Home Media Center News Releases

The president of the nation’s largest independent federal employees union has called on key congressional appropriators to ensure that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has the resources it needs to do its important work and provide the American people the safeguards they need.

“FDA employees are committed to protecting their fellow Americans and ensuring that food, drugs and medical devices are safe and effective,” said Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). “To accomplish this, Congress must provide the agency with the resources it needs to fulfill its critical mission.”

Members of the House and Senate will be meeting to negotiate a “minibus” of fiscal 2012 appropriations for agriculture, criminal justice, transportation and housing agencies. FDA funds fall under spending for the Department of Agriculture. In a letter Thursday to expected House and Senate conferees, Kelley called on them to accept the Senate appropriations for fiscal 2012, which would increase the FDA budget by $50 million above the fiscal 2011 levels and is $335 million above the amount approved by the House of Representatives.

“Funding below the Senate amount would be devastating to FDA’s ability to protect the American consumer,” Kelley wrote. “Products will go untested, opportunities for medical advances will be lost, and the American public will have to heighten their concern with every bite they eat, every pill they take, every pet or farm animal they feed, and every x-ray machine they use.”

Kelley also noted that the agency has faced chronic underfunding for years, even as its mission expands and critical duties are assigned to dedicated FDA frontline employees. Without these resources, she said it will be the American people that have to suffer with the consequences.

“Insufficient funding puts at risk the health and lives of many Americans, particularly children, the elderly and expectant mothers by exposure to adulterated foods, uninspected imports from countries with nothing near American sanitary standards and ineffective or even harmful pharmaceuticals,” Kelley wrote.

NTEU represents more than 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments, including more than 5,000 in the FDA.