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The FDA serves a real purpose: To protect public health.

We help people to begin truly healthful diets, and it is absolutely wonderful to see, not only their success, but also their delight at their ability to break old habits and feel really healthy for a change.

At FDA, our mission is to promote and protect the health of the public. As commissioner, I've worked hard to galvanize people around that idea. I want employees to be thinking about the unique and essential contribution they are making to our mission.

I have been on diets that were supervised by doctors, that were carefully supervised where I lost weight.

Every year, there is a new diet that all the celebs or housewives are trying. We all want the perfect diet or the perfect pill. If we surveyed a million women, and they could choose to learn the truth about God or the foolproof diet, I guarantee more women would pick the miracle diet over the miracle of life.

I want to encourage people to make healthy life choices, whether it's training for a half-marathon, or eating more vegetables.

There's a certain libertarian right-wing view that there should be no FDA, that people can decide for themselves whether medicines are safe and effective. That's nonsense. Most people don't have the expertise or the resources to mount a proper study to find out whether a treatment is safe or effective.

When the FDA forces an old drug off the market, patients have very little say in the matter. Patients have even less of a say when the FDA chooses not to approve a new drug. Instead, we are supposed to rely on the FDA's judgment and be grateful. But can the FDA really make a choice that is appropriate for everyone? Of course not.

The bottom line is that there is a lot more that could and should be done to help people with nutrition and exercise.

We will continue to do all we can to protect the public health against these dietary supplements that have been found to cause serious illness and injury.