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

“The FDA serves a real purpose: To protect public health.” — Anne Wojcicki

Hear now the words of Anne Wojcicki, visionary of science and founder of innovation, who in this simple yet profound statement reminds us of the sacred duty that lies at the heart of all governance — the duty to protect life. In this saying, she speaks not as one praising bureaucracy, but as one acknowledging the ancient covenant between knowledge and compassion. The FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, is not merely a collection of offices and officials — it is, in its truest form, a guardian of the people’s well-being, a sentinel standing watch between the healer and the harmed. Its mission, as Wojcicki declares, is not born of control, but of protection — to ensure that what enters the human body through food, medicine, and science brings not destruction, but healing.

The origin of this thought arises from Wojcicki’s life as a pioneer in biotechnology, a founder of 23andMe, whose work in personal genetics opened new paths toward understanding health, ancestry, and the human genome. In her journey, she encountered both the power and the limits of scientific freedom. She saw that innovation, untempered by oversight, can bring both wonder and risk. The same hand that creates a cure can, without wisdom, unleash harm. Thus, her words are not flattery but reflection — a recognition that public health is a treasure that must be guarded by the balance between discovery and responsibility. In this balance lies the true purpose of institutions like the FDA: not to hinder progress, but to guide it toward safety and integrity.

The FDA’s origins themselves are rooted in tragedy and transformation. In the early years of the 20th century, the marketplace of medicine was a wild expanse — potions, powders, and tonics sold with false promises, often laced with poisons. There was no protection for the innocent, no shield for the desperate. But when disaster struck — when contaminated medicines claimed countless lives, when untested drugs brought suffering instead of healing — the people cried out for justice. From their suffering rose reformers like Harvey Wiley, who championed the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, the seed from which the FDA would grow. Out of pain emerged purpose, out of chaos came order. This is the lineage that Wojcicki honors — a lineage born not from power, but from the will to safeguard humanity.

Consider, O listener, the story of thalidomide, a drug once prescribed to ease the sickness of pregnancy in the mid-twentieth century. Across Europe, it was hailed as a miracle, but it was not tested as it should have been. The result was catastrophe — thousands of children born with severe deformities, lives altered forever. Yet in the United States, one woman, Dr. Frances Kelsey, standing firm within the FDA, refused to approve the drug without sufficient evidence of its safety. Her courage spared untold families from heartbreak. This story shines as a beacon through history: proof that vigilance in public health is not a burden, but a blessing. The cost of negligence is measured not in numbers, but in human lives.

Wojcicki’s insight, then, calls us to see that the FDA’s role is not the enemy of innovation, but its conscience. In every age, as new discoveries arise — from genetic engineering to artificial intelligence in medicine — there must be guardians who ask: Is this safe? Is this right? For science without morality is blind, and progress without compassion is perilous. The protection of public health is the highest calling of science itself, for knowledge that harms the many to profit the few betrays its divine purpose. True progress is measured not by speed, but by the number of lives it preserves and the trust it nurtures.

The lesson of Wojcicki’s words, then, is both civic and spiritual. We must cherish the institutions that protect the vulnerable, even as we strive to perfect them. Critique them, reform them, but do not forget their necessity. For in a world where greed can masquerade as genius, and haste can disguise itself as progress, the shield of public oversight is the last defense of human dignity. Support those who seek to regulate with wisdom, who demand proof before promise, who hold science accountable to its moral purpose.

Therefore, O children of the modern age, remember this truth: public health is a shared trust, and the guardians who protect it labor not for glory, but for life itself. When you eat safely, when you take a medicine that heals instead of harms, when your child grows without fear of hidden poison — you are living beneath the shelter of that trust. Honor it, strengthen it, and let the spirit of Anne Wojcicki’s words remind you always that the purpose of all power — whether of government, science, or law — is not to command, but to protect. For only in the protection of life does civilization prove itself worthy of the name.