President Trump has become so shameless about subverting the public interest to his political self-interest that Big Pharma — not generally regarded as the most civic-minded of entities — is now scrambling to control the damage.
On Tuesday, nine drug companies issued a joint pledge that when it came to releasing a vaccine for the coronavirus, they would “stand with science” and “make the safety and well-being of vaccinated individuals our top priority.” They vowed to follow the guidance of the appropriate regulators and to make decisions based on “large, high quality clinical studies,” as is standard protocol.
“We believe this pledge will help ensure public confidence in the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which Covid-19 vaccines are evaluated and may ultimately be approved,” the companies said.
As P.R. strategies go, it may seem odd for drugmakers to offer unsolicited assurances that they will not cut corners on safety. This feels a little bit like a server at Olive Garden greeting customers with a promise not to spit in their iced tea. Why even raise the possibility?
Such is the extent to which Mr. Trump has politicized and undermined public faith in everything — especially his own administration.
Having badly mishandled the pandemic and seen his job approval numbers suffer, Mr. Trump has been pressuring the Food and Drug Administration to crunch the vaccine timeline. He has even accused “the deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA” of slow-walking the process expressly to undermine his re-election bid.
The agency’s commissioner, Stephen Hahn, has not exactly inspired confidence in his ability to withstand the presidential heat. During a White House appearance with Mr. Trump last month, Dr. Hahn grossly exaggerated the effectiveness of a Covid-19 treatment using convalescent plasma. The scientific community dogpiled on the commissioner, prompting him to issue an extended mea culpa on Twitter.
With increasing frequency and vigor, the president has been tantalizing voters with the promise of a vaccine becoming available before Election Day. In his speech at the Republican convention, he boasted that “we will have a safe and effective vaccine this year.” That same day, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified state and local health officials to prepare to distribute a vaccine to high-risk groups by late October or early November.
Since then, the president has repeatedly spoken of a vaccine as if it were some marvelous October Surprise. At a news briefing on Monday, he teased reporters: “We’re going to have a vaccine very soon. Maybe even before a very special date. You know what date I’m talking about.”
Health experts with actual scientific knowledge — including key administration officials involved in the development process — have suggested that this timeline is overly optimistic.
The politicization of the issue has unsettled voters. In a recent survey by the Harris Poll and STAT News, 78 percent of respondents — 72 percent of Republicans and 82 percent of Democrats — expressed concern that the vaccine approval process was “being driven more by politics than science.” Eighty-three percent said that if a vaccine were approved quickly, they would worry about its safety.
To be fair, Mr. Trump did not single-handedly destroy the public’s confidence in government regulators. Government-bashing has been a Republican staple for decades, with special enmity reserved for regulatory agencies, which, in the view of many conservatives, serve only to pervert the beauty and rationality of the market. As with so many of his party’s longstanding lines of attack, Mr. Trump has distilled the disdain for government expertise and oversight to its toxic essence.
On one level, it’s befuddling to see drug companies pitching themselves as guardians of the public good. Big Pharma has a well-earned reputation as being synonymous with Big Greed. Practically speaking, the new joint statement doesn’t do all that much. It is, for instance, somewhat vague about precisely what requirements the companies would meet before seeking emergency authorization.
But from a messaging standpoint, the pledge is illuminating. Even the most avaricious drug executives recognize that absent a baseline of public confidence in their products, the companies’ bottom lines will suffer. Mr. Trump is destroying that baseline.
Vaccine safety was already a sensitive subject. Anti-vaxxers stand ready to spread fear and conspiracy theories without any political provocation. (The “Plandemic” conspiracy that exploded on social media, which claims the coronavirus is the handiwork of a sinister band of elites, features a big dose of anti-vax nuttiness.) The last thing drug companies want is for the president to fuel fears about the integrity of a coronavirus vaccine.
Last weekend, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s newly minted running mate, voiced hesitation about receiving any vaccine that might emerge before Election Day. “I would not trust Donald Trump, and it would have to be a credible source of information that talks about the efficacy and the reliability of whatever he’s talking about,” she told CNN. “I will not take his word for it.”
It’s hard to fault Ms. Harris when just this week, excerpts from Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” reveal that the president knew back in February that the coronavirus was “deadly stuff” but intentionally misled the public. “I wanted to always play it down,” Mr. Trump said.
When the president cannot serve as a credible source on matters of life and death, whom can the nation turn to? Drug executives clearly aren’t the only ones fretting over that question.
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Source: Elections - nytimes.com
