Trump's efforts to push unproven COVID-19 treatment could wreck rollout of vaccine

President Donald Trump helped erode public confidence in his administration's health agencies, which could doom efforts to distribute a vaccine for the deadly coronavirus.

The president has promised a vaccine before the end of this year, and public health experts are increasingly worried that the White House will pressure regulators to prematurely approve the first one that looks promising, reported Politico.

“The administration will be tempted, because we’re coming up on an election, to reach their hand into Warp Speed bucket and say here’s two or three vaccines that look pretty good,” said Paul Offit, a University of Pennsylvania immunologist and co-inventor of a vaccine for rotavirus.

Offit and Ezekiel Emanuel, professor of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania and an adviser to Joe Biden, warned last week in a New York Times op-ed that Trump might abuse his power to rush an unproven vaccine just before the election, but FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn denied that political pressure had shaped his coronavirus response.

“Under no circumstances will the FDA allow political pressure to affect our decision-making and, importantly, that has not occurred on my watch," Hahn said. "We continue to take this very seriously.”

But the president's promotional campaign for hydroxychloroquine, which has shown potentially deadly side effects, undercut the administration's credibility on COVID-19.

“Public confidence in the FDA has really been eroded because of the EUA on hydroxychloroquine and then the mess that they’ve made with serology tests,” said Nicole Lurie, an assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS in the Obama administration. “They’ve already got two strikes against them. The risk of the Trump administration eroding public confidence in our science agencies is just huge.”

About a quarter of Americans already say they're not interested in getting a coronavirus vaccine, and about 36 percent say they would be less willing to do so if Trump declared one safe.

“There is a genuine concern, and a very understandable concern, from the vast majority of Americans on, ‘Are we moving too quickly on this coronavirus vaccine?’” said Erica DeWald, director of advocacy at Vaccinate Your Family. “We need to do a better job of breaking down for people just what we’re accelerating.”