FDA Is Prepping for H5N1 Human Transmission

Commissioner Robert M. Califf testifies about countermeasures

I suppose it’s still too early to declare “Here we go again,” but the old saying does come to mind. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf just testified that the FDA is prepping countermeasures for the possibility that H5N1 avian influenza will mutate sufficiently to make the jump to humans.

I wonder if we are entering a new era of emerging infectious diseases in which mankind is afflicted with a pandemic every four years coinciding with U.S. presidential elections.

Clicking on Dr. Califf’s Twitter profile, I was sorry to see him praising former Principal Deputy Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock, who was just selected as a finalist for the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals.

Dr. Woodcock colluded with former BARDA head Rick Bright to make hydroxychloroquine unavailable to ambulatory patients, and is therefore almost certainly responsible for multiple needless hospitalizations and deaths.

If H5N1 does indeed mutate (naturally or through an accelerated process in a lab) it appears the pandemic response will be directed by the same clique of public health bureaucrats with zero accountability and whose failures alway propel them upward. Like the previous FDA Commissioners Stephen Hahn and Scott Gottlieb, Dr. Califf will doubtless have a remunerative position waiting for him at a major vaccine producer or venture capital firm investing in vaccines after he leaves the FDA.