Calley Means: Why is the FDA funded by the pharmaceutical industry?

"Why is the FDA funded by the pharmaceutical industry?
I've spoken to member after member who are very concerned about that in this building, but they slide it in. Why is pharma lobbying to pay billions of dollars out of pocket to fund their own regulatory agency? I've talked to healthcare staffers who support this for whatever reason and said, well, it's a money saver. It's $3 billion. $3 billion, as if this building cares about $3 billion. That's $3 billion that we could have the taxpayer pay to not allow the agency that regulates drugs to be co-opted by the agency, by the industry that's trying to regulate. That would be $3 billion well spent. The FDA should not be funded by the pharmaceutical industry. I've been in DC long enough to know that institutions are built to grow and that the incentives of a bureaucracy is to grow as the pharmaceutical industry goes and there's zero conflicts of interest rules about the FDA commissioner going straight to the board of Pfizer. It creates really bad incentives. We have to just untangle the FDA from the pharmaceutical industry. And number two, we need to disaggregate the F and the D. Y is the pharmaceutical industry funding the institution that oversees our food."