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Promised Vaccine Stockpile Doesn't Even Exist? Governors Demand Trump 'Answer Immediately for This Deception'
States "thought they were getting more doses and they planned for more doses and opened up to 65 and up, thinking they were getting more."
Jan 14, 2021
Earlier this week, the White House said the federal government would soon release coronavirus vaccine doses stored for second shots, but governors expecting increased shipments discovered Friday that no national stockpile exists, and now they are demanding that President Donald Trump's administration be held accountable for deceiving the American public.
"Governors were told repeatedly by [the Department of Health and Human Services] there was a strategic reserve of vaccines, and this week, the American people were told it'd be released to increase supply of vaccine," tweeted Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) on Friday. "It appears now that no reserve exists. The Trump admin. must answer immediately for this deception."
State officials nationwide--who on Tuesday had been instructed by HHS Secretary Alex Azar to broaden inoculation eligibility criteria--learned roughly 72 hours later that the so-called vaccine reserve had already been exhausted by the time they were told to plan for a surge in supply.
"The Trump administration had already begun shipping out what was available beginning at the end of December, taking second doses directly off the manufacturing line," The Washington Post reported Friday.
"Health officials across the country who had anticipated their extremely limited vaccine supply as much as doubling beginning next week are confronting the reality that their allocations will remain largely flat, dashing hopes of dramatically expanding access for millions of elderly people and those with high-risk medical conditions," the Post reported.
"Health officials in some cities and states were informed in recent days about the reality of the situation," the newspaper noted, "while others are still in the dark."
Like Inslee, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) tweeted Friday that she received "disturbing news" on Thursday about the absence of a federal stockpile. She said the news was confirmed by Gen. Gustave Perna of Operation Warp Speed, which is overseeing vaccine distribution efforts.
"I am demanding answers from the Trump administration," said Brown. "I am shocked and appalled that they have set an expectation on which they could not deliver, with such grave consequences."
"This is deception on a national scale," she added. "Oregon's seniors, teachers, all of us, were depending on the promise of Oregon's share of the federal reserve of vaccines being released to us."
While the White House's "initial policy was to hold back second doses to protect against the possibility of manufacturing disruptions," unnamed state and local health officials told the Post that the "approach shifted in recent weeks."
Health officials knowledgeable about the matter were told that Operation Warp Speed "stopped stockpiling second doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine at the end of last year," the Post noted. "The last shots held in reserve of Moderna's supply, meanwhile, began shipping out over the weekend." As the newspaper reported:
The shift, in both cases, had to do with increased confidence in the supply chain, so that Operation Warp Speed leaders felt they could reliably anticipate the availability of doses for booster shots--required three weeks later in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech product and four weeks later under Moderna's protocol.
But it also meant there was no stockpile of second doses waiting to be shipped, as Trump administration officials suggested this week.
State and local officials are "angry and bewildered by the shifting directions and changing explanations of supply," the Post reported. As one unnamed official put it, states "thought they were getting more doses and they planned for more doses and opened up to 65 and up, thinking they were getting more."
Robert Cruickshank, campaign director at Demand Progress, called the Trump administration's bait-and-switch on stockpiled vaccines "horrific."
Critics say that news of the nonexistent reserve of doses underscores the extent to which the federal government has bungled the vaccine rollout, along with the broader response to the Covid-19 pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 390,000 people--and counting--in the U.S. alone.
The Associated Press reported Friday that less than 2% of the population in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina had received the first dose of the vaccine at the start of this week, according to data from those states and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In late December, Common Dreams reported that if the U.S. failed to accelerate the rate at which vaccines were allocated, it would take nearly a decade for the country to inoculate an adequate number of Americans to get the pandemic under control.
"We should have had major warehouses located around the country so that as soon as the FDA greenlighted a vaccine, it could quickly be delivered to hospitals and clinics in every corner of the country," Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argued at the time. "We should have been prepared to start inoculating millions of people the day a vaccine was approved. This is a massive policy failure."
To make up for the slow start, Cruickshank said that President-elect Joe Biden "needs to immediately use the Defense Production Act to massively speed up vaccinations."
Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Friday wrote a letter to the heads of Operation Warp Speed in which the congresswomen explain how to "fully embrace using the Defense Production Act to bolster our vaccine supply."
"Thousands are dying from Covid-19 each day," Porter said. "We can't waste anymore time."
