Protecting and promoting public health

Protecting and promoting public health

Advancing FDA's medical countermeasures (MCM) mission

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s wide-ranging public health responsibilities include the vital role we play on the frontlines of national security by facilitating the development and availability of safe and effective medical countermeasures. These are the vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics that are needed to protect our nation from chemical, biological, and radiological and nuclear threats, whether naturally occurring, accidental, or deliberate. As in so many areas of public health, our work here is critical, and we are ever-cognizant of its urgency.

One of the many areas in which the agency is continuing to take steps to facilitate the development of medical countermeasures to protect Americans is with respect to the threat of smallpox. 

Read more about recent developments in smallpox preparedness, and FDA's other recent work on MCMs in an FDA Voice blog by Anna Abram, FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Policy, Planning, Legislation and Analysis.

Related links: 

• 21st Century Cures Act: MCM-Related Cures Provisions
• MCM-Related Counterterrorism Legislation
• Animal Rule Information
• MCM Regulatory Science