Politicians and Science

The White House and the US Food and Drug Administration have disagreed on policy for a range of issues, "from the regulation of sunscreens and asthma inhalers to the enforcement of an agency decision on a drug to prevent premature births," The New York Times reports. The Times adds that the Obama administration is more engaged in what FDA is doing — the administration had increased the agency's budget — but that engagement has lead some to say that FDA may soon no longer be seen as an independent entity. "In a globalizing world, where trust is a huge part of what American manufacturers have to sell, the politicization of the FDA could hurt not only consumer protection but industry profits as well," says Daniel Carpenter, a Harvard University historian who studies FDA.