By Hal Brown
This post was prompted by this story:
“Fights over vaccine standards have created an unbridgeable divide within HHS, officials said, but White House is unlikely to approve any changes until after the election.”
We all have seen the stories about Trump wanting to exact revenge on FBI Director Wray, and even against William Barr (Wash. Post).
President Trump and his advisers have repeatedly discussed whether to fire FBI Director Christopher A. Wray after Election Day — a scenario that also could imperil the tenure of Attorney General William P. Barr as the president grows increasingly frustrated that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the kind of last-minute boost that the FBI provided in 2016, according to people familiar with the matter.
The conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that Wray in particular but Barr as well have not done what Trump had hoped — indicate that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden or other Biden associates are under investigation, these people say. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions.
In the campaign’s closing weeks, the president has intensified public calls for jailing his challenger, much as he did for Hillary Clinton, his opponent in 2016. Trump has called Biden a “criminal” without articulating what laws he believes the former vice president has broken.
People familiar with the discussions say Trump wants official action similar to the announcement made 11 days before the last presidential election by then-FBI Director James B. Comey, who informed Congress he had reopened an investigation into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state after potential new evidence had been discovered.
Now there’s news that one of his minions wants to get even with FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn.
Let’s look at the players in this:
Stephen Michael Hahn is a physician who has served as the Commissioner of Food and Drugs since December 2019. Before becoming Commissioner, he was a radiation oncologist serving as Chief Medical Executive of the MD Anderson Cancer Center. After graduating from medical school, Hahn completed an internal medicine residency at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine where he eventually served as chief resident before embarking on a fellowship in medical oncology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Wikipedia.
Alex Michael Azar Jr. is an American politician, attorney, former pharmaceutical lobbyist, pharmaceutical executive, and current Presidential cabinet member who serves as the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. Azar was nominated to his post by President Trump. He was also Chairman of the White House Coronavirus Task Force from its inception in January 2020 to February 2020, when he was replaced by Vice President Pence. Wikipedia
I want to get this right. Azar, a Trump sycophant who isn’t even a physician and who used to be pharmaceutical lobbyist gets to fire a physician who was Chief Medical Executive of the esteemed MD Anderson Cancer Center.
From Politico:
Infuriated by the FDA’s defiance in a showdown over the Trump administration’s standards for authorizing a coronavirus vaccine, health secretary Alex Azar has spent recent weeks openly plotting the ouster of FDA chief Stephen Hahn.
Azar has vented to allies within the Health and Human Services Department about his unhappiness with the top official in charge of the vaccine process, and discussed the prospect of seeking White House permission to remove him, a half-dozen current and former administration officials said.
Here are the possible replacements:
During some of those conversations, he’s gone as far as to float potential replacements for Hahn, said one current and two former administration officials familiar with the talks, identifying HHS testing czar Brett Giroir and a pair of career civil servants – FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy and longtime regulator Janet Woodcock – as prime candidates to step in as acting commissioner should Hahn be removed.
About the replacement possibilities:
Brett P. Giroir is an American pediatrician and a four star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Wikipedia
Amy Abernethy is an M.D. and a Ph. D. She is a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician, is an internationally recognized clinical data expert and clinical researcher. Her areas of expertise include cancer data, real world evidence, clinical trials, health services research, patient reported outcomes (PROs), clinical informatics, and patient-centered care. Reference.
Janet Woodcock is an MD and the current director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER), a department of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). She joined the FDA in 1986, and has held a number of senior leadership positions there including terms as the Director of CDER from 1994-2004 and 2007–present. She has been described by the National Consumers League as "a passionate advocate for American patients and consumers, an ally to patient advocacy groups, and a fearless leader at the FDA. Wikipedia
Here’s the modern version of the Hippocratic oath:
- I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
- I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
- I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
- I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.
- I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.
- I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
- I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
- I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
- I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
- If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
Well, at least Giroir, Abernathy, and Woodcock are physicians. However, so is Scott Atlas. Are any of them willing to trash the Hippocratic Oath the way Atlas has and bend to the will of the president?
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