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House Democrats Subpoena HHS and CDC Chiefs Over Alleged Political Interference in Covid-19 Response
"The subpoenas were necessary because... efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known," asserted Rep. James Clyburn.
Dec 20, 2020
Accusing top Trump health officials of "extensive and dangerous" political interference in the coronavirus pandemic response, House Democrats on Monday subpoenaed the heads of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to compel them to produce documents concerning the alleged meddling.
"Over a period of four months, as coronavirus cases and deaths rose around the country, Trump administration appointees attempted to alter or block at least 13 scientific reports related to the virus."
--Rep. James Clyburn
Axios reports the subpoenas from the House Select Subcomittee on the Coronavirus Crisis were issued to HHS Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Director Robert Redfield. Democrats are accusing HHS and CDC officials of altering more than a dozen scientific reports over a four-month period earlier this year, as well as of postponing publication of peer-reviewed articles on the virus.
"The subpoenas were necessary because the select subcommittee's investigation has revealed that efforts to interfere with scientific work at CDC were far more extensive and dangerous than previously known," Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the subcommittee chairman, wrote in a letter (pdf) explaining the action. "HHS has made clear that it will not provide a timely and complete response to the... subcommittee's requests on a voluntary basis."
The letter alleges that "over a period of four months, as coronavirus cases and deaths rose around the country, Trump administration appointees attempted to alter or block at least 13 scientific reports related to the virus."
Furthermore, it states that "documents show that HHS officials also attempted to muzzle CDC scientists by retaliating against career employees who provided truthful information to the public and targeting CDC staff with what one employee described as a 'pattern of hostile and threatening behavior.'"
The letter continues:
These unprecedented efforts to influence CDC's reports and bully its staff occurred at the same time HHS officials were privately advocating for a 'herd immunity' strategy to spread the coronavirus widely among Americans, as the select subcommittee revealed in a December 16, 2020 staff memorandum. The select subcommittee needs to obtain all the documents sought... to understand who in the Trump administration was responsible for this political pressure campaign, whether it was intended to cripple the nation's coronavirus response in a misguided effort to achieve herd immunity, and what steps must be taken to end this outrageous conduct and protect American lives.
Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee at HHS and formerly a science adviser to HHS assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo, is a leading proponent of the herd immunity strategy. On July 4 he sent an email to colleagues asserting that "kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk... so we use them to develop herd [immunity]... We want them infected."
"Kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle-aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk... so we use them to develop herd [immunity]... We want them infected."
--Paul Alexander, former HHS official
Dr. Charlotte Kent, who is responsible for the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, testified before subcommittee staff earlier this month that she was instructed to delete an August 8 email (pdf) sent by Alexander regarding Covid-19 risk in young people.
Kent said the email concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report detailing Covid-19 youth risks during the period when President Donald Trump was pressuring school districts across the nation to reopen.
"I was instructed to delete the email," Kent testified. She also said she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from Redfield.
Both Alexander and Caputo have left their positions amid the controversy.
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CDC Official Says She Was Told to Delete Email on Kids' Covid-19 Risk to Match Trump's School Reopening Message
"Federal employees have affirmative obligations to preserve documents, and destruction of federal records is potentially illegal," warned Rep. James Clyburn.
Dec 09, 2020
The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allegedly ordered agency staff to delete an email sent by a political appointee of President Donald Trump seeking to alter a scientific report on corovanirus health risks in children, a CDC official told Congress this week.
The Hill reports Charlotte Kent, the CDC official responsible for the agency's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports (MMWRs), told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis in a transcribed interview on Monday that she was instructed to delete an email regarding Covid-19 risk to young people.
The August 8, 2020 email (pdf) was sent by Paul Alexander, the former science adviser to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for public affairs Michael Caputo. According to Kent, it concerned an effort to interfere in a CDC report on Covid-19 risks to children and teens during the period when President Donald Trump was pushing school districts across the nation to reopen.
"I was instructed to delete the email," Kent said, adding that she found the directive "very unusual." Kent added she was told the order to destroy the evidence came from CDC Director Robert Redfield, although she said she did not speak directly with him about the matter.
When Kent went to delete the email, she found it was already gone; although she said she did not know who deleted it.
In a Thursday letter to Redfield and his boss, HHS Secretary Alex Azar, Rep. James Clyburn, (D-S.C.), the subcommittee chair, voiced his "serious concern about what may be deliberate efforts by the Trump administration to conceal and destroy evidence that senior political appointees interfered with career officials' response to the coronavirus crisis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."
