Gerald Ford Rushed Out a Vaccine. It Was a Fiasco.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/opinion/coronavirus-vaccine-trump.html

Last week, news arrived that President Trump had lurched into what may be his most reckless obsession yet: His administration would probably seek an “emergency use authorization” for a Covid-19 vaccine long before some scientists believe it would be safe to do so.

A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services immediately addressed the obvious suspicion: “Talk of an ‘October surprise’”— an attempt to manufacture good news just before the November election — “is a lurid Resistance fantasy.”

As he does often, however, the president proudly admitted to the exact thing his underling insisted was inconceivable.

“The deep state, or whoever, over at the F.D.A.,” he tweeted recently at Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, “is making it very difficult for drug companies to get people in order to test the vaccines and therapeutics. Obviously, they are hoping to delay the answer until after Nov. 3. Must focus on speed and saving lives!”

To that end, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has notified public health officials across the country to prepare to distribute a coronavirus vaccine to health care workers and other high-risk groups as soon as late October.

*snip*

[uponit7771]

1. omg, ... vid of doctor at the presser saying adverse reactions in 14 states was SCARY!! Nope, not ..

... going to take it until MAZI suckers are done with it.

[Nevilledog]

2. Same here.

v

[crickets]

3. This story needs more play. Read it, share it. The parallels are unmistakeable.

But Mr. Ford was advised that Congress would likely act anyway — which meant they, not he, would get the credit for a potentially heroic decision — and that the government “can tolerate unnecessary health expenditures better than unnecessary death and illness.” He was also reminded of a significant political consideration: “Congress, the media and the American people will expect some action.”

Two days later, he met with a so-called blue ribbon panel of experts and then appeared before television cameras. Telling reporters that “we cannot afford to take a chance with the health of our nation,” he announced that he was requesting an immediate $135 million congressional appropriation “for the production of sufficient vaccine to inoculate every man, woman and child in the United States.” [snip]

But fast-tracking the vaccine for broad distribution among the public carried risks. Of the 45 million vaccinated against the swine flu, an estimated 450 people developed the paralyzing syndrome Guillain-Barré and of those, more than 30 died. The National Academy of Medicine subsequently concluded that people who received the 1976 swine flu vaccine had an increased risk for developing Guillain-Barré.

The emergence of Guillain-Barré led the government to suspend and effectively end its mass vaccination effort in December.

[LisaL]

4. Does anyone think Trump would care if we all got sick from the vaccine?

As long as it happens after the election.
He just wants to claim US has a vaccine, doesn't matter if it safe or if it works.

[ecstatic]

5. He's too stupid to understand that it's his actions (including this warp speed BS)

that are dooming him. Every day he does something else that will only prolong our national pain. Accepting his nomination in front of 2,000 unmasked attendees. Forcing the CDC to reduce testing. Demanding that schools and churches reopen. Forcing through an untested vaccine on the masses. Telling his voters to vote twice. He doesn't give a shit about ANYONE, not even his own supporters.