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# Consider Making FDA Independent: Law School Professor
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/consider-making-fda-independent-law-school-professor/
- Published: 2020-11-03T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T16:34:59.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5148012

UC Hastings School of Law professor **Dorit Reiss** says that while FDA was not designed to be independent, it is perhaps time to discuss whether it should be. Writing in a *StatNews* opinion piece, Reiss [cites](https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/03/should-fda-be-independent/?ref=fdaweb.com) the concerns of public health experts and lay observers that FDA will prematurely approve an emergency use authorization for a Covid-19 vaccine, even if the data do not support it.

While FDA has pushed back against the fear, she writes, “the reality is that if the Trump administration has the political will it can overturn FDA’s preferences.”

Authority to make decisions on both drugs and vaccines is delegated to the HHS secretary, Reiss says, and the secretary is not independent of the president.

“If the American people want FDA to be independent,” she declares, they need to pressure Congress to make some changes.”

As a first step in changing FDA’s governance, Reiss says, the laws governing its authorization of drugs and vaccines could be changed to make the FDA commissioner the decision-maker rather than the HHS secretary. And Congress could add more specific criteria for issuing an emergency use authorization for a vaccine or drug.

Reiss also says Congress could restructure FDA’s leadership into a multi-member commission protected from removal. She notes she previously recommended adopting the structure of the Federal Reserve Board for strengthening the CDC’s institutional independence.