Trump's penchant for appointing mediocre and/or bad decision making white men (and bimbos) to responsible administration positions strikes again. FDA this time.
Vindictiveness is a key Trump characteristic. How might such a penchant affect who he chooses and his expectations for them, in ostensibly neutral objective positions in government? NYTimes reports:
F.D.A. commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn at the White House on Sunday.Credit...Oliver Contreras for The New York Times
The
head of the Food and Drug Administration ousted its top spokeswoman
[...] after he made erroneous claims that overstated the benefits of plasma treatments for Covid-19 at a news conference with President Trump.
The
decision came just a day after the F.D.A.’s parent agency, the
Department of Health and Human Services, terminated the contract of a
public relations consultant who had advised the F.D.A. commissioner, Dr.
Stephen M. Hahn, to correct his misleading claims that 35 out of 100
Covid-19 patients “would have been saved because of the administration
of plasma.”
The removals come at a
moment when the agency, which will be making critical decisions about
whether to approve coronavirus vaccinesand treatments, is struggling to salvage its reputation as a neutral scientific arbiter.
The
ousted spokeswoman, Emily Miller, had little experience in health care.
She had spent years working in Washington for Republicans, including
the former Texas Congressman Tom DeLay and Senator Ted Cruz of Texas,
and as a journalist for One America News, the conservative cable
network. She was in her agency post for just 11 days.
So what's she doing there, besides showing Trump has respect for or feels obligated toward Tom DeLay and Ted Cruz and particularly the outlet, One America News, which fawns over him? Aside from no experience in healthcare matters, why oust her? She's pretty. Good teeth. Ivanka teeth. Blond.
“This is a low moment for the F.D.A. in at least a generation,” Daniel Carpenter,a
professor at Harvard University who studies the agency, said of Dr.
Hahn’s failure to control the public message about the plasma
authorization. “This was a major self-inflicted wound.”
The
most recent controversy over plasma follows a series of missteps by the
F.D.A. that have fueled concerns that the agency is losing the public’s
trust as the nation faces a presidential election in November and a
pandemic that has taken more than 180,000 American lives.
[...] “The
agency needs to work very hard to regain the trust of the American
people — there have been too many unforced errors,” said Dr. David A.
Kessler, who was F.D.A. commissioner under Presidents George Bush and
Clinton, [...] “It needs to focus on what it does best, which is to put the data in
front of the medical and scientific community and the American public,
and stick with the data.”
[links in original, italics added] Kessler is advising Biden's campaign, but still - focus on the data, stick with the data - is policy beyond reasonable criticism.
A hypothetical - Would you rush out to get self and family vaccinated with something ostensibly fairly tested then approved by this Trumpian clown show?
Or would you wait a bit to see early adopter outcomes?
That is a problem, since it might be good medicine put to the public from bad medicine men. Clowns who have poisoned the well of public trust. Trump style.
UPDATE: At 3000 lives lost via 9/11, Trump's effectively done sixty 9/11s via his outrageous ineffectiveness in addressing the pandemic in a consistent prudent nationwide federal manner. That is 180,000 of US dying while Trump was trusting things to Pence and Jarad in key roles. Neither of whom, like the fired spokeswoman, had any grounding in public health actions and policy matters.
