Color, irrespective of party affiliation. We are one america. And lets try to act that way. And i close this briefing. Thank you. As that herring comes to a close, lawmakers discussing how the Veterans Affairs department, this is a live hearing getting under way now on cspan 3. If covid19 turned into a pandemic and portions of the United States Health Care System broke down the va may need to come back and ask for additional funds and since then congress has appropriated 17. 2 billion for vhas covid19 Pandemic Response and i was glad to help advocate for that funding. Now im not sure that many of us here on the dais know what to expect during that february hearing nor did we fully grasp the enormity of the Public Health challenges americans would soon face from the pandemic. This is largely because the administration failed to recognize these risks and communicate them to the American Public in advance of the crisis. Here we are a little more than three months later and exactly 90 days
Good afternoon. I call this meeting, i called the string to order. Without objection that shares authorized to declare recess at any time. We have a number of numbers participating remotely. Welcome. Before we proceed i like to go over some items for our members participating remotely. First, if you are having or expensing connectivity issues, please make sure you or your staff contact our designated Technical Support so those issues can be resolved immediately. Members participate in remotely must continue to use the video function for the duration of their participation in the hearing unless they expand connectivity issues or other technical problems that render the member unable to participate, to fully participate on camera. It is at the committees, it is Committee Policy that members participating remotely will remain muted when not recognized, just like turning her microphone on or off during an in person hearing. This is at a courtesy to all members on the committee and so that
Time and i want to make sure that we have just think our panelists and prepare for our next panel which is terrific and pleasing run join me in thanking the panel. [applause] [applause] [background sounds]. Will come up we will move on to her second panel. Im very excited is actually i want to say that i have a good friend doctor Janet Woodcock sue is the Principal Deputy commissioner has been at the fda for a number of years and is helped reorganize and restructure offices and centers. And is probably one of the best executives i know in the public and private sectors. She has always been willing to do the hard work that others are unwilling to do make the hard decisions. And then continuing have a brain trust doctor mark mccalla, who ran to federal agencies including serving as fda commissioner and so, im an a internal printed so this is fun for me because we are going to spend time talking about how to fit agencies and organizations during the pandemic it, biomedical innovations and
We are going to move on to our second panel. I am very excited for this actually. I have my good friend, janet woodcock, who is the principal fda commissioner and has been there for a number of years and helped reorganize and restructure offices. And is probably one of the best investors i know in the public and private sector. She has always been willing to do the hard work that others are unwilling to do and make hard decisions. And continuing our brain traps, we have dr. Mark mcclellan who ran two federal agencies including serving as the fda commissioner area i am an eternal pragmatist so this is fun for me because you are going to spend time talking about how to fix agencies and organizations. During the pandemic, the biomedical innovation complex works pretty well. We got vaccines, had therapeutics, and it took time to happen and in record time. All of us are probably sitting here today because these things actually happened. We got them out community. The Public Health infrastru
We are going to move on to our second panel. Very excited. My good friend has been at the fda for a number of years to reach structure offices and one of the private sector whos been willing to do the hard work of others are unwilling to do and continuing, we have doctor mark who ran to federal agencies including serving as fda commissioner so we are going to spend time talking about organizations. We eventually got them out into the community. The Public Health infrastructure unfortunately operated largely inh un a silo, fragmented across localities, states, and the fed. And then as we think about agencies come with three primary agencies. We had the cdc, the fda and the nih, and they all functions very differently duringda the pandem. And so my hope was to spend sometime talk about how the fdas successes, it was not perfect but it did a pretty darn good job, and what we can learn from that thinking about how to fix this cdc and the nih Going Forward and make a a more robt Public Heal