23 min read I’D BEEN TALKING to FDA commissioner Marty Makary for about 45 minutes on Thursday afternoon, when his cellphone rang. We were sitting, accompanied by an FDA press liaison, at a long table in a conference room attached to Makary’s office at the FDA’s White Oak Campus in Silver Spring, Maryland. The interview had been going smoothly enough. Makary, who is short with dark, well-coiffed hair and deep-set eyes, looks a bit like Fred Armisen but has the sort of authoritative, comforting presence you’d expect of a guy who has spent much of his career as a practicing physician. The phone call seemed to momentarily disrupt his cool, commanding demeanor. “Oh, I need to take this,” he said, picking up the phone. He walked into his office, shut the door, and disappeared for fifteen minutes. When he finally re-emerged, he muttered a quick apology, then sat back down at the table, looking a little ashen. The news around Makary hadn’t been great in the days leading up to our meeting.…