"Federal employees have affirmative obligations to preserve documents, and destruction of federal records is potentially illegal," Clyburn warned. "Federal law also provides for up to three years of imprisonment for willful destruction of federal records."
Kent also told the subcommittee that the CDC postponed the release of a report on a Covid-19 outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia until after Redfield appeared before Congress on July 31 to promote the administration's desired school reopenings.
Alexander, who no longer works at HHS, joined the agency in late March and took a leading role in controlling its coronavirus messaging to reflect Trump's downplaying of the pandemic threats. In September, he tried to prevent Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, from publicly speaking about the risk of the virus to children.
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With Covid-19 Infections at All-Time High, Azar Thanks Trump for His "Leadership That's Gotten Us Where We Are Today"
There were over 177,000 new cases reported in the U.S. on Friday.
Nov 12, 2020
As the number of new coronavirus cases in the United States hit a record high for the third straight day on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar tried to praise outgoing President Donald Trump's response to the pandemic.
Azar's comments came at a late afternoon news conference about Covid-19--during which Trump, who has refused to concede to President-elect Joe Biden, took no questions from reporters and did not directly mention last week's election.
Speaking after Trump, the health secretary said: "Thank you, Mr. President, for providing the leadership that's gotten us where we are today. The success that Operation Warp Speed has realized so far has been made possible only because of the bold vision you announced not even six months ago right here in the Rose Garden."
As of Friday, the United States shattered records yet again by reporting over 177,000 cases. According to the Washington Post, "Eighteen states, most of them in the Midwest, have reported record numbers of hospitalizations, a 'catastrophic' surge that experts say is rooted in distrust of the government."
The contrast between Azar's attempted praise during the event to update the public on Covid-19 vaccine trials and the reality that Americans are facing right now in terms of both health and financial conditions was immediately highlighted on social media by journalists and critics of Trump:
The Trump administration, along with the president personally, has faced intense criticism for mishandling the pandemic. In the wake of Trump's defeat, cases have kept climbing--including among Secret Service agents--and critics have continued to call him out for failing to adequately tackle the crisis.
"Instead of fighting to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic that has killed over 242,000 Americans, the Trump administration is spending its final days in office fighting a bogus voter 'fraud' problem that does not exist," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday. "Pathetic. The Biden-Harris administration cannot come soon enough."
By Friday evening, the Post's tracker put the nation's death toll from the pandemic above 243,000 and documented more than 10.7 million cases in the U.S. alone. In response to the surges across the country, some Democratic leaders are increasing restrictions.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, on Friday announced a two-week statewide "freeze" to stem the spread of the virus that, according to the Columbian, will restrict restaurants and bars to take-out only as well as close gyms and both indoor and outdoor recreational facilities from November 18 to December 2.
In a video address, Brown warned that "if we do not act immediately, we will soon reach a breaking point."
Meanwhile, in New Mexico, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also announced on Friday a two-week shutdown in her state. Starting Monday, "dining at restaurants, gyms, salons, and other 'nonessential' businesses will have to close their doors," reported KRQE. "The new rules will be in effect until November 30."
This post has been updated with more recent data on Friday's Covid-19 cases and reporting on developments in Oregon and New Mexico.
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Saudi Arabia, Belarus Among Countries Joining US-Led Coalition Claiming Women Have 'No International Right to Abortion'
"This administration doesn't seem content to stop until it has fully trampled on the rights, autonomy, and dignity of women and girls everywhere."
Oct 22, 2020
Further distancing itself from longtime U.S. allies regarding reproductive rights, the Trump administration on Thursday joined 32 countries in signing a declaration claiming that pregnant people have "no international right to abortion."
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attended the virtual signing ceremony for the so-called "Geneva Consensus Declaration" after the administration formed an international coalition comprised of countries where abortion care is banned or severely restricted, to counter the United Nations' support for reproductive rights.
"It carries no legitimacy within the U.N. system--but the sentiments it represents are dangerous nonetheless. In contrast to what this declaration states, there is broad international consensus on the critical need for access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, including abortion."
--Jenny Vanyur, Planned Parenthood Federation of America
The Trump administration has opposed the inclusion of language affirming that people around the world have inalienable "sexual and reproductive rights" in documents including the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The declaration introduced Thursday is aimed at "strengthening the family" and states that there is no "international obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion." At the ceremony, Pompeo said the document "defends the unborn and reiterates the vital importance of the family," while Planned Parenthood derided the declaration as a "farce" whose signatories are out of touch with public opinion regarding the right to abortion care.
