Katie Drummond: Right. Move quickly and break things because we have said a lot to be wired in the past few months. We will take a short break when we come back what you have to read on WIRED today.
Welcome back to Scary valley. I am Katie Drummond, Wired’s global editorial director. I was accompanied by WIRED’s Director of Business and Industry, Zoë Schiffer. Well, Zoë, before I let you go, tell our listeners what they absolutely have to read, today has to read on wired.com, apart from the stories that we talked about in this episode.
Zoë Schiffer: OK. I wish I had a nice, joyful, uplifting story that I can talk to you about, but I have another fate and darkness history, and it is from –
Katie Drummond: AW-hucks.
Zoë Schiffer: I know. It is from Caroline Haskins who is a freelancer for us, and we have just announced that she is joining the business desk. So exciting. It is incredible. It is so good. I’m so excited. And she wrote a piece that we published yesterday how Trump and Elon Musk cut cuts at the FDA. Another administration that has experienced a serious budget and staff cuts has already endangered the development of drugs. And she got this from dozens of SEC registrations from pharmaceutical companies.
Katie Drummond: Between these SEC registrations and what you and Emily reported on this credit card yesterday, it certainly seems as if we are getting to a standstill in some really consistent ways.
Zoë Schiffer: Yes. I mean, it is interesting because the pharmaceutical companies, the pharmaceutical companies do not even say: “The FDA does not agree to our medication and therefore these medication cannot come onto the market.” They say that this agency was slowly in motion because the missions are very, very high when they talk about medication and medication. And so staff cuts, budget cuts. The concern is that this will come to a standstill. And if you are a pharmaceutical company that decides to continue to produce a medication that has already been approved or a lot of time, energy and resources, money behind the development of a new medicine from which you are not sure whether you will receive the FDA permit, you will suddenly become less and more poured into the existing product pipeline. And that has really serious effects on people who need these new therapies.
Katie Drummond: Zoë, thanks for the joy you brought to our show today. Thank you for joining me. But really fascinating things and so grateful for your reporting and the reporting of the team.
Zoë Schiffer: Thank you for having me.
Katie Drummond: This is our show for today. We will link to all the stories that we talked about today in the show notes. Make sure Scary valleyin the all about the pro-natalist movement by Silicon Valley. If you like what you heard today, follow our show and evaluate you in your podcast app of your choice. If you want to contact one of us to show questions, comments or suggestions unnannyvalley@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 am Katie Drummond, Wired’s global editorial director.
Goodbye.
