Today is the day that the Congress, specifically the House, leaves our lovely town and heads home, converting my 40 minute commute to 12 minutes. Thanks guys!
The grass is brown. The mosquitos are ferocious. The weeds are back. But it is Friday and here is a little of what happened this week:
- GAO Issues Report on Compounding – This week the GAO issued a report “Drug Compounding: Clear Authority and More Reliable Data Needed to Strengthen FDA Oversight” the title of which sort of says it all. In fact, the opening few lines should be enough to frighten us all – “Two federal court decisions have resulted in differing FDA authority in different parts of the country…” The report states that not only is there a confusion around authority that inhibits FDA from inspecting facilities, but there is a lack of information available as well. The notice of the report has a highlights page and a podcast as well as the report available on it. A link to the report has been added to the Eye on FDA Compounding Tab on the blog site.
- Primer on the Affordable Care Act – Thanks to my buddy Kip Piper for the heads up on this. Despite the fact that today, once again, there are members of Congress attempting a vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act, chances are it is going to be implemented and that day is not far off. Truth is, my feeling is that most people are pretty unaware as to many of the details. The Congressional Research has put together a nice overview that sheds some light on how the tax issues work with relation to the credits for purchasing insurance.
- Legislative Update – I update on interesting bits of proposed legislation before Congress as I become aware of them and add them to the Eye on FDA Proposed Legislation Tab on the blog site. Today I am adding H.R.1801 – Cancer Drug Coverage Parity Act which would amend ERISA to require that coverage for cancer drugs not be less in a plan than coverage for any other kind of drug. The bill has no related bill in the Senate, but has 57 sponsors in the House.
That’s it for me this week folks. I hope you all have a great weekend.
