Rob Califf ad­vances as Biden's FDA nom­i­nee, with a close com­mit­tee vote

Rob Califf’s sec­ond con­fir­ma­tion process as FDA com­mis­sion­er is al­ready much more dif­fi­cult than his near unan­i­mous con­fir­ma­tion un­der the Oba­ma ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The Sen­ate Health Com­mit­tee on Thurs­day vot­ed 13-8 in fa­vor of ad­vanc­ing Califf’s nom­i­na­tion to a full Sen­ate vote. Sev­er­al De­moc­rats vot­ed against Califf, in­clud­ing Sen. Bernie Sanders and Sen. Mag­gie Has­san. Sev­er­al oth­er De­moc­rats who aren’t on the com­mit­tee, like West Vir­ginia’s Joe Manchin and Ed Markey of Mass­a­chu­setts, al­so said Thurs­day that they would not vote for Califf. Markey, Has­san and Manchin all pre­vi­ous­ly ex­pressed reser­va­tions about the prospect of Janet Wood­cock as an FDA com­mis­sion­er nom­i­nee too.

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