceutical regulation at the FDA. |
| 1:32.0 | And he says that the agency originally came to be because of lobbying by scientists but also by the most activist of journalists too. |
| 1:44.0 | Roughly around 1905, 1906 during the muck-raking era in journalism, there were a number of kind of national stories. |
| 1:52.0 | The best known, of course, up to Nsenclerc's, the jungle and others that basically pointed to the crisis many thought we had in unsafe and impure foods and drugs. |
| 2:03.0 | And so the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 created basically the precursor of the modern FDA. |
| 2:12.0 | And it wasn't known at the FDA the time it basically becomes known as the Food Drug and its Sector-Side Administration in the 1920s. |
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