From the Editors’ Desk: Senate Food (& Drug) Fight!

 

shutterstock_243773839Via the WSJ, the parties’ attitudes on the subject could hardly be in starker contrast:

For weeks, members and staffers of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee have been trying to find common ground on the legislation. Republicans wanted to smooth the regulatory path for drug and medical device approvals, while Democrats strove to increase funding for medical research and find ways to keep drug prices in check. But in recent weeks, Democrats balked at several industry-sought measures they believed would lower the bar too much on the safety of products approved at the FDA, according to people familiar with the talks. These measures supported by Republicans would have, among other provisions, reduced FDA scrutiny of certain laboratory tests’ accuracy and of medical software.

On Thursday, Democrats on the panel confirmed they were offering their own version that would increase research funding for the National Institutes of Health and the FDA, but avoid some of the regulatory provisions. They also sought ways to cut prices of cancer, hepatitis and other expensive drugs. So now, the two parties are offering versions of an NIH funding bill that are poles apart. This strife is unusual for the HELP committee, which has been relatively bipartisan and cooperative for decades. Chairman Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) and the panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, for example, negotiated a rewrite of K-12 education programs last year.

Published in Domestic Policy
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  1. genferei Member
    genferei
    @genferei

    In case anyone was under any illusions about how the journalists at the WSJ swing, look at how the above is written.

    • #1
  2. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    genferei:In case anyone was under any illusions about how the journalists at the WSJ swing, look at how the above is written.

    The WSJ is regularly found to be the most liberal large paper, more so than the Post, the NYT, or the LA Times.  This is for news coverage, not the Op-Ed pages.

    • #2
  3. Tuck Inactive
    Tuck
    @Tuck

    So as usual, they want to reduce prices without reducing costs.  That’ll work.

    • #3
  4. JimGoneWild Coolidge
    JimGoneWild
    @JimGoneWild

    Time in markets will cheapen those drugs. The NIH doesn’t need more tax money–the drug companies just need to pay less taxes.

    The FDA needs to allow drug companies to modernize the study methods and get out of the way.

    • #4
  5. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Tuck:

    genferei:In case anyone was under any illusions about how the journalists at the WSJ swing, look at how the above is written.

    The WSJ is regularly found to be the most liberal large paper, more so than the Post, the NYT, or the LA Times. This is for news coverage, not the Op-Ed pages.

    Journalists want to be allowed to be included in the society of other journalists and to interbreed with them.  If you don’t believe me, look at how important it is for them to receive awards from other journalists.  Their readers outside the profession are an unfortunate but necessary nuisance.

    Possibly the WSJ journalists feel the need to overcompensate given the words “Wall Street” in the name of the paper.

    • #5
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