Since we are confident he will soon become more active in the Federal PL initiative, the PLAIN Working Group is planning a Plain Language Forum in Washington D.C. this November, and we are inviting Sec. Thompson to be the keynote speaker.

Now let me spend a few minutes on what I know best - my agency, FDA. We have an enormous impact on consumers, in fact U.S. consumers spend more than 20 cents of every dollar on products regulated by FDA - including all food (except meat and poultry), drugs, medical devices, biologics such as blood and tissues, animal drugs…even cosmetics and x-rays machines. So you can see why it's so important that the information FDA writes about these products is understandable to industry, health professionals, policymakers, and especially to consumers.

Since the Plain Language initiative gained prominence in the US in 1998, all 3 FDA Commissioners (or Acting Commissioners) have strongly supported it. This, of course, is one of the reasons we have been successful. This holds true for all the agencies I will talk about. Without the vocal support of leadership, it's an impossible uphill battle to begin to change behavior.

Like most Federal agencies, we started by focusing on improving our regulations and guidance documents - clearly a huge challenge. While it's not the norm yet, we do have a few excellent examples including a proposed rule on bioengineered food, which was published in Jan. 2001. Our new Director of the Office of Regulations at our Center for Food has included plain language in her training plan for reg writers, and the author of the plainly written Genetically Modified Food regulation is the teacher. This gives reg writers a respected colleague to learn from, and the training has much more credibility.

We find Plain Language champions in pockets through the agency and I tend to "go where the energy is " and support them, rather than nagging the resisters. I believe those who aren't on board yet will eventually "see the light" once they read the clear, plainly written documents written by their colleagues.