The House Appropriations Committee voted on Thursday to give the Food and Drug Administration the power to order the recall of unsafe prescription and over-the-counter drugs rather than having to ask manufacturers to recall the products voluntarily. The language was added to the $153-billion USDA-FDA funding bill for fiscal 2021, which was approved by voice vote and now goes to the House floor for debate.
Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, the Republican leader on the committee, warned of “poison pills” in the bill, apparently referring to riders that would block Trump administration regulations to narrow SNAP eligibility. Those regulations, involving utility costs and time limits on benefits, affect about 700,000 people. A third Trump regulation, restricting the use of so-called categorical eligibility, would end SNAP benefits for 3 million people and was not challenged in the USDA-FDA bill.
The FDA already has the authority to mandate recalls of products ranging from vaccines and medical devices to food and tobacco, but it must negotiate drug recalls, said Georgia Rep. Sanford Bishop, the Democrat who chairs the subcommittee in charge of USDA and FDA budgets. “It simply does not make sense that FDA lacks the same authority for prescriptions and over-the-counter drugs,” said Bishop. “This is a commonsense fix to a public safety issue.” The amendment was adopted on a voice vote.
A summary of the USDA-FDA bill is available here.
The 108-page text of the bill, prior to the Thursday amendment, is available here.
The report that accompanies the USDA-FDA bill is available here.