President Donald Trump is holding a vaccine summit at the White House this week, but the two major drug manufacturers behind a vaccine, Pfizer and Moderna, declined to attend.
According to STAT News, the absence "will be conspicuous" since one would assume that a summit on the COVID-19 vaccine would likely have information from the manufacturers and researchers of the vaccine.
The snub comes after Trump tried to take credit for the vaccine when it was announced by Pfizer after the election. Trump first spread a conspiracy theory that companies refused to announce their results ahead of the election to hurt his election.
Trump then claimed that the vaccine wouldn't have been possible without the money that the U.S. contributed.
Loyal soldier Vice President Mike Pence rushed to credit Trump with the achievement as well.
But Pfizer explained that neither Trump nor the administration had anything to do with their timeline. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told Dr. Sanjay Gupta that he found out about the 95 percent effectiveness rate on the Sunday after the election was called and hadn't even read the data yet. In October, Bourla wrote in an open letter on the company's website: "Based on our current trial enrollment and dosing pace, we estimate we will reach this milestone in the third week of November."
Pfizer has also delivered the first COVID-19 vaccinations to top-level people in the UK.
Trump's summit "appeared to be an effort for the administration to claim credit for the rapid development of a COVID-19 vaccine and to pressure the Food and Drug Administration to move quickly on an authorization," said STAT.
According to Axios and Bloomberg News, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn has been called to the White House twice to explain the timetable that Trump feels is moving too slowly.
Two days after the Summit, the FDA is holding its meeting examining the data and information from Pfizer.
No one from President-elect Joe Biden's CDC, HHS, or COVID-19 transition is invited to the summit.