"It carries no legitimacy within the U.N. system--but the sentiments it represents are dangerous nonetheless," Jenny Vanyur, associate director of global advocacy for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, told HuffPost. "In contrast to what this declaration states, there is broad international consensus on the critical need for access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, including abortion."
According to Pew Research, 61% of Americans believe abortion care should be legal in all or most cases. Internationally, support is even greater, with Ipsos reporting last month that 70% of 17,500 adults surveyed in 25 countries support the right to abortion care.
Abortions have been recognized as a constitutional right in the U.S. since 1973, while the five countries that joined the U.S. as co-sponsors of the declaration--Egypt, Uganda, Indonesia, Brazil, and Hungary--impose severe restrictions on abortion access.
Other countries joining the U.S.-led coalition include Saudi Arabia, Belarus, and Poland, which on Thursday imposed a near-total ban on abortion, while longtime U.S. allies including France and the U.K. are steadfast supporters of the U.N.'s declarations affirming the right to abortion care.
As a constitutional tribunal in Poland handed down its ruling amid protests and the Trump administration celebrated the signing of the Geneva Consensus Declaration, Amnesty International issued a reminder on social media that outlawing abortion care does not stop women from obtaining abortions, but rather makes the procedure far less safe.
Other critics in the U.S. condemned the Trump administration for leading the international effort to undermine women's reproductive rights.
The declaration was signed a month after the State Department proposed an expansion of the global gag rule, which would further strip healthcare funding from global organizations which provide abortion care or counseling, and as the Republican-led Senate moved toward confirming Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court. The judge has publicly supported a Christian fundamentalist group which espouses extreme anti-choice views and has suggested the Supreme Court will restrict abortion access.
"This administration doesn't seem content to stop until it has fully trampled on the rights, autonomy, and dignity of women and girls everywhere," said Tarah Demant, director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Identity program at Amnesty International USA. "Every person has a right to their individual personal and bodily autonomy, despite this administration wanting to prescribe otherwise."
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Public Health Experts Raise Alarm as Trump White House Embraces 'Fringe' Declaration Pushing Herd Immunity
"It's being presented as if it's a major alternative view that's held by large numbers of experts in the scientific community. That is not true."
Oct 14, 2020
Public health experts on Tuesday evening into Wednesday raised alarm over reports that the White House has embraced a declaration calling for a "herd immunity" approach to managing the coronavirus pandemic, put forward by scientists whose views have been denounced as "fringe" by National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins.
"This is a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It's dangerous. It fits into the political views of certain parts of our confused political establishment."
--Dr. Francis Collins, National Institutes of Health
Reporters spoke on Monday with an anonymous senior administration official about the "Great Barrington Declaration," a document unveiled on Oct. 4 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts at the American Institute for Economic Research, a libertarian think tank.
The declaration promotes a strategy called "Focused Protection"--what one professor at the University of New South Wales called a rebranding of "herd immunity," in which Covid-19 would be permitted to spread through the young and relatively healthy population while the elderly and people with pre-existing health conditions would follow public health guidance to prevent them from contracting the disease. The document calls for a return to schools, workplaces, and normal pre-pandemic routines as a means of allowing the virus to spread at "natural" rates.
Three epidemiologists in particular--Martin Kulldorff of Harvard University, Sunetra Gupta of University of Oxford, and Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford Medical School--were signatories of the document and have been mentioned by name in recent press briefings by Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and senior fellow at the right-wing Hoover Institution who has become one of President Donald Trump's top coronavirus advisers in recent months despite his lack of public health expertise.
The scientists met with Atlas and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar last week, according to the Washington Post.
The senior administration official told the Post that the Great Barrington Declaration--which proponents claim has been signed by thousands of doctors and scientists but whose signatories include "transparently fake" names including "Dr. Johnny Bananas" and "Dr. Person Fakename," according to Sky News--simply promotes the approach pushed by Trump for months.
The president began harshly criticizing lockdown measures almost as soon as they began in March and has pushed for a full reopening of schools and businesses while he and other Republicans have scoffed at the notion of providing robust, long-term economic aid to people and small businesses as other wealthy countries did months ago.
By forcing much of the population to return to their normal routines amid the pandemic, adherence to the Great Barrington Declaration would keep the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate from having to consider how to provide aid to businesses that are forced to close and people who have to stay at home to avoid spreading the coronavirus.
