The Federal Select Agent Program--jointly managed by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA)--oversees laboratories' handling of certain hazardous pathogens known as select agents. However, the program does not fully meet all key elements of effective oversight. For example, the program is not structurally independent from all laboratories it oversees and has not

The Federal Select Agent Program (Select Agent Program)--jointly managed by the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA)--oversees laboratories' handling of certain hazardous pathogens known as select agents, but the program does not fully meet all key elements of effective oversight, as illustrated in the following examples: (1) GAO's past work identified independenc

Certifying health conditions: The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)--an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that administers the World Trade Center (WTC) Health Program--has developed policies, procedures, and guidance necessary for Health Program clinics and NIOSH to certify enrollees' WTC-related health conditions as being eligible for treatment

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released updated or new guidance for antibiotic development, and used the qualified infectious disease products (QIDP) designation to encourage the development of new antibiotics. As of August 2016, FDA, an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), had coordinated the release of 14 updated or new guidance documents on antibiotic develo

The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Veterans Health Administration (VHA) uses a multi-step strategic planning process to develop its strategic goals and objectives, which includes two key steps--(1) identifying and assessing factors that may affect health care delivery, which is referred to as environmental scanning, and (2) holding the annual National Leadership Council (NLC) Strategic Plan

Recent internal and external reviews of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) operations have identified deficiencies in its organizational structure and recommended changes that would require significant restructuring to address, including eliminating and consolidating program offices and reducing VHA central office staff. However, VHA does not have a process that ensures recommended organization

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) lacks measurable goals to assess its progress in advancing regulatory science--the science supporting its effort to assess the products it regulates. The agency issued strategic planning documents in 2011 and 2013 to guide its regulatory science efforts and identify priority areas for conducting work, but these documents do not specify the targets and time f

Most of the 8 departments and 15 agencies that GAO reviewed had policies that were not comprehensive, and some departments and agencies had policies that were not up to date. Specifically, policies at 5 departments and 9 agencies were not comprehensive because they did not contain all six elements that GAO identified as key for managing biological agents in high-containment laboratories. These el

Military servicemembers' perceive that a stigma exists with seeking mental health care, but little information is known about Department of Defense (DOD) deployed civilian perceptions. GAO's analysis of the most recently available data from a DOD-wide survey found that about 37 percent of active duty servicemembers in 2011 and 39 percent of reservists in the 2010/2011 timeframe responded that the