Makary won’t be missed. Now the rebuild must begin

Few will mourn Marty Makary’s exit. There is little time for schadenfreude. The difficult task now is to help FDA recover from one of the shortest, most chaotic and most corrosive tenures in its history. Rebuilding staff morale, restoring scientific authority and purging ideology and politics from regulatory decision-making must come first.

Acting Commissioner Kyle Diamantas inherits an agency battered by leadership churn and growing doubts about whether regulatory decisions are being driven by science, politics or headlines. The next permanent commissioner will face an even harder task: rebuilding institutional credibility after 14 months of disruption...