Rather than ignoring public health guidance, tweeted Yale epidemiologist and public health activist Gregg Gonsalves, the federal government must focus on making it economically viable for families and small businesses to keep their communities safe.
The declaration does not include any mention of members of the public wearing face coverings or adhering to social distancing guidelines, nor does it outline how specifically society would segregate elderly and medically vulnerable people from young and relatively healthy people who are urged to go about their regular routines.
Collins told the Post that the document will likely be embraced as "an idea that someone can wrap themselves in as a justification for skipping wearing masks or social distancing and just doing whatever they damn well please."
"What I worry about with this is it's being presented as if it's a major alternative view that's held by large numbers of experts in the scientific community. That is not true," Collins told the Post. "This is a fringe component of epidemiology. This is not mainstream science. It's dangerous. It fits into the political views of certain parts of our confused political establishment."
Other public health experts on social media, both in the United Kingdom and the U.S., expressed alarm over the White House's decision to embrace the proposal.
Gonsalves called into question the primary idea being put forth by the Great Barrington Declaration--that public health experts are calling for a "full-scale" lockdown in which people would be unable to leave their homes for long periods of time.
"We need a vaccine to get to herd immunity without putting millions of lives in jeopardy," Gonsalves tweeted. "Full stop. Stop the bullshit."
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As Covid-19 Infections Increase on Capitol Hill, HHS Secretary Azar Says Public Health Protocols Don't Apply to President's Inner Circle
"Someone explain to me how the Trump family's refusal to wear a mask can be justified by Azar on the grounds that the family is in a 'protective bubble' when both Trump and Melania are infected?"
Oct 03, 2020
Democratic lawmakers were incredulous after Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Friday testified following President Donald Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis that the Trump family can't be expected to take the precautions that public health experts recommend, while also claiming the spread of the coronavirus to more than 7.3 million Americans is a matter of "individual responsibility."
Testifying before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis as Trump reportedly began developing Covid-19 symptoms, Azar told Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D-N.Y.) that the president's family did not wear masks at the first presidential debate last Tuesday because "the first family and the protective aspect around the president is a different situation than the rest of us."
Despite the fact that at least two members of the Trump family are now ill, Azar suggested the family is in "a protective bubble."
"He said this...today?" tweeted MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.
At the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio on Tuesday, a doctor was reportedly shooed away from the president's adult children when she approached them to ask them to wear face coverings during the debate.
Members of the Trump family were also present at the White House event last Saturday where Republicans celebrated the president's nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court, where many attendees were unmasked. The gathering is now thought to have been a "superspreader" event, with at least seven attendees having tested positive for Covid-19 on Friday, including Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) and former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway.
Testifying before masked Democratic lawmakers and GOP members who declined to wear face coverings even as the number of positive Covid-19 tests on Capitol Hill grew, Azar dodged a question from Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) about Trump's recent rallies, where indoor venues have been packed with unmasked attendees in close proximity and where the president has frequently downplayed the severity of the virus.
"Do you think that the president's rallies that he has gone to where people are not social distancing...or wearing masks, does that contribute to the increase [in cases]?" Waters asked.
While assuring the congresswoman that HHS advises Americans to practice "the three W's" by wearing a mask, washing your hands, and watching your distance, Azar said people should also "evaluate [their] individual circumstances."
Azar's comments came as news spread that the Barrett nomination event may have led to several positive tests. In addition to the Rose Garden celebration at the White House, the event included an indoor gathering where attendees were also unmasked.
New York Times opinion writer Charlie Warzel suggested on Twitter that Azar's statement that different safety standards apply to those in the president's circle unfortunately rang true.
"You're staying at home, not seeing loved ones. Making big sacrifices for the greater good," Warzel wrote on Saturday. "But that's a *you* thing. *They* do what they want always."
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), chairman of the subcommittee, harshly criticized Azar for enabling the president to downplay the pandemic and potentially contribute to the spread of the coronavirus in an effort to appeal to voters.
"Let there be no doubt: the president's response to the coronavirus crisis has been a failure of historic proportions," said Clyburn. "Covid-19 has claimed more American lives than the battles of World War I, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq War combined. As HHS Secretary and the first Chairman of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Mr. Secretary, you should have been at the helm of an ambitious national response. Rather than follow the science, you tried to hide, alter, or ignore the science whenever it contradicted the president's wish to downplay the crisis for perceived political advantage."
