SPRINGFIELD – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today sent letters to each pharmaceutical company with a vaccine candidate under Operation Warp Speed asking how they plan to maintain scientific and data-based standards in the face of White House political pressure regarding the COVID-19 vaccine approval process. In letters to Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Pfizer, Novavax, and Janssen (part of Johnson & Johnson), Durbin highlighted how President Trump’s recent convalescent plasma and hydroxychloroquine controversies with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and comments stating a vaccine would be ready by Election Day have only increased public skepticism about the safety and efficacy of a potential COVID-19 vaccine and undermined credibility in the vaccine approval process. Durbin asked the companies to answer a series a questions, including whether any have felt political pressure from the White House to rush the approval process for a COVID-19 vaccine.
“Despite President Trump’s rosy outlook, our public health and biomedical experts have not projected such confidence in the timeline that the President seeks,” Durbin wrote. “Recent public surveys have indicated alarming levels of skepticism among the American public about taking a coronavirus vaccine if shortcuts were taken or if the approval was motivated by politics rather than science… Americans are eagerly seeking a safe and effective vaccine for COVID-19, and there has been significant and swift work to bring several vaccine candidates to clinical trials. To bolster public confidence in the integrity of the vaccine approval process, I request answers to the following questions from you by September 17, 2020.”
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