Did J&J CEO Alex Gorsky’s Ties to White House Influence COVID-19 Vaccine Funding?
- Whistleblower warns of Trump’s meddling in U.S. coronavirus drug decisions
- Johnson & Johnson gets vaccine windfall despite red flags around another Trump-favored drug
- Can the public trust Trump’s hunches, Mar-a-Lago meetings, and millions for his friends?
Dr. Rick Bright, the former head of the U.S. agency in charge of production and purchase of vaccines, is blowing the whistle on Trump Administration’s meddling in decisions about which drug and vaccine investigations to fund.
In a public statement, Bright claims “this Administration has politicized the work of BARDA and has pressured me and other conscientious scientists to fund companies with political connections as well as efforts that lack scientific merit.”
Read Dr. Bright's full statement on CNN.com: Statement from leader of federal vaccine agency about his reassignment
BARDA is the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
The largest known BARDA contract to date has gone to pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, headed by Trump chum Alex Gorsky. J&J received $456 million on March 27 to pursue its idea for a Corvid 19 vaccine.
Bright made no specific assertion that Trump was involved in the decision to fund J&J, however, it’s worth taking a close look at Trump’s relationship with Johnson & Johnson and CEO Alex Gorsky.
Trump and Gorsky
Gorsky has been a recurring guest at the White House since Trump’s first week in office when he was seated at the president’s elbow at a business round-table/photo opp session.
Gorsky served on Trump’s business and manufacturing advisory panel for the first half of 2017 until he and other executives resigned over Trump’s racially tinged response to violence in Charlottesville, Va. A year later, Gorsky dined with Trump at one of the president’s resorts and found himself on Theresa May’s guest list for a dinner at Blenheim Palace welcoming Trump to London.
Read on CNBC: CEOs who quit Trump advisory boards after Charlottesville now among his dinner guests
West Point Connection
Gorsky is a 1982 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The Trump Administration is home to enough West Pointers, particularly from the class of 1986, that they are jokingly referred to as the White House “West Point mafia.” Appointees include Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper.
Trump is well known for surrounding himself with military men.
J&J drug, Trump and the Veterans Administration
In 2019, Johnson & Johnson came out with a new anti-depressant called Spravato.
A spokesperson for the company has said that neither Gorsky nor anyone else with the company ever spoke to Trump about the drug, but three things happened on March 5, 2019:
- Spravato was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
- Trump signed what Vanity Fair called “a little-noticed order to create ‘a national roadmap to empower veterans and end suicide.’”
- And, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb unexpectedly resigned for what he called personal reasons. Insiders believe Gottlieb quit because of the way Spravato was fast-tracked.
“When this drug showed itself to be no better than placebo in two of three short-term trials, the FDA accepted the one successful trial, adding on another and different type of trial that some say was deeply flawed,” according to Public Integrity. The FDA said it was difficult to determine whether six deaths during the trial, including three by suicide, could be attributed to the drug.
Read on PublicIntegrity.org: TRUMP’S PRAISE PUT DRUG FOR VETS ON FAST TRACK, BUT EXPERTS AREN’T SURE IT WORKS
Read on Propublica.org: Trump Endorsed a Risky Antidepressant for Veterans. Lawmakers Want to Know if His Mar-a-Lago Pals Had a Stake in the Drugmaker.
Red flags around Spravato and Trump's promotion of the drug
Pressure and coordination by Trump led the VA to purchase Spravato for treatment of an epidemic of suicidal veterans. Trump pressured the VA multiple times publicly to stock up on Spravato. Trump said he told VA Secretary Robert Wilkie to “corner the market on it and give it to anybody that has the problem.”
Two days after Spravato was approved the FDA, and at Trump’s urging, Wilkie and Gorsky spoke on the phone about Spravato. The VA’s top health official worked on getting the drug into the VA system. Wilkie pledged to get Spravato in all VA hospitals by the end of the year.
Despite Trump greasing Spravato’s way, the VA’s clinicians in June 2019 voted against putting Spravato in the agency’s formulary, meaning it won’t be a drug of first choice for VA patients. The clinicians ordered that use of Spravato be pre-approved on a case-by-case basis and only after at least two other drugs have failed to help the veteran.
Despite the clinicians’ decision on Spravato, Trump at an AMVETS national convention in August 2019 told reporters he had ordered the VA to purchase massive quantities of the drug.
Two Congressional committees are investigating why Trump told the Veterans Administration to “corner the market” in Spravato and whether Trump’s Mar-a-Lago buddies, who he has turned into unofficial advisers on veterans affairs, had a financial stake in the drug.
Spravato is at least the second time Trump has used veterans to benefit drug companies.
While he heavily promoted hydroxycholorine for treatment of Covid 19, 368 VA patients were administered Trump’s favored treatment. A retrospective study found that veterans who had been given only hydroxychloroquine were more likely to die than those who also got a different drug.
Read on U.S. Medicine: Political Issues Related to VA’s Limited Approval of Esketamine for Depression
Read on The Atlantic: Trump Orders ‘a Lot’ of Ketamine for Depressed Veterans
Read on Military Times: Trump orders VA to buy controversial antidepressant in an effort to stem veterans suicide
Read on FiercePharma: J&J depression drug Spravato gets half-hearted backing from VA doctors despite Trump's zeal
Trump, J&J, and a future COVID-19 vaccine
Now J&J, with the Trump Administration’s blessing and lots of taxpayer money, is planning to turn out a billion doses of a Covid-19 vaccine starting in early 2021. All while Bright, the federal government’s vaccine specialist, has been sidelined for standing up for science-backed decisions.
