Officials in the Trump administration pressured the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic to make regulatory decisions that would benefit the White House’s political goals, according to a new report from the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis.
Among the findings in the report are that Trump administration officials pressured the FDA to reauthorize hydroxychloroquine despite lack of efficacy as a COVID-19 treatment, worked with outside groups to generate support for FDA reauthorizing the drug, and attacked federal officials who weren’t in support of hydroxychloroquine. White House officials also potentially influenced the emergency use authorization (EUA) for convalescent plasma and objected to FDA’s guidance on COVID-19 vaccine safety that called for 2 months of surveillance data, which would have put vaccine authorization after the 2020 US presidential election.
The Select Subcommittee began publishing the findings of their investigation in June with a report detailing the Trump administration’s support of a discredited herd immunity strategy promoted by Special Advisor to the President Scott Atlas. The authors of the first report concluded the Trump administration’s support of herd immunity led to many preventable illnesses and deaths in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic.
