Hamburg, Margaret

In the near future, government policies may be less supportive of the pharmaceutical industry than in the past. In the Bush administration, Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt and FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach opposed federal efforts to negotiate lower prices for Medicare prescription drugs and to allow reimportation of prescription drugs at lower prices. In the Obama administration, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, and FDA chief deputy Joshua Sharfstein will likely change these policies. New laws and policies may do more to favor consumers. 

A nice touch at San Diego (1998) was the holding of special sessions in memory of two recently deceased well-known carbohydrate chemists, Guy Dutton and Margaret Clarke, with their respective spouses in attendance. In Hamburg (2000) a short commemorative session was held on the occasion of the death of Ray Lemieux his widow was not present. 

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