Group lobbies for massive increase in funding for the FDA

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(NaturalNews) The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) may receive a larger budget if a campaign by a group calling itself the Coalition for a Stronger FDA has their way. The group is lobbying sectors such as biotech manufacturers, food producers and former FDA leaders to promote the budget increases it sees as being needed by the FDA.

The FDA already has a fiscal year 2007 budget of $1.8 billion and is responsible for regulating food, drugs, cosmetics and other necessary items that represent 25 cents of every dollar consumers spend in the United States.

The Coalition for a Stronger FDA says that the $5.8 billion budget of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) far outweighs the $1.5 billion that the FDA receives. In a strongly worded report that just came out a few days ago, a group of independent scientists said that chronic underfunding of the FDA has caused the agency's lax oversight of drug safety.

But, more money is not necessarily the answer, countered Mike Adams, proponent of FDA reform and author of "Take Back Your Health Power.""To give the FDA more money without demanding serious reforms is a dangerous move. The agency needs integrity more than it needs an increase in funding, and there's no guarantee the FDA wouldn't simply use the funds to step up attacks on anything that threatens the empire of Big Pharma and food manufacturers instead," Adams said.

Former FDA associate commissioner William Hubbard said that "Even if the FDA's budget was doubled, the investment would pay for itself if it sped life-saving drugs to market just one year earlier, or averted a public health crisis like the recent illnesses and at least one death linked to fresh spinach."

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