A recent study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is not using newly-granted authorities to recruit and retain senior scientists to its own Agency or its sub-agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). The GAO wrote a letter to Representatives Frank Pallone, Jr. and Greg Walden regarding the lack of using the new authority.
The new authority, granted under the 21st Century Cures Act, was given in response to complaints by the NIH and FDA that they have difficulty competing with private industry to recruit senior scientists. It expands the Senior Biomedical Research Service (SBRS) under the Public Health Service Act (PHSA) to provide additional hiring and retention authority to HHS. The Act also renamed the SBRS to the Silvio O. Conte Senior Biomedical Research and Biomedical Product Assessment Service (the Service). The amendments also increased the number of authorized members of the Service from 500 to 2,000 members, raised top-level pay from $219,200 to a salary consistent with the President’s salary ($400,000 annually), and expanded the program to include scientists with masters’ degrees in certain disciplines (previously only those with doctoral degrees were eligible). The Act also included a provision that the GAO report on the extent to which the recruitment and retention of biomedical research scientists and those in related fields at HHS have been affected by the amendments to the PHSA.
The GAO conducted a performance audit from December 2019 to May 2020, in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that the GAO plan and perform the audit to “obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.”
HHS Has Issued Regulations But Not Started to Use New Authority
Despite HHS issuing regulations in April on implementing the recruitment and retention authorities, the GAO report notes that the agency has yet to use them to recruit or retain biomedical research scientists. HHS told GAO that they worked with relevant HHS agencies to draft the regulations, such as the NIH, FDA, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
GAO also noted in the report that HHS is preparing guidance to allocate the 2,000 positions among the FDA, NIH, CDC, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The FDA and NIH expect to begin the recruitment and retention process after receiving those slots. The FDA also said it may take them up to six months to select scientists for those positions.