Katie Drummond: Right. Move fast and break things as we’ve been saying a lot at WIRED in the last few months. We’re going to take a short break, when we come back, what you need to read on WIRED today.
Welcome back to Uncanny Valley. I’m Katie Drummond, WIRED’s global editorial director. I’m joined by WIRED’s director of business and industry, Zoë Schiffer. Now Zoë, before I let you go, tell our listeners what they absolutely must read, must read on WIRED.com today, other than the stories we talked about in this episode.
Zoë Schiffer: OK. I wish I had a nice, joyful, uplifting story to talk to you about, but I have another doom and gloom story, and it’s by—
Katie Drummond: Aw-shucks.
Zoë Schiffer: I know. It’s by Caroline Haskins, who is a freelancer for us, and actually we just announced she’s joining the business desk. So exciting. She’s incredible. She’s so good. I’m so excited. And she wrote a piece that we published yesterday about how Trump and Elon Musk’s cuts at the FDA, so another administration that has experienced severe budget and staffing cuts is already putting drug development at risk. And she got this from dozens of SEC filings from pharmaceutical companies.
Katie Drummond: So between those SEC filings and what you and Emily reported yesterday about these credit card freezes, it certainly seems like we are seeing federal agencies ground to a halt here in some really consequential ways.
Zoë Schiffer: Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting because the drug companies, the pharmaceutical companies aren’t even saying, “The FDA isn’t approving our drugs, and so these drugs can’t come to market.” They’re saying this agency was already so slow moving by design because the stakes are very, very high when you’re talking about drugs and medicines. And so staffing cuts, budget cuts. The worry is that this will grind to a halt. And if you’re a pharmaceutical company that’s deciding between continuing to produce a drug that’s already been approved or putting a lot of time, energy, and resources, money behind the development of a new drug that you’re not sure will get FDA approval, suddenly you’re going to see less of that and more of the kind of, OK, we’ll just pour money into the existing product pipeline. And that has really serious implications for people who might need these new therapies.
Katie Drummond: Zoë, thank you for all of the joy that you brought to our show today. Thank you for joining me. Genuinely though, fascinating stuff and so grateful for your reporting and the team’s reporting.
Zoë Schiffer: Thank you so much for having me.
Katie Drummond: That’s our show for today. We’ll link out to all the stories we talked about today in the show notes. Make sure to check out Thursday’s episode of Uncanny Valley, which is all about Silicon Valley’s pro-natalist movement. If you like what you heard today, make sure to follow our show and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you’d like to get in touch with any of us for questions, comments, or show suggestions, write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com.
Amar Lal at Macro Sound mixed this episode. Jake Lummus is our studio engineer. Jordan Bell is our executive producer, Condé Nast’s head of global audio is Chris Bannon. And I’m Katie Drummond, WIRED’s global editorial director.
Goodbye.