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The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday announced the selection of its first deputy commissioner for human foods — part of an effort to reorganize the agency’s oversight of food safety after contaminated baby formula caused major shortages last year. James “Jim” Jones, a former EPA official, will start his new role on Sept. 24 leading the new Human Foods Program, which will oversee food safety, chemical safety, nutrition and other areas. (Hellmann, 8/23)

Robert Califf, M.D., is “fired up” about the spate of U.S. drug shortages that now constitutes a “national security threat,” the FDA commissioner said Tuesday. “I did not come back to FDA to spend all my time on supply chain, but that’s what’s happened,” Califf said in response to a question about shortages during a recent presentation of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA. “And I feel like I know a lot about it, and I’m pretty fired up to do something about it.” (Kansteiner, 8/22)

The Biden administration's new biomedical research agency is providing $24 million for research leveraging an mRNA platform to train the immune system to fight cancer and other diseases, officials told Axios first. The project, led by Emory University in Atlanta, supports the administration's "cancer moonshot" — part of President Biden's "unity agenda" — aimed at cutting the cancer death rate in half over 25 years. (Reed, 8/23)

President Biden’s fledgling health agency, designed to accelerate under-funded research, just set its sights on one of the hottest areas of medicine — and one where the drug industry has a multibillion-dollar head start. The White House announced Wednesday that the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health would bankroll a $24 million project by Emory University to build messenger RNA platforms to target “cancer and other diseases,” investing in the technology behind the U.S.’s most commonly used vaccines for Covid-19. (Garde and Owermohle, 8/24)

�鶹Ů�� Health News: After Backlash, Feds Cancel Plan That Risked Limiting Breast Reconstruction Options 

Federal regulators have abandoned a plan that physicians, patients, and advocacy groups for breast cancer patients feared would limit women’s options for reconstructive surgery. The controversy centered on how doctors are paid for a type of breast reconstruction known as DIEP flap, in which skin, fat, and blood vessels are harvested from a woman’s abdomen to create a new breast. (Pradhan, Werner and Winick, 8/23)