Robert Garcia
speaker
1,657 appearances
63 recordings
10 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard 12 Sep
Robert Garcia’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 43 in all, peaking in Feb 2026 with 19.
Appearances
Well, I'd say generally yes right now, and it's a matter of what happens after this. You know, we have a new commissioner, and I want to give him a chance to – lay out the plan about how things are going to be built back up.
But, you know, we've been riding on a wave of work for decades now that involve both Republican and Democrat administrations with a civil service which has maintained this infrastructure, which I believe is so important. The analogy I'm using for people to grasp sort of allegorically is Humpty Dumpty.
And you'll notice if you read Project 2025, the goal right now has been to essentially destroy the federal government as it existed. And then in an unspecified way, there's going to be some building back up. So let's give the new FDA commissioner a chance before we condemn it. But I think we all need to keep a very close eye on it because we're You're certainly right.
Even the remaining employees don't know day to day if they're going to get fired. And they're spoken about so disrespectfully when anyone who's worked in the government knows these people are working hard and very dedicated to the mission. So the sort of language that's being used, I think, is not helping the public grasp what's going on. Can we spend a moment on that, too?
The brain drain is already occurring and has occurred to a large extent. Many of the most experienced, knowledgeable people have left already, either because they were fired or because they saw the handwriting on the wall and sought other jobs. And these people are highly employable, at least they have been up until now, because
uh, the skills to understand, let's say drug development or, uh, what the factors are and save for nutritious food. Um, these are highly qualified people. So of course, right now, uh, those that are being fired and having a hard time finding a job because universities are also not hiring and the industry is getting filled up with, uh, people.
So there's going to be a problem, uh, in the short term. But there's no question that losing institutional knowledge, the understanding of how things work, where the risks are. I mean, Ben, one thing I feel like I have to say over and over, if we just take drugs, nine out of 10 drugs that get into human clinical trials don't make it to market either because...
they have an unexpected toxicity or because they engage the target the drug is going after, but it doesn't have the benefit that was expected. And to know that, you have to do these very complicated clinical trials. I think a better way to describe them is human experiments, which is what they are, people volunteering to put their lives on the line. You referred to
One, but it's one of many clinical trials. Imagine that you volunteered for a human experiment, you're in the middle of it, and the government decides to just stop funding it out of the blue with one day's notice. You may be on an experimental drug, you're getting medical care related to this.
It's really a lot of evidence that sort of software engineering is being used to do this with anonymous emails from people who actually don't have content knowledge about what's going on. That's why now that we have a new confirmed commissioner, I'm hopeful that he will put things back in order and build it up, but we've really got to keep an eye on this.
Could I mention one other thing that I think is really important right now? We have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who's written that viruses and bacteria don't cause illness and who is suing the government to make it almost impossible to distribute vaccines.
Some of the very basics that our public health system depends on are being undermined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services, which I, hard to imagine that could have even happened. Now, there's a slogan, Make America Healthy Again. I hope, like me, that you think that's a really good idea. And it actually really is true that our food system, while safe from viral and bacterial infections,
It's not nutritious. The easiest thing to do for Americans when it comes to buying food is to buy stuff which is not healthy. Totally on board on better nutrition and exercise, but you can't treat measles with cod liver oil. So imagine you're coming to work at the FDA and you're working on vaccines. Let's take the HPV vaccine.
it's almost eliminated cervical cancer in women let's say you're working on that and your boss's boss is saying can't trust this stuff it you know may not work it's an individual decision But it's a very difficult work environment, almost like you feel like you can't tell the truth, because if you do, you're going against your boss and your boss's boss.
I mean, as you know, Ben, there's a long history of the independence of these federal agencies to do their jobs, and it's sort of at two levels. The commissioner is a political appointment, and I was one of those. So you understand that you come in reflecting the values of the president. It's a presidential appointment with senatorial confirmation.
But then the decisions about individual products are not made by the commissioner. That's only happened a couple of times in the history of the FDA. Those decisions are made by full-time civil servants. But all but two of those people at that top level that have accountability for those decisions have been fired. And so now there are going to be appointments made.
Well, and here's a place where I wouldn't expect an average member of the public I mean, it's complicated to get involved in this. I think those of us who are professionally involved need to really be keeping a close eye on this. Are we going to appoint people with deep knowledge of, let's say, drug approval, device safety, food safety?
Are they going to be appointed into these roles, or will they be people who have a political allegiance to a particular agenda? And I think there's a lot of reason to believe it's going to be the latter, and people have to keep a close eye on that.
I mean, all the people in those jobs, they don't come and go with administrations. They are part of civil service.
You know, what I'd say is I'm not very sure that this administration is going to look carefully at vaccine safety. And I think there will be a lot more studies done. I'm more worried about the other side of the coin. When there's a benefit, are the vaccines going to be promoted? And, you know, as you all know, I think for the average person, it may be worthwhile thinking in terms of
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