If you have read a large number of FDA citizen petitions you might immediately answer no. Though if you have a fine appreciation of the absurd, you might chuckle when companies petition the FDA to automatically reject any ANDA's (abbreviated new drug application) that don't include almost impossibly difficult standards for reasons of protecting the public's safety – nothing to do with protecting the patent of course.

However we recently did find a citizen petition that made us laugh. The petition, FDA-2018-P-1040-0001, is requesting that the FDA to make “added sugar” either a schedule I or schedule II controlled substance. Schedule I drugs include: heroin, ecstasy, and LSD. Schedule II drugs include: codeine, hydrocodone and morphine.

The petitioner makes the quite reasonable points that added sugar is addictive, regularly abused and has no currently accepted medicinal purpose. Hard to deny these arguments.

However we couldn't help but think that this petition could simultaneously be awarded the superlatives of, “Most Ambitious”, “Least Likely to Succeed” and “Fastest to be Denied”. Though maybe we are wrong and added sugar will soon only be available on street corners and “sugar dens."

If you are interested in the mostly non-funny types of citizens petitions (the type that provide insight into future ANDAs, medical device  offerings, etc) you may be interested in subscribing to our citizen petition database. The database makes it painless to keep up with petitions that affect the pharmaceutical, medical device and laboratory/diagnostic industry.