The unprecedented effort by the White House to intercede at the FDA is raising alarms among health experts inside and outside the administration
project tasked with developing a coronavirus vaccine. The cancer specialist spent nearly a decade at the Food and Drug Administration, most recently overseeing the office that approves vaccines and gene therapies.
Marks's abrupt switch was the latest sign of the FDA's struggle to fend off outside political pressure, particularly from the White House, amid the desperate search for a coronavirus cure. The agency rushed to greenlight the unproven coronavirus treatment hydroxychloroquine for wide use after President Donald Trump touted the drug. At the behest of the White House, FDA officials met with wealthy Trump donor Larry Ellison almost daily to discuss a hydroxychloroquine tracking project.
In a statement, Hahn denied that political pressure had influenced his agency's coronavirus response. "The FDA has remained an unwavering, science-based voice helping to guide the all-of-government response," he said to POLITICO. "I have never felt any pressure to make decisions, other than the urgency of the situation around COVID-19."
During the first weeks of the pandemic, when the FDA was struggling to approve coronavirus tests, agency officials got an unusual request. The White House wanted them to talk to Oracle CEO and top Trump donor Larry Ellison about an application the company was building to track hydroxychloroquine use outside of clinical trials, which it wanted to donate to the government.
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