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Press Release

President Trump’s Politicization of the Virus Has Put Americans at Risk; His Politicized Push for a Vaccine Is More of the Same

By September 3, 2020No Comments

Trump’s CDC Told Health Officials to Prepare to Distribute Eventual Vaccine by Right Before Election

Experts Agree Nov. 1 Timeline Is Too “Optimistic,” Could Undermine Public Trust & Possibly Endanger Lives 

FDA Has Suggested They Could End Trials Early — Raising Serious Questions About Public Safety After Months of Allowing Trump to Strong-Arm the Agency 

At the Republican National Convention, in a speech riddled with falsehoods, Donald Trump teased the arrival of a coronavirus vaccine: “We are delivering life-saving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year, or maybe even sooner.”

But since the beginning of this crisis, Donald Trump has sought to play politics with people’s lives and has strong-armed normally independent regulatory agencies to fall in line with his personal agenda. He has undercut experts, pushed junk science, and botched every aspect of the pandemic response. His push for an Election Day vaccine arrival is no different: Donald Trump is politicizing science for his own gain.

Experts agree it’s unlikely that a safe, effective vaccine will be adequately tested by early November, but Donald Trump is trying to take shortcuts when 185,000 lives have already been lost — eroding trust in our institutions and putting lives at risk.

President Trump’s CDC Has Asked Health Officials Across the Country to Be Prepared to Distribute a Vaccine Just Days Before the Election…

  • President Trump’s CDC Has Told Health Officials In All Fifty States To Prepare For The Mass Distribution Of A Potential Vaccine By Nov. 1, Just Days Before The Election. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has told public health officials in all 50 states and the U.S. territories to plan to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to health-care workers and other high-priority groups as early as Nov. 1, according to CDC guidance.” [Washington Post, 9/2/20]
  • CDC Director Robert Redfield Has Sent A Letter To Governors Asking Them To Fast-Track Permits And Licenses To Have Distribution Sites Running By Nov. 1.  “CDC Director Robert Redfield also sent a letter asking governors to fast-track permits and licenses so that vaccine distribution sites can be up and running by Nov. 1, McClatchy reports.” [NPR, 9/2/20]

…But Experts Say That It’s Unlikely a Safe, Effective Vaccine Will Be Ready in Time — And Shortening Trials Could Jeopardize Public Confidence and Public Health

  • The Nov. 1 Timeline Seems “More Optimistic” Than The One Set By Vaccine-Makers Because The Final Stage Of Clinical Trials Can Take Months. “That [Nov.1] timeline appears more optimistic than the one set by vaccine-makers. Three pharmaceutical companies have recently entered the final stage of clinical trials, which can take months. Definitive results about whether the shots work aren’t expected until the end of the year.” [Politico, 9/2/20]
  • Dr. Paul Offit, Who Advises The Food And Drug Administration, Believes Insufficient Testing Could Undermine Public Trust In A Vaccine. “Dr. Paul Offit, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who serves on a panel advising the Food and Drug Administration, told NPR last month that he thinks that timeline is unrealistic because Phase 3 trials had only just begun. He said insufficient testing could have adverse effects on public health as well as the public’s trust in a vaccine.”  [NPR, 9/2/20]
  • Dr. Fauci Believes Cutting Safety Trials Short Could Undermine Confidence In A Vaccine. “And Fauci acknowledged that cutting a trial short could undermine public confidence in COVID vaccines. One American in three is unwilling to get a COVID vaccine, according to a recent Gallup Poll.”  [Kaiser Health News, 9/1/20]
  • Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden: “If People Don’t Trust The Vaccine, We Risk One Step Forward And Many Steps Back.” “A vaccine could be the best tool we have to fight Covid. That’s why it’s so important we get it right and don’t cut any corners on safety. If people don’t trust the vaccine, we risk one step forward and many steps back.” [Twitter, @DrTomFrieden, 9/2/20]
  • A Shortened Trial Of A COVID Vaccine Could Fail To Detect Side Effects. “A smaller, shorter trial could fail to detect important vaccine side effects, which could become apparent only after millions of people have been immunized, said [Paul] Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Researchers will continue to follow vaccinated volunteers for a full year to look for long-term side effects, [Robert] Redfield said.” [Kaiser Health News, 9/1/20]

Despite the Risks, the Trump Administration Has Indicated That It Will Authorize Use of a Vaccine BEFORE Trials Are Finished

  • Food And Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn Indicated That He Is Willing To Issue An Emergency Use Authorization For A Vaccine Before Phase 3 Safety Trials Are Completed. “Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said over the weekend that he would be willing to speed up the process with an emergency use authorization before Phase 3 trials are over, and stressed that decision would be based on data rather than politics.” [NPR, 9/2/20]

But Trump Has Spent the Pandemic Politicizing and Undercutting Agencies Meant to Keep Americans Safe — Including the FDA

