Government watchdog urges FDA to finalize guidance for advisory committee conflicts of interest

Summary: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) relies on special advisory committees to help make big decisions about our medicine. But a government watchdog group, the GAO, found a major problem: the FDA isn't telling the public if these committee members or guest speakers have financial conflicts of interest. Basically, we don't always know if the people giving medical advice are secretly getting paid by outside groups.

Even worse, a law required the FDA to make clear rules about this 13 years ago, but they never finished them! Now, the watchdog is urging the FDA to finally set a deadline, finish the rules, and be totally honest about how they check these experts for money conflicts.

For more details, see rssapp-statnews-com at statnews.com/pharmalot/2026/04/01/government-watchdog-urges-fda-finalize-guidance-committee-conflicts/ (opens in new tab)