Advertising
Supported by
A local fitness coalition has asked the C.D.C. to amend the new recommendations that other people without Covid-19 symptoms don’t want to get tested.
Right now
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she feared the pandemic would worsen with the end of summer as life moved inland.
Two high-level public relations experts advising the Food and Drug Administration were fired after President Trump and the head of the F.D.A. exaggerated the showing benefits of a blood plasma remedy for Covid-19.
Friday, the F.D.A. The Commissioner, Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, got rid of Emily Miller as the agency’s leading spokesman. The White House had installed her at the post just 11 days earlier. Miller had worked in the past on communications for Senator Ted Cruz’s re-election crusade and as a reporter for the conservative cable network One America News. You may not contact Ms. Miller for comment.
New York Times correspondents Sheila Kaplan and Katie Thomas report that Miller’s firing comes a day after the FDA’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, terminated the contract of another public relations consultant, Wayne L.Pines, who had pleaded with Dr. Hahn for his misleading comments on the benefits of blood plasma for Covid-19.
“I think he did the file right,” Pines said, adding that he hadn’t been told why his contract had been terminated. “If a federal official doesn’t say anything smart and chooses to explain and say the complaint is justified, it’s comforting,” Pines said.
The Department of Health and Human Services denied that Mr. Pines’ contract ended because of his involvement in plasma messaging.
It was “a 100 percent coincidence,” said Brian Harrison, the department’s staff leader. “H.H.S. reviewed and canceled similar contracts, so I had it sent to our lawyers, who terminated it. It was a routine.
The F.D.A. he had thought of allowing the use of convalescent plasma as a remedy for Covid-19 as a matter of urgency, however, before this month, the Times reported that the resolution had been delayed after an organization of federal fitness officials, adding Dr. Francis S. . Collins and Dr. Anthony S. Fauci intervened and expressed their fear that evidence of the effectiveness of the remedy was too weak, leading Mr. Trump to call the FDA. a deep state. Trump and Dr. Hahn overeshed the price of the remedy the next day.
The announcement has been an uncommon victory for the FDA, which for months had rejected complaints about its history of the pandemic, as well as the independence of Dr. Hahn, who in the past had been stressed through Trump to authorize antimalarial drugs. this has proven to be harmful.
Instead, he unleashed a week of recrimination, anger and mistrust among the F.D.A. and the H.H.S., which generated complaints from scientists and at least 3 former commissioners of the firm, who said that exaggerated statements undermined public confidence in the F.D.A.
“This is a low time for the F.D.A. in at least a generation,” said Daniel Carpenter, a Harvard University professor who is reading the agency. “It’s a self-inflicted primary injury.”
Two organizations that make up thousands of local public fitness facilities in the United States sent a letter Friday to senior Trump management officials asking them to “remove revised guidelines” on virus testing and re-establish recommendations for testing to others who have been exposed to the virus. . whether they have symptoms or not.
The letter, addressed to Dr. Robert R. Redfield, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Admiral Brett P. Giroir, Undersecretary of Health of the Department of Health and Social Services, sent through the leaders of the National Association of County and City Health Officials and Great City Health Coalition. Organization leaders wrote that their members were “extremely concerned” about the changes.
The C.D.C. quietly modified its coronavirus testing guidelines this week to exclude people who do not have symptoms of Covid-19 — even if they have been recently exposed to the virus.
Experts questioned the review, emphasizing the importance of identifying infections in the small window before the onset of symptoms, when many other people appear to be the most contagious.
After a typhoon of criticism, Dr. Redfield tried to explain the agency’s advice and stated that “the evidence would possibly be for all close contacts of proven or probable Covid-19 patients.”
The letter sent on Friday said, “As public health professionals, we are troubled about the lack of evidence cited to inform this change. CDC’s own data suggest that perhaps as many as 40 percent of Covid-19 cases are attributable to asymptomatic transmission. Changing testing guidelines to suggest that close contacts to confirmed positives without symptoms do not need to be tested is inconsistent with the science and the data.”
The letter went on to say that while the new rules allow local or state health-conditioning officials to make exceptions, they will “make their ability to respond to the pandemic even more difficult,” allowing skeptical officials or members of the public to blame and question them. . “This review and its outcome have an effect on carrying some other impediment to public fitness practitioners fighting the pandemic well.”
Advertising