  • Just Days Ago, Hahn Was Forced To Apologize For Bowing To Political Pressure On The Authorization Of Convalescent Plasma. “Just days earlier, [Stephen] Hahn publicly apologized for making misleading claims about the efficacy of convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19. The FDA issued emergency use authorization for plasma the night before the start of the Republican National Convention, amidst accusations that it had been pressured to do so by the White House.” [NPR, 9/2/20]
  • Trump Ordered The CDC To Adjust Testing Guidelines To Exclude People Without Symptoms. “A sudden change in federal guidelines on coronavirus testing came this week as a result of pressure from the upper ranks of the Trump administration… ‘I am concerned about the interpretation of these recommendations and worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern. In fact it is,’ [Dr. Anthony Fauci] said. The new guidelines raise the bar on who should get tested, advising that some people without symptoms probably don’t need it — even if they’ve been in close contact with an infected person.” [CNN, 8/27/20]
  • Trump Strong-Armed The FDA Into Approving An Emergency Use Authorization For An Unproven Therapy, Against The Advice Of Experts. “The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday gave emergency approval for expanded use of antibody-rich blood plasma to help hospitalized coronavirus patients, allowing President Trump, who has been pressuring the agency to move faster to address the pandemic, to claim progress on the eve of the Republican convention. Mr. Trump cited the approval, which had been held up by concerns among top government scientists about the data behind it, as welcome news in fighting a disease that has led to 176,000 deaths in the United States and left the nation lagging far behind most others in the effectiveness of its response.” [New York Times, 8/23/20]
  • The CDC Changed Its School Reopening Recommendations Just Days After Trump Bashed Them As “Very Tough” And “Expensive.” “After President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that he disagreed with US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for safely reopening schools because they are ‘very tough’ and ‘expensive,’ the agency said it would issue new recommendations next week. The move came as the Trump administration makes a concerted push for schools to reopen by the fall, even as cases surge in some parts of the country. After Trump voiced displeasure at the CDC’s handling of the issue, the agency’s director said his recommendations shouldn’t be used as an excuse for not returning children to classrooms.” [CNN, 7/8/20]
  • On July 15, The Trump Administration Ordered Hospitals No Longer Send Data To The C.D.C., A Move That Has Alarmed Health Experts Who Fear The Data Will Be Politicized Or Withheld From The Public. “The Trump administration has ordered hospitals to bypass the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and send all Covid-19 patient information to a central database in Washington beginning on Wednesday. The move has alarmed health experts who fear the data will be politicized or withheld from the public.” [New York Times, 7/14/20]
  • As Trump Championed The Drug, In March The FDA Issued An Emergency Use Authorization For Hydroxychloroquine, Which It Was Later Forced To Revoke. “After months of debate and intense research concerning hydroxychloroquine, FDA officials on Monday revoked their Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the antimalarial drug that President Donald Trump has promoted in the fight against Covid-19. When the EUA was issued in late March, no high-quality studies of the drug’s ability to prevent and treat Covid-19 were yet available. Now, a handful of randomized trials have failed to find any benefit associated with hydroxychloroquine use.” [WIRED, 6/17/20]

The Trump Administration Is Refusing to Work With the World Health Organization to Develop and Distribute a Safe, Effective Vaccine

  • The Trump Administration Is Refusing To Work With The World Health Organization To Develop A Vaccine. “The Trump administration says the U.S. will not participate in a global push to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, in part because the effort is led by the World Health Organization, which the White House describes as “corrupt” and has accused of initially aiding China in covering up the scope of the pandemic.” [NPR, 9/2/20]
  • But The Trump Administration Has Already Refused To Work With The World Health Organization Thus Far In The Pandemic — Resulting In Disastrous Consequences. “By the end of February, the World Health Organization had shipped [coronavirus] tests to nearly 60 countries.The United States was not among them. Why the United States declined to use the WHO test, even temporarily as a bridge until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could produce its own test, remains a perplexing question and the key to the Trump administration’s failure to provide enough tests to identify the coronavirus infections before they could be passed on, according to POLITICO interviews with dozens of viral-disease experts, former officials and some officials within the administration’s health agencies.” [Politico, 3/6/20]

For Trump, It’s All About the Headlines: Even if a Vaccine Is Approved by Election Day, Americans Will Still Be at Risk for Months

  • The United States Has Not Allocated Any Funding For The Distribution Or Administration Of Any Eventual Vaccine. “The United States committed more than $10 billion to develop coronavirus vaccines but hasn’t allocated money specifically for distributing and administering vaccines…. States are allowed to use some of the federal money they’ve received to prepare for immunizations. KHN and the AP found that many health departments are so overwhelmed with the costs of the pandemic – such as testing and contact tracing – that they can’t reserve money for the vaccine work.” [USA Today, 9/2/20]
  • The Trump Administration Has Misled The Public About How Many Doses WIll Be Available. “‘With few exceptions, our commercial distribution partners will be responsible for handling all the vaccines,’ Operation Warp Speed’s Paul Mango said in an email. ‘We’re not going to have 300 million doses all at once,’ said Mango, deputy chief of staff for policy at the Health and Human Services Department, despite government pledges to have that many doses ready by the new year. ‘We believe we are maximizing our probability of success of having tens of millions of doses of vaccines by January 2021, which is our goal.’” [USA Today, 9/2/20]
  • Even After A Vaccine Is Developed, It Will Take Years To Achieve Widespread Immunity. “Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said it will take time for the vaccines to be widespread enough for life to return to normal. ‘We have to be prepared to deal with this virus in the absence of significant vaccine-induced immunity for a period of maybe a year or longer,’ Adalja said in August.”  [USA Today, 9/2/20]