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FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb Announces He Will Resign

By: Laurel Wamsley I NPR
Posted on: Tuesday, March 5, 2019

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The commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, announced Tuesday that he is resigning the position, effective in one month.

Gottlieb won approval from many as an effective advocate for public health. Within the Trump administration, he stood out for being vocal and aggressive in his actions to regulate several industries, most notably his efforts on curbing vaping and making generic drugs more accessible.

The reasons for his resignation are not yet clear.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar praised Gottlieb in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. The FDA is an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Scott’s leadership inspired historic results from the FDA team, which delivered record approvals of both innovative treatments and affordable generic drugs, while advancing important policies to confront opioid addiction, tobacco and youth e-cigarette use, chronic disease, and more,” Azar said. “The public health of our country is better off for the work Scott and the entire FDA team have done over the last two years.”

A portion of Gottlieb’s resignation letter to Azar was published by health news site STAT, but it does not give a reason for his resignation.

“Over the past 23 months, I’ve been privileged to work with an outstanding team at the Food and Drug Administration,” Gottlieb wrote. “I’m fortunate for the opportunity that the President of the United States afforded me to lead this outstanding team, at this time, in this period of wonderful scientific advances.”