Report: FDA cut facility inspections to give itself pay raises

The U.S. General Accounting Office has issued a report that claims that for the past eight years Food and Drug Administration officials have cut inspections of medical production manufacturing facilities to be able to award annual pay raises to all FDA employees, Biomedical Market Newsletter reports. According to the GAO, the agency did not receive enough federal money from fiscal year 1994 through 2001 to cover the pay increases and cut spending on facility inspections and limited reviews on over-the-counter and generic products to cover the raises.

Dave Anast, publisher of the newsletter, believes Congress will examine the issue more thoroughly when it reconvenes in January. "Sacrificing facility inspections and many other critical tasks, in order to reward themselves with annual pay raises after not doing their jobs properly, would thoroughly justify firing some of these executives if they were in the private sector," he said.