If it feels like you’ve been hearing from the head of the Food and Drug Administration a lot lately, you’re not imagining it.
It’s a rare day here at STAT when we don’t receive in our inboxes a “Statement from FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D.’’ — or at least find him prominently quoted in another new FDA press release. Then there are all his blog posts. His speeches. His congressional testimony. And, of course, his tweets.
So how verbose is Gottlieb, really? To find out, we trawled through as many of Gottlieb’s public statements as we could find posted on Twitter and the FDA’s website from his first seven months as commissioner. By our tally, the “Mostly Complete Works of Scott Gottlieb’’ clocks in at just over 149,000 words.
To put that in literary context: We’re talking three times as many words as “The Great Gatsby.’’ Nearly twice as many as “Paradise Lost.’’ And almost as many as the (very long) sixth “Harry Potter’’ book.
Our analysis quantifies the public relations savvy that’s helped Gottlieb earn a reputation for fast-moving competence (and rave reviews from biopharma insiders) during the tumultuous first year of the Trump administration. It shines light, too, on how Gottlieb’s communications staff has prioritized getting the boss’s voice into the conversation — and documenting it on the FDA’s website whenever that happens.
Indeed, the FDA is clearly proud of Gottlieb’s wordcount. When we first started our analysis, we tallied just official press statements and tweets, coming up with a (very respectable!) wordcount of just shy of 50,000.
But when we ran our methodology by FDA spokeswoman Sarah Peddicord, she suggested we expand the analysis to include Gottlieb’s entries in the FDA blog, his quotes in the agency’s “In Brief’’ section, and all the public statements on the Commissioner’s Page. So we did. Those additions ballooned Gottlieb’s tally by 100,000 words.
And in a telling offer, Peddicord suggested that we get Gottlieb’s voice into this story, too.
“At the risk of adding to my wordcount, I’ll be brief,’’ Gottlieb told us in a written statement that came in at 125 words.
He said the agency’s communications “are a key feature of our public health mission’’ and that “it’s vital that we formulate policy in a transparent way, share our goals, and invite public comment and scrutiny.’’
And, he promised, 2018 will bring more initiatives, more explanatory documents, and “more communication.’’
Another finding from our analysis: Gottlieb is far more loquacious than his recent predecessors. Evaluated on the same metrics as Gottlieb, Dr. Margaret Hamburg hit just over 21,000 words in her first seven months helming the FDA in the new Obama administration in 2009. And Dr. Robert Califf reached just over 15,400 words in his first seven months in the position in the Obama’s administration’s final year in 2016.
A few caveats: Our tally doesn’t capture all of Gottlieb’s public statements; omissions include his television appearances and his calls with reporters.
Keep in mind, too, that there are limitations to our comparisons between Gottlieb and his predecessors. Some of the differences may reflect how diligent a commissioner’s staff was in posting his or her public statements online. And our analysis may not capture all the ways that Hamburg and Califf amplified their voices throughout their tenure. Hamburg, for instance, introduced the FDA’s blog, known as FDA Voice, too late into her time as commissioner to be counted in our tally.
One thing we are sure of: Gottlieb has broken new ground at the FDA with his prolific use of Twitter. He’s used it not just to convey official statements, but to express his views on everything from snortable chocolate to orange juice labels. He has bantered with reporters about proper handling of Thanksgiving leftovers. He offered tips on insulin storage in Spanish after Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. And he discussed “his favorite souffle recipes’’ in a Backyard Poultry magazine cover story.
We fully expect the loquaciousness to continue in 2018. We’ll be listening.
STAT
Rebecca Robbins can be reached at rebecca.robbins@statnews.com. Follow her on Twitter @RebeccaDRobbins. Follow Stat on Twitter @statnews.
