FDA
Introduction
A federal agency, Food and Drug Administration that is abbreviated as FDA has its headquarters in Maryland in the U.S. The agency’s critical role is to protect and promote public health via continued regulation, supervision, and upholding of the food safety requirements. FDA’s scope of supervision includes tobacco products and dietary supplements. In addition, FDA has a responsibility of overseeing drug prescriptions, animal feeds, and cosmetics.
Ingrained on Hertwig & Rau (2015) study, the U.S congress has empowered the FDA in enforcing the Safety Act that governs and regulates medication. The tenets of the agency are premised on implementing this Act as its primary focus. Additionally, FDA has a responsibility of enforcing other sections of the law on regulations where some are not directly related to food and drug regulations. FDA’s mandate as enshrined on the Act of the Public Health Service Section 361 covers regulations of a range of products that include but not limited to products on disease control.
This study is ingrained on the agency, FDA. Notably, determining how the FDA obtains its funding in addition to how this funding impacts FDA constitutes the scope of this study. Further, giving an insight on FDA’s role in overseeing herbs and supplements will also be examined.
Funding of FDA
It has been cited that to-date FDA regulates US$1 trillion of the consumer goods. This constitutes the United States’ 26% of consumer expenditures (Willis & Keleher, 2014). Further, the amount includes food sales at a cost of $466 billion, drugs estimated at $275 billion, cosmetics $60 billion, and $18 billion for vitamin supplements. Premised on the 2014 financial records of FDA, the agency proposed a budget of $4.7 billion. It was elucidated that half of this budget would be sourced from the user fees in the drug industry where Pharmaceutical firms were projected to pay a major percentage of the fees. This funding is utilized in expediting drug reviews.
Secondly, FDA’s source of funding comes from the taxpayers. Margaret Hamburg, the agency’s commissioner outrageously informed the U.S congress on 2014 that FDA needed additional funding through taxpayers in the 2015 fiscal year in order to effectively improve its service delivery on food safety and move a notch higher in effective monitoring of imports. Besides, the funding was geared in creating measures to ensure regulation of both chemical and biological threats. Hamburg further elucidated that the funding will be one of the 21st century’s major delusions the agency seeks to acquire.
Impact of the Funding on FDA
Since the federal agency regulates all facets of the drug prescription, testing, labelling, and product promotion activities, funding is critical. Notably, funding of the agency through user fees and taxpayers will enable to agency to effectively execute its mandate of protecting and promoting public health ingrained in drugs and food regulations.
Overseeing Herbs and Supplements
As elucidated by Willis & Keleher (2014), herbs and supplements have been cited to be critical in the treatment of allergies, cold, analgesics, and psychiatric disorders, for instance, depression. As such, they are widely used across the U.S. The agency bears the responsibility of ensuring that herbs and supplements are safe for consumers. In order to deliver, FDA is obliged to enforce law and take action against noncompliant herbs and supplements.
FDA’s obligation of ensuring that the herbs and supplements are safe for consumers commence once the products have been channeled to the market. Consequently, the agency ensures that the dietary supplements that entail vitamins, botanicals, and amino acids conform to safety standards such as proper labelling.
References
Hertwig, P., & Rau, P. (2015). Risk Management at Health Care, Revenue Management, Capacity Option and Financial Intermediations. Hamburg: Diplomica Verlag.
Willis, E. & Keleher, H. (2014). Understanding the U.S healthcare system. Sydney: Churchill Livingstone/Elsevier.