Just like department heads do with local boards in little municipalities, FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg marched down to a Congressional budget meeting to make her case for increasing the spending plan for the large U.S. agency amid some major belt-tightening on Capitol Hill. As Reuters reports, Hamburg called her agency a "true bargain" for Americans. While Hamburg testified to a Senate subcommittee that her agency has made an effort to control spending, the FDA has proposed a 2014 budget increase of $821 million from the 2012 plan to $4.7 billion. The bulk of the increase, $770 million, would come from industry fees such as those that pharma companies pay under PDUFA. Article