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Trump accuses FDA of thwarting coronavirus response, after admin limits testing oversight

22 August 2020
Dan Ackermann

President Trump on Saturday baselessly accused the Food and Drug Administration — which he likened to the "deep state, or whoever" — of making it harder for drug companies to distribute coronavirus treatments and vaccines.

Why it matters: Trump's tweet comes on the heels of a policy change by the Department of Health and Human Services to block the FDA's ability to regulate lab-developed tests, including for the coronavirus — which has public health experts worried that unreliable COVID-19 tests could go to market.

Where it stands: The FDA has authorized 218 coronavirus tests with emergency use authorizations as of Friday, which includes 176 molecular tests, 39 antibody tests, and 3 antigen tests, the agency said.

What they're saying: "For the last 6 months, FDA’s device center worked effectively with labs to advance hundreds of tests for Covid," former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who served under Trump, tweeted roughly an hour after the president on Saturday morning.

  • But, Gottlieb noted that the "FDA might not be able to provide critical advice to test developers or take needed enforcement actions against bad tests" since the HHS took the reins this week.
  • "We'll see a plethora of DTC Covid tests enter the market, where tests ship directly to consumers and are processed in a central lab operating outside FDA oversight," Gottlieb said.

Between the lines: The policy change surprised many at the FDA and "was a point of intense disagreement" between FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, the Washington Post reports. Hahn opposed the change.

The other side: Supporters said the change, announced Wednesday, could allow innovative tests to reach the public more efficiently, and countered that the FDA's process slowed testing at the start of the pandemic, per the Post.

The FDA and HHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The White House declined to comment.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.