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REMARKS BY:	DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
PLACE:		Swearing-In Ceremony of Dr. Jane Henney as FDA Commissioner, Washington, D.C.
DATE:		December 15, 1998

Swearing-In of Dr. Jane Henney as FDA Commissioner

Mr. Vice-President, Dr. Henney and distinguished guests. I am very happy to be here. This is a proud moment for the Food and Drug Administration as we welcome our new Commissioner. Let me begin my remarks today by first thanking Dr. Michael Friedman, who has served as Acting Commissioner with such distinction for nearly two years. During his tenure, Dr. Friedman advanced the agencies work on many fronts, from expanding its focus on basic science, to building new partnerships with academia and other federal partners. In fact, Dr. Friedman is a master consensus builder. He played a key role in gaining support from industry and Congress for reauthorizing the Prescription Drug User Fee Act of 1992, and negotiating the FDA Modernization Act of 1997. Both of these measures helped transform the agency into the active and aggressive defender of public health it is today.

Working with Vice-President Gore, through his commitment to reinvent government, it's been my privilege these past six years to share in building the FDA we have today-and to help keep some very important promises. We promised to streamline the drug review process without sacrificing safety and quality. We promised more and better medicines for people who need them. We promised America the safest food supply in the world. And we kept those promises.

We also kept our promises to consumers and industry and both parties that we would work as a team-we did-to draft and pass successful FDA reform legislation. We promised the food and drug industries that we would be their advocates to open up markets and protect their patents-we've worked hard to do that. As recently as last week, I talked with the Egyptian Health Minister on behalf of our pharmaceutical industry.

We promised first rate leadership. New leadership for the new millennium: Dr. Jane Henney. She has certainly made a long trek from Woodburn, Indiana, where she grew up, to the helm of the FDA. But she brings with her proven experience and a history of excellence as a distinguished cancer researcher; energetic public health leader; and passionate health pioneer. By combining small town-values with a big- time vision, Jane Henney has made a difference in a great many lives in every leadership post she has taken. She is superbly qualified to lead our nation's foremost consumer protection agency into the next century.

And it's now my pleasure to introduce someone who's helping fix our entire nation's course for the future, and lead us into the next century-if necessary to drag us into the next century-our Vice-President, Al Gore.

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