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# Senate Health Committee Advances Califf Nomination
- URL: https://www.fdaweb.com/senate-health-committee-advances-califf-nomination/
- Published: 2022-01-13T12:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-14T17:28:31.000Z
- Author: David McFarland
- Tags: FDA Policy/General, #legacy-id-D5150929

The Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee 1/13 voted 13 to 8 to move FDA commissioner nominee **Robert Califf**’s nomination to an eventual Senate floor vote. On the Democrat side, two votes were against the nomination — **Bernie Sanders** (I-VT) and **Maggie Hassan** (D-NH). This was more than made up to advance Califf’s nomination by Republican-supported votes by **Richard Burr** (R-NC), **Susan Collins** (R-ME), **Lisa Murkowski** (R-AK) and **Mitt Romney** (R-UT).

Last month at his confirmation hearing ([see story](https://www.fdaweb.com/califf-vows-war-on-social-media-rx-promos/)), Califf vowed to be very aggressive in the area of social media medical misinformation. During the hearing, Califf was asked whether FDA needs to take a more active role ensuring that there’s sufficient oversight of direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising. He strongly agreed there should be more DTC oversight, adding that he and other physicians do not like that there’s advertising of drugs. “So the FDA has to regulate it, and I think we need an across-the-board update and a much more active FDA in terms of getting the right information to the public,” he told lawmakers. “It's right there in the mission statement of the FDA to make an understanding of the science behind medical products and their use for the public. But it's not just advertising done on TV like we are used to seeing. There’s a huge amount of information going on social media that we're going to have to deal with....”

Additionally, Califf said that, if confirmed, his priorities would be emergency preparedness and response; consumer and patient protection; and modernization and innovation. As his first priority, he said: “FDA must continue to be a strong partner in battling Covid-19, taking into account lessons learned from the pandemic so we can apply them to the ongoing current pandemic so we are ready for the next one.”