Big Tech companies track children online, gather their personal information, and do everything they can to keep them addicted. Addictive social media that serves up harmful algorithmic content correlates with a rise in anxiety, mental health concerns and suicide rates among young people in America.
I will continue to lead my colleagues in addressing the harms through new, strong privacy and design protections. The committee also moved the America Privacy Rights Act to extend new online privacy protections to all Americans. Internet companies track everything that we do online and gather our private information without our consent. It’s time to rebalance the scales and give you the right to decide what to share online.
In the Health Subcommittee, we questioned FDA on a range of issues relating to drugs, biologics, and devices. Pregnant and lactating women have historically been excluded from research and clinical trials, which has led to significant evidence in gaps that negatively impact health outcomes of mothers and infants. Of the more than 3.5 million women in the US who give birth each year, 89% take at least one prescription medication during pregnancy, but 70% of FDA-approved medications have no human pregnancy data.
Lack of data creates challenges for families and providers: excluding pregnant and lactating women from research doesn’t make them any safer—it just means that medical decisions will be made without sufficient information on safety and effectiveness. Watch my remarks here.