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Senate Democrats Unveil Bill to Investigate Trump Meddling at Public Health Agencies That Is 'Putting Lives in Jeopardy'
"We need transparency and accountability from top to bottom, and we need it now—before it is too late to prevent more costly mistakes."
Sep 22, 2020
Warning that the Trump administration's ongoing interference with the work of government experts during the coronavirus pandemic is "putting lives in jeopardy," a pair of Democratic senators on Tuesday unveiled legislation that would establish an independent body tasked with investigating and uncovering any political meddling at America's public health agencies.
Introduced by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the Science and Transparency Over Politics (STOP) Act would create a pandemic task force with a mandate to conduct "a thorough investigation into any political interference with decisions made by scientific agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services in connection with the pandemic response."
"America will not defeat this virus if people do not have confidence that treatments, vaccines, and guidance are approved with only public health goals in mind."
--Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
Over the course of its investigation--which would include a probe of communications between the White House and public health agencies--the task force would be authorized to release any information it determines to be in the public interest or crucial for public safety. Members of the task force would be appointed by the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, an independent oversight panel established under the CARES Act.
"It is painfully clear that the Trump administration won't stop the political interference which is threatening our response to this pandemic... so it is up to Congress to act," Murray said in a statement. "We need transparency and accountability from top to bottom, and we need it now--before it is too late to prevent more costly mistakes."
Murray framed the new bill (pdf) as a way to force Senate Republicans to either support the investigation or face backlash for doing nothing in the face of the Trump administration's encroachment on the work of government scientists amid a deadly pandemic.
"You cannot be for science if you're silent about political interference in our pandemic response," said Murray.
The bill, which is co-sponsored by 32 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, comes in the wake of several recent steps taken by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar that lawmakers and experts viewed as evidence of political manipulation by Trump administration officials.
On Monday, as Common Dreams reported, the CDC abruptly retracted guidance acknowledging that the coronavirus is airborne and can be spread through tiny droplets known as aerosols, a form of transmission that many scientists have been warning about for months.
"The CDC just published scientifically valid information and then pulled it off their website and this is very likely a scandal," Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a co-sponsor of the STOP Act, tweeted in response to the move.
Emphasizing the extent of the Trump administration's efforts to seize greater control of the work of public health agencies, Murray's office pointed to several other examples reported within the past month:
- September 18: The New York Times reports that Secretary Azar has barred the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from signing any new rules without his approval.
- September 18: The New York Times and Washington Post report further on how Trump administration political appointees tried to silence Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) experts.
- September 15: Politico expands on previous reporting to note that Secretary Azar overruled the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when Azar moved to loosen oversight of Covid-19 testing and allow unreliable tests to flood the market.
- September 14: The New York Times reports that the spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services has promoted false conspiracy theories about the work of experts and scientists at the nation's public health agencies.
- September 12: The New York Times reports that the Trump administration pressured officials at the FDA and National Institutes of Health (NIH) to authorize convalescent plasma therapy before their review of its safety and effectiveness were complete.
- September 11: Politico reports that politically appointed Trump administration officials demanded oversight of reports from CDC experts, and have worked to edit and append findings from CDC experts in its flagship scientific publication, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
"The Trump administration is still pushing the president's political priorities rather than following the science to defeat this virus," Schumer said in a statement. "We simply cannot trust this administration to protect the American people, which is why Congress must step in."
"America will not defeat this virus if people do not have confidence that treatments, vaccines, and guidance are approved with only public health goals in mind," added Schumer. "That confidence has been shaken, but this bill is a first step to restoring it."
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Schumer Demands Immediate Resignation of Alex Azar for Being 'Subservient' to Trump as HHS Officials Distort Covid-19 Threat
"We need a Secretary of Health and Human Services who will look out for the American people, not President Trump's political interests."
Sep 15, 2020
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday morning demanded the immediate resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar for remaining "almost entirely silent" in the wake of explosive reporting detailing efforts by his subordinates to distort and censor the CDC's weekly Covid-19 reports for the political benefit of President Donald Trump.
"Too many people within HHS are trying to suppress the science," the New York Democrat said in a speech on the Senate floor. "It has become abundantly clear that the leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services has allowed perhaps the most important federal agency right now to become subservient to the president's daily whims. So today, I'm calling on Secretary Azar to resign immediately."
"We need a Secretary of Health and Human Services who will look out for the American people," added Schumer, "not President Trump's political interests."
