[bko]

Please spend 30 seconds to search whether the fda budget has actually been cut over time (hint: it hasn’t)

The fda budget much like every other agency has grown incredibly in the last 50 years ( <1bnin 1992 to >6bn today). You can look at more recent numbers and see it’s still rising. When you hear cuts I’m spending it’s often cuts in proposed increases in spending which are often double digits. So you can grow an agency 10% a year for decades and then a single slow down or reversion to levels from just a year or two ago is seen as drastic cuts that will result in poison into our water.

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=fda%20budget

[scrozart]

You're not wrong about funding, but OP is correct about industry influence.

It varies a little by division/subject matter, but they basically have to run everything by industry and are subject to FOIAs and public shaming by senators and representatives beholden to industry.

Source: long-term partner of FDA employee, though this stuff is pretty widely understood.

[trogdor]

> and are subject to FOIAs

How is that relevant?

[scrozart]

Those FOIAs are requested by politicians owned by industry in an effort by industry to scrape whatever leverage they can. FOIAs themselves are not problematic, obviously, but their application isn't limited to do-gooders.