Trump calls on pharmaceutical companies to justify success of Covid drugs

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Monday called on pharmaceutical companies to justify the success of their drugs intended to treat Covid.

He said there is disagreement on whether the drugs saved lives.

"With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer, and I want it NOW," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "I have been shown information from Pfizer, and others, that is extraordinary, but they never seem to show those results to the public."

In his post, Trump urged drug companies to be more transparent about their results to “clear up this MESS.”

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the latest round of Covid vaccines, but only for people at higher risk of severe illness. The three approved shots are made by Pfizer with German partner BioNTech, Moderna, and Novavax with Sanofi.

The president’s comments also come days after he fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez after she refused to resign. Four other top health officials at the CDC also announced they were quitting the agency last week, including Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

The leadership upheaval at the CDC follows a series of measures by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr to overhaul federal health agencies and change US immunisation policies. He has instituted mass firings, gutted a key government vaccine panel and canceled studies on mRNA shot technology.

In an email to agency staff on Thursday, Kennedy pledged to continue what he has described as a mission to restore trust to the agency, touting “significant progress” already.

Public health experts, physicians, researchers, as well as current and former CDC employees, have said that Kennedy’s approach as well as cuts to both spending and staff have already hobbled the agency, warning that matters will worsen if he is allowed to continue.

So far, Kenedy has faced relatively little resistance from the White House, and the president appears to have gone along with the push to oust Monarez. It was the White House that announced last this week that Trump fired her, even though the announcement was initially made by Kennedy’s Department of Health and Human Services.

But in the Monday post, Trump appears to be torn between Kennedy and his detractors. The president doesn’t appear to embrace Kennedy’s view that Covid vaccines were decidedly harmful.

Trump has previously touted the success of Operation Warp Speed, the government-backed effort to develop Covid countermeasures, including vaccines.

“I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was. If not, we all want to know about it, and why???” he wrote of the initiative.