Trump calls FDA part of ‘deep state’ & accuses drug administration of slow-walking vaccine tests until after election
DONALD Trump has called the FDA part of the "deep state" and accused the drug administration of slow-walking vaccine testing until after the election.
The president made the comments about the Food and Drug Administration in an early morning Twitter rant on Saturday, despite the head of the agency, Dr Stephen Hahn, being a Trump nominee.
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Human trials for a COVID-19 vaccine are currently being carried out around the world in a bid to stamp out the pandemic, which has killed 800,000 people worldwide so far, including 174,000 Americans.
No vaccine has yet been produced that has passed all the safety checks necessary to roll it out in the general population.
But Trump claims that the FDA is trying to block efforts to immunize Americans until after the November election where his handling of the pandemic is a key point of discussion.
He tweeted: "The deep state, or whoever, over at the FDA 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 November 3rd. Must focus on speed, and saving lives!"
Trump followed up on the tweet with another referring to the FDA's decision to revoke emergency authorisation of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for treating COVID-19 because it was "unlikely to be effective".
But he claimed: "Many doctors and studies disagree with this!"
Trump vowed earlier in August that a vaccine would possibly be ready by the date of the presidential election, or "right around that time."
His administration has pre-ordered hundreds of millions of doses from companies developing vaccines.
But Dr Anthony Fauci, America's top virus expert and member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, has cautioned against rushing the process after Russian claims they have already produced a safe vaccine.
A safe vaccine is expected to be ready at the end of 2020 or the beginning of 2021 at the earliest.
Dr Fauci said: "We have to be careful when you hear from Russia or China or anyplace else that they have a vaccine that they know works.
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"They may have a product that they’re willing to take the risk to give it to people without necessarily showing yet that it’s effective or that it’s safe."
The death toll from the coronavirus in the US passed 173,000 this week, while total cases passed 5.5million.
Most of the current deaths are being recorded in Arizona, Florida, California and Texas.