Trump demands drugmakers ‘justify’ COVID treatment success
President Trump on Monday demanded drugmakers “justify” the success of their treatments for COVID-19 amid turmoil in his administration over vaccines and other health issues.
“It is very important that the Drug Companies justify the success of their various Covid Drugs. Many people think they are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others disagree!” the president said in a post on Truth Social.
“With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW,” the president continued, referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The president ousted the director of the CDC last week amid reports of a showdown between the embattled agency head and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over vaccines.
“I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public. Why not???” Trump wrote Monday. “They go off to the next ‘hunt’ and let everyone rip themselves apart, including Bobby Kennedy Jr. and CDC, trying to figure out the success or failure of the Drug Companies Covid work.”
On Monday, former directors of the CDC rebuked Kennedy, who has a history of vaccine skepticism, over his leadership at the agency and his push to fire its director, Susan Monarez.
In an opinion piece for The New York Times, nine former CDC directors and acting directors offered a warning about the changes Kennedy has made at the agency, which they called alarming.
Demetre Daskalakis, the former leader of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, on Thursday said Kennedy had not been briefed by agency experts on measles, COVID-19 and the flu.
“No one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics,” Daskalakis said on CNN.
“Perhaps he has alternate experts that he may trust more than the experts at CDC that the rest of the world regards as the best scientists in the areas,” he added.
Trump in his Monday social media post touted the effectiveness of Operation Warp Speed, the push during his first term to speed up vaccine development and distribution during the pandemic. And he said drugmakers “show me GREAT numbers and results, but they don’t seem to be showing them to many others.”
“I want them to show them NOW, to CDC and the public, and clear up this MESS, one way or the other!!! I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???” he added.
The Hill has reached out to Pfizer for comment.