Watch:
Schumer's call came days after Michael Caputo, the top communications official at HHS, publicly accused CDC scientists of engaging in "sedition" against Trump and baselessly warned that "there are hit squads being trained all over this country" to prevent President Donald Trump from winning reelection.
The department responded to Caputo's unhinged remarks with a statement praising the former Trump campaign aide as "a critical, integral part of the president's coronavirus response, leading on public messaging as Americans need public health information to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic."
Late Monday, as Common Dreams reported, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) issued a statement demanding that Azar fire Caputo over his public attacks on CDC scientists and private interference with the agency's work.
"Secretary Azar cannot meet his basic responsibilities while allowing Michael A. Caputo, a yes-man for President Trump with no scientific expertise who publicly attacked CDC scientists and privately interfered with key CDC reports, to continue serving in such an influential role," said Murray.
Politico reported last Friday that Caputo and his top science adviser, Paul Alexander, have for months been working to alter the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, a crucial resource for experts and the public seeking to track the spread of Covid-19 and understand the state of the pandemic.
"Since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the Health and Human Services department's new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump's statements, including the president's claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether," according to Politico.
Following the explosive reporting, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis on Monday launched an investigation into the Trump officials' reported interference with the CDC's work, declaring that the "public needs and deserves truthful scientific information so they can keep themselves and their families healthy."
"We are gravely concerned by reports showing that the president's political appointees at HHS have sought to help him downplay the risks of the coronavirus crisis by attempting to alter, delay, and block critical scientific reports from CDC," members of the subcommittee wrote in a letter (pdf) to Azar and CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield.
"During the pandemic, experts have relied on these reports to determine how the virus spreads and who is at greatest risk," the lawmakers added. "Yet HHS officials apparently viewed these scientific reports as opportunities for political manipulation."
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Trump Health Secretary Says US Healthcare Workers 'Don't Get Infected' With Covid-19
While the true toll Covid-19 has taken on healthcare workers is not yet known, one investigation found that more than 760 have died from the virus.
Jul 08, 2020
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Tuesday falsely claimed that healthcare workers "don't get infected" with Covid-19 "because they take appropriate precautions" as he attempted to make the case for reopening schools in the fall--even with coronavirus cases surging across the United States.
"If we don't have enough PPE for the healthcare workers on the front lines, how can we possibly have enough PPE for all of the country's teachers to take the same precautions?"
--Sarah Karlin-Smith, Pink Sheet
"There's no reason we can't do any of this," Azar, a former pharmaceutical lobbyist and executive, said during an event at the White House. "We have healthcare settings. We have healthcare workers, they don't get infected because they take appropriate precautions. They engage in social distancing, they wear facial covering, they use good personal hygiene. This can work, you can do all of this. There's no reason schools have to be in any way any different."
In addition to noting that Azar's claim about healthcare workers not getting infected is wildly false--according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 94,000 healthcare workers have contracted Covid-19 and at least 500 have died--medical professionals rejected the argument that precautionary measures taken in healthcare settings can easily be replicated in the nation's schools.
"We are trained in infection control and have used [personal protective equipment] for years," tweeted Prasad Jallepalli, MD, a professor at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. "This is almost as dumb as the 'give teachers guns' proposal."
Sarah Karlin-Smith, a reporter with Pink Sheet, asked: "If we don't have enough PPE for the healthcare workers on the front lines, how can we possibly have enough PPE for all of the country's teachers to take the same precautions?"
In response to widespread criticism of Azar's comments, HHS spokesperson Michael Caputo tweeted that the secretary "is keenly aware of and grateful for the sacrifices #HealthcareHeroes have been making throughout this pandemic" and added that it would be "foolish" to suggest he "doesn't believe these warriors get sick and die."
Kaiser Health News and The Guardian, in a collaborative investigation titled "Lost on the Frontline," identified more than 760 healthcare workers who have likely died of Covid-19 in the U.S.--a death toll significantly higher than the CDC's official count.
"In some states, medical personnel account for as many as 20% of known coronavirus cases. They tend to patients in hospitals, treating them, serving them food, and cleaning their rooms. Others at risk work in nursing homes or are employed as home health aides," the outlets reported. "Some cases are shrouded in secrecy... Many hospitals have been overwhelmed and workers sometimes have lacked protective equipment or suffer from underlying health conditions that make them vulnerable to the highly infectious virus."
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