On February 10, the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held a hearing entitled “Examining Drug Shortages and Recent Efforts to Address Them.” In connection with the hearing, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that concluded that the number of shortages remains high, even though the FDA has taken steps to prevent and mitigate shortages (e.g., expediting application reviews and inspections, exercising enforcement discretion in appropriate cases, and helping manufacturers respond to quality problems). Some of the causes of shortages are beyond the agency’s authority, however, since the FDA “does not have control over private companies’ business decisions,” and cannot, for example, require manufacturers to start producing or continue producing drugs, or to build redundant manufacturing capacity. Nevertheless, the GAO called on the FDA to strengthen its internal controls over its drug shortage data, conduct periodic analyses to routinely and systematically assess drug shortage information, and use this information to proactively identify drug shortage risk factors.