WASHINGTON – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan questioned Dr. Marty Makary, President Trump’s nominee to be Commissioner of the FDA, at a hearing in the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Senator Hassan pushed Dr. Makary to work with Congress to lower prescription drug costs for Granite Staters and Americans and protect access to life-saving medications that help manage reproductive health care, including abortion and miscarriage care.
To watch Senator Hassan’s hearing questions, click here.
“President Trump has promised to help lower costs, but prescription drug prices are once again skyrocketing for Granite Staters and all Americans. In 2025, drug makers have increased the list prices of over 500 common medications,” said Senator Hassan. She then encouraged Dr. Makary to work with her to speed up the approval of generic drugs at FDA to lower costs for patients, including through her bipartisan Increasing Transparency in Generic Drug Applications Act.
Senator Hassan then moved on to address access to mifepristone – an essential drug used to manage miscarriages and medication abortion that is being threatened by Republicans across the country. Senator Hassan pressed Dr. Makary to acknowledge the safety and efficacy of the life-saving drug. “I shared with you that study...where scientists looked at – just so people know – over 100 studies of medication abortion, and found that the literature is clear that mifepristone is safe and effective,” said Senator Hassan.
Senator Hassan pressed Dr. Makary to ensure that he will not cave to political pressure to ban mifepristone: “The concern is whether you are going to unilaterally overrule the data that currently exists for political purposes, and for political reasons. And that’s what we’re looking for your reassurance on... We need to know that when you say you’re an independent scientist, that’s really what you mean, and then when the politics get heated around abortion that you won’t abandon that independence.”
Senator Hassan has been a leader in standing up for a woman’s fundamental freedom to make her own reproductive health care decisions. She has also worked on a bipartisan basis to lower prescription drug costs for Americans, introducing bipartisan legislation that would streamline the FDA approval process and allow generic drugs to get to market faster. Senator Hassan also passed into law three bipartisan measures to increase access to generic and biosimilar medications. Additionally, Senator Hassan successfully pushed to cap insulin costs for those on Medicare as part of the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law in 2022.
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