GovernmentExecutive.com

More than two dozen consumer and business groups have formed a coalition to boost public awareness and federal dollars for the Food and Drug Administration.

The Coalition for a Stronger FDA, co-chaired by former Health and Human Services Secretaries Tommy Thompson, Donna Shalala and Louis Sullivan, will launch a lobbying effort to secure funding for the agency, which regulates the food and drug products.

Speaking at a news conference Monday, Thompson said the agency's appropriated funds have not kept up with that of its sister agencies, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "We just want to be able to give [the FDA] the resources it needs to carry out the responsibilities and duties the public expects," he said.

William Hubbard, a former FDA associate director and the coalition's senior advisor, said there was a "mismatch between the public's expectation of the FDA and what it can do."

The coalition's launch follows an Institute of Medicine report issued last week, commissioned by the FDA, which said the agency suffered from "chronic underfunding" and needs "substantially increased resources" to operate properly.

The coalition ranges from patient-focused Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, to the consumer and industry-driven Consumer Federation of American and Grocery Manufacturers Association.