FDA hires 1,300 new doctors and scientists

Food and Drug Administration officials announced earlier this week that they met a goal of hiring more than 1,300 medical personnel and scientists by the end of the fiscal year, marking the agency's largest expansion since the period after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The agency added 1,317 employees to its staff of about 10,100, just surpassing the target for the first phase of a hiring initiative announced in late April. About 1,000 already have started, and 158 are scheduled to report by Sept. 28. The remaining hires still are going through the security clearance process.

The staff boost follows a summer of food safety incidents, including a salmonella outbreak associated with Mexican hot peppers, and reports linking 81 deaths to tainted versions of the blood thinner heparin. FDA has been under intense pressure from Congress to beef up its oversight and inspection processes.

"We expect that these new FDA staff will help the agency continue to focus on its new challenges of globalization and scientific and technological progress, and to further its mission of protecting and promoting the health of the American public," FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly said.

More than 850 of the new hires are chemists, biologists, pharmacologists, medical officers, consumer safety officers and microbiologists. Recruiting for oncology positions proved to be a challenge. While FDA hired nine new oncologists, 20 turned down job offers because the compensation was inadequate, agency officials said.

Officials met the targets through the use of direct-hire authority, which allows agencies with critical hiring needs to bypass certain rating and ranking procedures. The authority, administered by the Office of Personnel Management, can put qualified candidates on the job in as little as three weeks.

Kelly said FDA officials are somewhat concerned about a future wave of retirements. In this hiring drive, 547 of the new positions were filled due to retirements and vacancies created by normal attrition, he said.

As a result, the agency also has introduced the FDA Fellowship, which aims to attract young scientists and other professionals. There are 40 fellowship slots available for the first class in October, and more than 600 people have applied so far, Kelly said.

FDA plans to launch the second phase of its hiring initiative in fiscal 2009, which starts Oct. 1, but does not have its target numbers finalized yet, according to Kelly.