CSPI Praises Hamburg Tenure at FDA

Statement of CSPI Executive Director Michael F. Jacobson

February 5, 2015

Margaret Hamburg is a consummate public health professional who has led the Food and Drug Administration at a time of steady and important progress on major food policy issues. Under her leadership, the FDA has moved to implement major provisions of the Food Safety Modernization Act; has implemented its share of the Affordable Care Act, including the provision that will put calories on chain restaurant menus; launched an overdue revamp of the Nutrition Facts label; and has moved to eliminate the remaining artificial trans fat from the food supply. That latter move alone will save tens of thousands of lives that would have been prematurely lost to heart disease. Surely she has been the most action-oriented commissioner since David Kessler, and unlike some of her predecessors, paid as much attention to food as drugs.

We hope her successor is quickly nominated and confirmed so that the agency's ongoing momentum is not unnecessarily slowed.

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