Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been sowing doubt in the minds of Americans about the efficacy of any COVID vaccine that would become available during a Trump administration.
“I trust vaccines. I trust scientists. I don’t trust Trump,” he said. Kamala Harris, his running mate, said similar things. Harris also predicted that scientists who might disagree with Trump would be “muzzled.”
Those remarks came after Harris caused controversy by predicting that public health experts will “be muzzled, they’ll be suppressed, they will be sidelined, because he’s looking at an election coming up in less than 60 days, and he’s grasping for whatever he can get to pretend that he’s been a leader on this issue when he’s not.”
Biden says he will have a “list of questions” for Trump to answer before he would support the distribution of a vaccine.
“I would want to see what the scientists said,” Biden said separately in response to a question about whether he would take a vaccine approved by the Trump administration. “I want full transparency on the vaccine. One of the problems is the way he’s playing with politics. He says so many things that aren’t true and I’m worried if we do have a really good vaccine people are going to be reluctant to take it.”
But those concerns have been repeatedly pushed back against by some of the nation’s top experts and health officials.
Indeed, many public health officials might not support Trump for re-election, but they’re not hysterical about their opposition and take their responsibilities too seriously to play Biden’s game.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top disease specialist in the country, said this month that he was “not concerned about political pressure.” On Fox News’ “Daily Briefing” last week he said that he would not be “muzzled” and noted that trials have been put on hold when there was an adverse event.
Fauci pointed out that vaccine approval is a “process” with checks and balances every step of the way. The notion that Trump could somehow manipulate the process to get a bogus vaccine approved is stupid.
National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, on MSNBC last week, assured viewers that there would not be “shortcuts” in safety and efficacy assessments and that “there are multiple different layers of oversight of this to make sure that nothing gets pushed through unless it meets the highest standards, probably the highest standards that ever have been applied for a vaccine are going to be applied in this situation.”
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield was grilled in a Senate hearing on Wednesday about his office naming a potential Nov. 1 date for a vaccine to governors, with Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., accusing him of “deliberately laying it out two days before the election.”
Redfield pushed back, saying that the date was prepared by subject matter experts and motivated by concerns that the vaccine would be delivered but officials weren’t prepared to distribute them.
The brain dead Senator from Oregon thinks that because Redfield told governors to “be ready” to distribute the vaccine on November 1 that this was somehow a delivery date. Sheesh.
The Democrats are just ANGRY that the vaccine and delivery are so far ahead of schedule. They hate what they are seeing. Saving lives should make them happy, not sad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2020
Indeed, a Biden administration would still be asking for bids on a potential vaccine at this point. “Operation Warp Speed” will probably go down in history as the most innovative scientific effort in history, involving private companies, public health officials, politicians, and scientists to develop a vaccine in about 1/3 the time it would ordinarily take.
Just who is “playing politics” with the vaccine, Joe?
Editor’s Note: Want to support PJ Media so we can continue telling the truth about the Biden-Harris campaign? Join PJ Media VIP TODAY and use the promo code LAWANDORDER to get 25% off your VIP membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member