Di­min­ish­ing the FDA’s pow­er was my in­tent: Right-to-try au­thor scolds Scott Got­tlieb as agency im­ple­ments new law

In a bizarre twist for the new­ly signed “right-to-try” law, the FDA — cut out of the process of sign­ing off on cer­tain us­es of ex­per­i­men­tal drugs for ter­mi­nal­ly ill pa­tients by that law — now has to fig­ure out how to im­ple­ment it. And al­ready, the bill’s main au­thor is un­hap­py with com­mis­sion­er Scott Got­tlieb in the af­ter­math and has point­ed­ly made his feel­ings known in a let­ter.

“This law in­tends to di­min­ish the FDA’s pow­er over peo­ple’s lives, not in­crease it,” Sen­a­tor Ron John­son, Re­pub­li­can from Wis­con­sin, wrote to Got­tlieb yes­ter­day, dis­pleased over tweets and state­ments the com­mis­sion­er has made re­cent­ly around im­ple­men­ta­tion of the law. The state­ment is re­mark­able be­cause the is­sue has long been framed by “right-to-try” sup­port­ers as a win for ter­mi­nal­ly ill pa­tients and not an end-around to weak­en the FDA.

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