Handling the coronavirus crisis

[Admin]

President Trump is ratcheting up pressure on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve treatments and a vaccine for the coronavirus. The agency on Sunday announced an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19 patients, following extraordinary sustained attacks on the agency by Trump. The president on Saturday accused the "deep state" at the FDA of slowing the development of treatments and vaccines before the November election. "Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!" Trump tweeted. Trump appeared to reiterate that belief during a Sunday news conference, telling reporters that he thought some health officials were allowing decisions to be “held up” for “political reasons.” “I think there are people in the FDA and actually in your larger department that can see things being held up and wouldn’t mind so much. That’s my opinion, very strong opinion,” Trump said.

The campaign being waged against public health officials has alarmed outside experts, who fear politicizing the FDA could undermine confidence in the agency or worse, result in an unproven vaccine being pushed out to the public just before Election Day. "The FDA was once again bullied into doing something that initially it wasn't going to do," said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Offit said Trump's tweet attacking the FDA "was exactly what you most fear." "You get the sense he is trying to get a vaccine or vaccines approved before Nov. 3, which I think scares people. It should scare people. It makes you think that these vaccines may not be adequately tested," Offit added. The plasma announcement marked a turnaround for the agency, coming just days after officials at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) staged a rare intervention to stop the FDA from issuing the emergency use authorization.

Trump turns up pressure on FDA | TheHill