Makary must stop the bleeding if confirmed to lead FDA

— OPINION —

If I were a Senator conducting a confirmation hearing for Dr. Marty Makary, the nominee to be the next commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, my first question to him would be: ‘Who, in fact, will be running this agency? You, Dr. Makary? Or Elon Musk and his unaccountable team of technocrats?’

The legally dubious “Department of Government Efficiency,” has taken a flamethrower to the staff directory at FDA, summarily dismissing staff freshly hired to deal with the safety of infant formula, to respond to foodborne outbreaks, and to review the safety of chemicals used in our food, among other things.

If Makary is confirmed, job number one is going to be to stop the bleeding of staff with the scientific expertise to keep our food and drugs safe, and to resist an additional round of cuts the administration has asked agencies to propose later this month.

These arbitrary and reckless cuts aren’t going to make any Americans healthier. Instead, they will increase the likelihood of foodborne illness outbreaks and increase the time necessary for FDA to solve them. Moreover, if Dr. Makary is, like Secretary Kennedy, concerned with the safety of food additives and dyes, following through with arbitrary, sweeping DOGE cuts will make it harder for the agency to address them.

If Dr. Makary hopes to help Americans avoid chronic conditions like diabetes and heart disease, he could start by continuing the agency’s work on front-of-package nutrition labeling, and on reducing sodium in the food supply. That will take staff. If he wants to ensure that chemicals in our food are safe, he will move to close the Generally Recognized as Safe loophole and advance FDA’s post-market assessment initiative. And he’d leave FDA’s new rule on laboratory-developed tests intact.

Finally, if Dr. Makary wants to help Americans avoid communicable disease, he must not succumb to the extreme, anti-vaccination ideology percolating from elsewhere in the administration. It’s bad enough to have a measles outbreak in the year 2025. We shouldn’t have to worry about a possible polio outbreak in the year 2026, or a pertussis outbreak in 2027.

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