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# AdvaMed Urges HHS Reversal of FDA Staff Cuts
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/advamed-urges-hhs-reversal-of-fda-staff-cuts/
- Published: 2025-02-19T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T14:53:30.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5158687

Advamed president **Scott Whitaker** has written HHS to urge a reversal of staff cuts at CDRH to avoid a negative impact on patient care. “Device review times were already too long, though they were improving as the result of our latest user-fee agreement,” Whitaker said in a [Linkedin post ](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/scott-whitaker-60295512%5Fai-activity-7297736197391470592-gRHR?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop&rcm=ACoAAEsNsG4B6SVcDKrAoYNuyScsfCXhFk25DBA)summarizing the letter. “FDA was already struggling to keep pace with our industry’s tens of thousands of new medical technology applications every year, all of which are intended to improve the lives of patients in this country.”

Whitaker says the agency is losing hundreds of new employees, which he describes as the “best and most innovative hires under our most recent \[user fee\] agreement… I am also concerned that it puts at risk our nation’s status as the top medtech market in the world — as the global leader in medtech innovation, manufacturing, and jobs.”

As for harming innovation, Whitaker notes how artificial intelligence (AI) in health care is driving earlier and more accurate diagnoses, which leads to lower costs to patients and to the healthcare system overall. “Eliminating FDA’s recent critical new hires in the AI space will dramatically slow review times and require reassigning non-experts already at FDA to review these technologies who will inevitably make slower and potentially inappropriately conservative decisions,” he warns.

Additionally, Whitaker’s post solicited patient groups and health-related trade organizations to work together to reverse the staff cuts.