Trump vaccine official: 'I would resign instantly' if pressured politically

[brooklynite]

Source: The Hill

The chief scientist of the Trump administration’s effort to develop a coronavirus vaccine said in a new interview that he would “resign instantly” if he was forced to inappropriately accelerate a vaccine for political reasons.

“The data will dictate, the facts will dictate,” Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientist for the administration’s Operation Warp Speed, said in an appearance on a podcast hosted by the American Enterprise Institute on Thursday.

“We may have the endpoint in October. We may have it on Nov. 4, who knows? We may have it on Dec. 15. That's the answer, and to be honest, on a personal basis, I would resign instantly if I was forced to do something that I thought would be inappropriate.”

The statement comes as Democrats and health experts have raised concerns about the politicization of the vaccine approval process and whether President Trump would apply pressure to approve a vaccine before the election on Nov. 3.

Read more: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/511062-trump-vaccine-official-i-would-resign-instantly-if-pressured-politically

[ananda]

1. How much of a Trumper is he?

Is he just spouting bs or not?

I just don't trust those Reeps these days.

[JT45242]

2. LIAR!!!

They have already prebought doses of a vaccine from a major Trump donor before it has been
1) proven to work
2) has known risks and side effects

He should have resigned before the BILLIONS were paid sight unseen to Trump donating companies.

[soothsayer]

3. The Sketchy Past of Trump's Coronavirus Vaccine Czar

Snip

An understanding of Slaoui’s biography and his time at GSK may add to those concerns. While working for the Pharma giant, Slaoui helped misrepresent scientific research on a drug that had harmed tens of thousands of Americans. Since the Trump administration has shifted its COVID-19 strategy to favor vaccine development, this means America’s hopes for addressing the pandemic rests with someone who was at the epicenter of one of the more controversial episodes in recent drug development.

Back in 2007, Avandia was GSK’s $3 billion-per-year blockbuster diabetes drug, when Dr. Steve Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that found that it increased the risk of heart attacks and deaths in patients. With the future of Avandia in doubt, the company’s share price fell 7 percent, wiping out billions of dollars of value. GSK was in a serious bind. But instead of opening its books, it responded by misleading the public, federal agencies, and Congress about the drug’s dangers. Slaoui helped the company in this deception. At the time, he was GSK’s chairman of research and development, and when he was hauled before Congress to testify to Avandia’s safety, he offered a rosy assessment that downplayed the drug’s risks.

“[N]ot only is Avandia effective, it is actually superior to the most widely used medicines” Slaoui testified at one point, adding at another: "We also diligently communicated to physicians and patients Avandia's scientifically established safety risks."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-sketchy-past-of-moncef-slaoui-trumps-coronavirus-vaccine-czar

[empedocles]

5. Ahem

[mr_lebowski]

4. I'm sure you were hired, Dr, precisely because your standards about what constitutes 'appropriate'

are, shall we say ... highly malleable?

[Alliepoo]

6. Right. Whatever.

No trust whatsoever in people associated with this administration. The lone exception is Dr Fauci.

[Dem2theMax]

7. Is that you, Doctor Pinocchio?

Yep, thought so.

[Initech]

12. Maybe he's the doctor from Airplane.

[Dem2theMax]

14. Lol!

I haven't seen that in a long time.

He's definitely the doctor from Airplane!

[Illumination]

8. I don't trust you & I certainly don't trust Trump. If you're rushing a vaccine, will I be paralized?

Will I have organ damage? Trump doesn't care about us. I would trust my doctor before any Trumpsters...

[IronLionZion]

9. Then we should watch and see if Moncef Slaoui resigns

This administration is totally capable of releasing some dangerous garbage that doesn't work just to win the election.

[soryang]

10. Operation "warp speed?"

What a joke. It was the lack of timely standard public health efforts such as the use of masks, social distancing, testing, tracing, and isolation which led to the unmitigated explosion of cases and deaths in the US.

The chief priority of the administration and its drug company officials like Azar is to have the drug industry profit off this pandemic with dubious prefunded vaccine contracts. Trump and his administration's public health officials were fixated on vaccines from the outset to the detriment of a competent proactive public health response. The administrations indifference to human life and worship of drug company interests led to deadly consequences which could have been largely avoided at the outset. So they name their vaccine development program, "warp speed?"

How Orwellian.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

15. Trump has no idea what "warp speed" means, much less the source of the term.

He just knows it sounds good, like "Space Force."

Ironically, the United Federation of Planets stands for everything Trump abhors. If he lived in the era of Captain Kirk, he'd be a Romulan.

[Quemado]

11. I call bullsh*t.

I can smell it.

[zipplewrath]

13. I've been in that position

This guy isn't really explaining the problem. This is a process that will involve a thousand small decisions and judgements and none of them are really black and white. The hardest part about being the guy that has to make/approve them is that you want to be the hero. You want to be the guy that solves the problem. So each definition can be you leaning towards success, instead of leaning away from failure. But worse, you have to make these decisions with bosses that may not understand the issues at all, and they will get frustrated if you have to tell them that something isn't the success they want it to be.

This guy got the job for one of two reasons. 1) A history of success. He's demonstrated an ability to managed programs to successful conclusions. 2) He's climbed the ladder by making his bosses happy and avoiding responsibilities for failure.

Which one would you guess? And, oh, by the by, no one has ever really done what he's being asked to do.

It is counter intuitive but really the guy you want to try this is the guy that's been burned a few times by spectacular failure. You want the guy that understands that you can do everything "right" and still fail. You want the guy that makes decisions not based upon whether he thinks he's right, but based upon the consequences if he is wrong.

[DeminPennswoods]

16. Too many people think the top official actually runs

things. He or she does not. There are hundreds of civil servants doing the grunt work of gathering data and analyzing it. If Congress has concerns, then they can call the actual civil servants who are doing the work to testify.