STAT+: Dear Vinay: Please embrace dissent and fade into the background
\n \t
\n
<\/BR>
\n
\n \t
\n
<\/BR><\/p>\n
Dear Vinay: My editors asked me to explain your return to the Food and Drug Administration to readers. But I\u2019m more interested, right now, in giving advice to you.<\/p>\n
Look, any claim I have to clairvoyance is void. I was surprised as anyone by both your ouster<\/a> from the agency and your return<\/a>, and have no idea what you\u2019re planning regarding Sarepta Therapeutics<\/a> or Covid vaccines<\/a> or anything else.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve watched your rise from medical iconoclast to internet provocateur<\/a> to government official. I\u2019ve also followed the FDA closely for 20 years, during which time I\u2019ve interviewed countless agency officials, including multiple commissioners. So here\u2019s what I think you missed in your first three months and what I think you can do better upon your return.<\/p>\n In short: You need to lead, and to do that you need to listen. And, ideally, you need to fade into the background, making people pay attention to what the FDA, and not you, can accomplish.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve gotten this kind of advice before, and publicly, from Harvard University researcher Paul Sax, when you first were named the director<\/a> of the FDA\u2019s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.<\/p>\n Continue to STAT+ to read the full story\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n