As the dangers of a war approach in 1941, Harry Truman, then US Senator from Missouri, proposed creation of a committee to oversee the defense expenditures being made by the federal government. Although at first viewed skeptically by President Franklin Roosevelt, the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program was soon uncovering a variety of unsavory abuses: shoddy camp construction, bad planning and sloppy administration in allocation of vital raw materials, willful misconduct in production of ships and planes, and divided loyalties among dollar-a-year men put in charge of elements of the defense effort while keeping financial ties to their corporations.
Quickly labelled the “Truman Committee” it would continue to function throughout the war and save billions in defense spending. Truman remained chair until nominated as FDR’s running mate in 1944.
Based on recent news coming out of Washington concerning
the pharmaceutical industry’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, the country
would benefit from another Harry Truman. Maybe everybody is chomping at the bit
to know more about the FBI scheming to elect Hillary Clinton in 2016, but it
just might be that how the drug barons are taking advantage of the health
crisis and why our government has planned so poorly for a pandemic would be
more relevant to the nation’s future.
Let’s look at the planning issue first.
Given the persistent occurrence of major health threats
over the past fifty years---AID, HiNi flu, SARS, MERS, etc.---more attention to
being prepared for a major pandemic could have been expected. Instead, Congress
and administrations under both parties were asleep at the switch.
As early as 2009 the New York Times was reporting that outsourcing
of drugs was a cause for concern. Critical ingredients for most antibiotics
were being produced primarily in China and India as well as most generic drugs.
Applications related to generic drugs mentioned nearly 1200 pharmaceutical
plants, but only 13 percent were in the US. Forty-three percent were in China
and 39 percent were in India.
Despite the inadequacy of domestic supply, appropriate
additions to the Strategic National Stockpile were not made, nor did the
federal government insist that hospitals take steps to create a reasonable
reserve of PPE. Faced with using over and over the same N95 mask for multiple
shifts, a Charleston nurse declared, “Our lives are disposable.”
The Trump administration has attempted to prompt American
companies to bring production back to the US, but with little success.
America’s for-profit health care industry considers the bottom line above all
else.
In another planning miscue, apparently no one gave any
thought to how to deal with the economic fallout from a pandemic. The country’s
unemployment insurance system is premised on the idea that a quick infusion of
money into the pockets of consumers will remedy any economic downturn and
workers can expect to be back on the job in short order. But when a health
threat is responsible for the economic downturn, the situation is different.
Normal economic activity, either on the part of workers or consumers, is not
restored until the health threat is gone. With unemployed workers numbering
over 30 million, finding a well-paying full-time job to replace
unemployment benefits, much less to match earlier earnings, will be nigh
impossible
Dealing with the current pandemic is similar to preparing
for war. The difference is there is no one you can negotiate a truce or peace
treaty with. Only by finding a vaccine to wipe out the virus can the pandemic
be ended, but this effort has opened the door to abuse and even criminality
normally identified with war.
The Trump administration initiated Operation Warp Speed
(OWS) in April with $10 billion provided by Congress to accelerate the process
of producing an effective vaccine. At first they announced 14 companies would
participate in the program. Since then, the federal government has expanded its
funding activities to include several other biotech entities with associated
missions. Corporate management has not hesitated to take advantage of the
speculation surrounding the chosen companies.
For example, Vaxart, a San Francisco-based outfit with no
track record in vaccine development and only 15 employees, announced in late
June that its vaccine had been selected for preliminary funding by OWS and its
shares began to soar. By the time the New
York Times reported in late July that Vaxart had not been selected for
funding in the last round at OWS, the hedge fund that owns much of the company
had collected nearly $200 million in stock profits.
One of the core companies in OWS, Moderna, also has the
distinction of not having brought a vaccine to market. Apparently, it is making
some progress in its effort to produce an effective vaccine, but insiders at
Moderna have not waited to take their profits, cashing in nearly $250 million
since January.
In late July, the Wall Street Journal reported that
Kodak, not known as a drug company, had won a $765 million government loan
to assist in expediting domestic production of drugs to treat several medical
conditions and to reduce US reliance on foreign countries such as China and India.
The loan was to be the first of its kind provided under the Defense Production
Act, but two weeks later the loan was on hold. Bloomberg reported that
questions arose about purchases of additional shares by Kodak board members
shortly before the loan announcement.
The litany of abuses by greedy corporate managers and
their financial enablers goes on. Just as in wartime, during this pandemic we
need the vigilant attention of government officials committed to the public
interest ready to protect the public treasury.
Where is our Harry Truman?
