The Trump administration tried to pressure the Food and Drug Administration into authorizing unproven treatments for COVID-19 and the first vaccines against it on an accelerated timeline, according to a new report.
Senior Trump administration officials, including former White House adviser Peter Navarro, pressured the FDA and its Commissioner Stephen Hahn to reauthorize the use of hydroxychloroquine, a medication that is often used to treat lupus and malaria, after the agency revoked its emergency clearance in June 2020. The disagreement between White House officials and the FDA was characterized by Steven Hatfill, one of Navarro’s advisers, as a forthcoming “knife fight,” he wrote in an email, according to the report released by Democrats on the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
“The Select Subcommittee’s findings that Trump White House officials deliberately and repeatedly sought to bend FDA’s scientific work on coronavirus treatments and vaccines to the White House’s political will are yet another example of how the prior Administration prioritized politics over public health. … These assaults on our nation’s public health institutions undermined the nation’s coronavirus response,” House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) said.
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The FDA had revoked its emergency clearance of hydroxychloroquine due to data showing that it was not effective against COVID-19 and could also lead to potentially dangerous side effects, according to the report.
Navarro and Hatfill also sought to discredit health officials who spoke out against the use of hydroxychloroquine, one of whom was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the report indicated. Hatfill had outlined a plan for Navarro to get the Department of Justice to start an investigation on Fauci and his emails to “shut them up for a bit,” the report read.
Wednesday’s report from the subcommittee also states that Trump officials attempted to push the agency into authorizing convalescent plasma close to the time of the Republican Party’s national convention. The FDA said on Aug. 23, 2020, the day before the event, that it “issued an [emergency use authorization] for investigational convalescent plasma for the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients.”
Convalescent plasma therapy “uses blood from people who’ve recovered from an illness in order to help others recover” from the same illness, as defined by the Mayo Clinic.
In addition, the investigation into Fauci that had been proposed by Trump officials was suggested to be held around the time of the 2020 election in an attempt to try and favor Trump among voters, according to the report.
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The report also contained new evidence that Navarro, along with other Trump White House officials, conducted government business using private email accounts. The Justice Department sued Navarro earlier this month in an attempt to get emails from his time at the White House.
The suit claims that he utilized a personal email to conduct business involving presidential records and that he must turn over said messages, which are the property of the National Archives. Navarro’s attorneys have denied withholding documents from the government.
