Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on fda: what the evidence says · JRE #1999
“For example, almost 50% of FDA's budget comes from pharmaceutical companies. They're not working for us. They're working for the pharmaceutical company with CDC.”
What the evidence says
Kennedy's claim that almost half of the FDA's budget comes from pharmaceutical companies refers to industry-paid user fees authorized under laws like the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), and the figure is broadly consistent with government data. A 2023 HHS/ASPE issue brief found that in fiscal year 2022, user fees accounted for 46% ($2.9 billion) of FDA's total budget of $6.2 billion, with the share varying by program (66% of the human drugs program budget, 43% for biologics, 35% for medical devices). FDA's own public explainer confirms that user fees supplement congressional appropriations, can legally be spent only on the specified review and safety activities Congress designates, and that approval decisions are made based on science rather than tied to fee payment. So "almost 50%" is a reasonable approximation of the total-agency figure, though the share is considerably higher for the drug-review programs specifically. Whether this funding structure amounts to regulatory "capture" is a matter of ongoing debate among health-policy researchers rather than a settled empirical fact.