DETROIT — Joe Biden refuted the suggestion that his questioning of the Food and Drug Administration’s independence in creating a coronavirus vaccine will fuel a long-term distrust in vaccination.
“No, no. What I said was, there’s got to be total transparency,” Biden said Wednesday when asked whether his statements might fuel distrust of vaccines. “I hope we have a vaccine. Tomorrow would be wonderful. But we’ve got to make sure there’s total transparency, the experts are able to look at it across the board and make a judgment. Because you know what’s happened already. He’s put pressure on some of the agencies to do things that they weren’t ready to do. And so, I’m confident we’ll get a vaccine and the sooner, the better.”
A reporter noted that Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who has become something of a public spokesman for the national government on coronavirus matters, has said that he trusts the vaccine testing process.
“Well, the process, yes. But he didn’t say — he didn’t acknowledge that there wasn’t pressure put on folks,” Biden said. “There has been. I don’t know about the vaccine.”
The Democratic presidential nominee and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, have been preemptively sowing doubt about President Trump’s announcement of a coronavirus vaccine, expecting an announcement of a vaccine to come before the election. They warn of Trump “exerting political pressure on the FDA” in order to push a vaccine through.
“We cannot allow a repeat of Trump’s testing and personal protective equipment (PPE) fiascos when it comes to a COVID-19 vaccine. The stakes are too high for working families across the country,” Biden and Harris wrote in a statement released Tuesday, calling on Trump to “follow scientific independence, transparency, and accountability in the development of a COVID-19 vaccine.”
New: I asked Joe Biden if questioning the independence of the FDA re: COVID vaccine was sowing long-term distrust in a vaccine?
Biden said no & there has been “pressure” put on agencies to do things they weren’t ready to do. pic.twitter.com/XDQLAIMz1V
— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) September 9, 2020
