Last week, Bloomberg News reported that President-elect Trump is considering Jim O’Neill as the new FDA commissioner.
O’Neill is a Silicon Valley investor, libertarian, and associate of Peter Thiel, a billionaire who supported Donald Trump. O’Neill previously worked for the Department of Health and Human Services in the George W. Bush administration. News reports say that O’Neill would be an “unconventional” pick because he isn’t a physician and has little scientific background. This could be a good thing, considering the problematic ties to the pharmaceutical industry of current and past FDA commissioners. The appointment of an FDA chief who isn’t in the pocket of Big Pharma is a welcome development.
In addition, O’Neill has signaled a desire to reform and overhaul the FDA—which is at the core of ANH-USA’s mission. In 2014 O’Neil spoke to a regenerative medicine group where he said, “Every time the FDA commissioner approves something and someone gets sick who used it, the commissioner is summoned to a congressional committee that also controls his budget and forced to testify under oath, why he made this rash decision.…It’s a miserable process.”
Nothing is final yet. Stay tuned.
Other articles in this week’s Pulse of Natural Health:
Want Holes in Your Stomach? Eat More GMOs
Is Lead Causing Criminal Behavior?
Trump MAY Be Shaking Things Up at the FDA
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