§ 73a.735-401 - General provisions.

§ 73a.735-401 General provisions.

(a) Employees of the Food and Drug Administration shall obtain advance approval for all outside employment, whether paid or unpaid. Employment, as used in this section, does not include:

(1) Memberships in charitable, religious, social, fraternal, recreational, public service, civic, or similar nonbusiness organizations.

(2) Memberships in professional organizations. (Officeholding, however, requires advance approval.)

(3) Performance of duties in the Armed Forces Reserve or National Guard.

(b) Control activity employees (defined in § 73a.735-502) will not generally be granted approval to:

(1) Manage or direct an organization whose activities are subject to FDA regulation, or

(2) Be employed in an organization whose business activities are subject to FDA regulation unless:

(i) The regulated activities of the organization are an insignificant part of its total operations, i.e., the regulated products of the organization constitute no more than 10 percent of its annual gross sales, and

(ii) The outside employment is in nonregulated activities of the organization.

(c) All other employees will generally be granted approval to engage in outside employment which is compatible with the full performance of their FDA duties and responsibilities and which will not give rise to a real or apparent conflict of interest. Permissible employment includes but is not limited to:

(1) Employment where the sale of FDA-regulated products is incidential to the purpose of the establishment, e.g., hotels, theaters, bowling alleys, and sports arenas.

(2) Sales and clerical occupations relating to regulated products, e.g., supermarkets, drugstores, department stores, liquor stores.

(3) Trade, industrial, and service occupations relating to regulated products, e.g., gasoline service station attendant, line production or assembly work, cook, waiter, waitress, hospital attendant, snack bar vendor, warehouseman.

(d) All employees will generally be granted approval to engage in paid or unpaid outside employment which contributes to their technical or professional development, e.g.,

(1) Medical, dental, and veterinary practices.

(2) Pharmacy practice after meeting the following conditions which will serve to protect against possible conflicts or apparent conflicts of interest and to avoid other problems resulting in embarrassment to the employee or FDA:

(i) The primary purpose of the part-time employment is to contribute to the overall professional development of the employee and generally enhance his capability to better perform his current FDA duties.

(ii) The part-time duties will be confined generally to dispensing Rx drugs and related professional pharmacy duties.

(iii) The employee will avoid unrelated nonprofessional duties such as supervision or management of store operations, contractual or purchasing responsibilities (except normal “out-of-stock” requisitioning) and repacking and relabeling of bulk items.

(iv) The employee will demonstrate a high degree of discretion and judgment in his contacts with customers and representatives of regulated industry and competitor firms so as to avoid giving the impression that:

(a) His part-time actions, recommendations, opinions, or remarks are official points of view;

(b) He is using his FDA position for private gain by oral misrepresentations and false claims of the company's products;

(c) He is making a Government decision outside official channels, e.g., to customers, prescribing physicians, buyers, distributors;

(d) He or other FDA representatives will give preferential treatment to any regulated organization or representatives of such organizations, or that FDA employees have not exercised complete independence or impartiality in carrying out their regulatory and consumer protection responsibilities; or

(e) His part-time work is creating an adverse effect on the image of FDA or discrediting the integrity of official FDA regulatory decisions.