'What Exactly Are You Doing?': Gary Peters Presses FDA Commissioner On Spread Of Bird Flu

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During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday, Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) spoke about the spread of bird flu.

Transcript

00:00Senator Peters. Thank you, Chairman Hovind, and thank you for talking about Infant Formula

00:05and talking about our bill specifically, and thank you for eliciting a response from our

00:10witness that we both really appreciate. So thank you for doing that. Dr. McCary,

00:18when I was chair of Homeland Security and Government Affairs, we did a study looking at

00:22persistent drug shortages throughout the country and found that a lot of us,

00:28because we're over-reliant on foreign sources for those supplies, and many of the precursors,

00:33as you know, are all overseas. And in fact, in that study, when I put it out, I said it's pretty clear,

00:39based on these challenges with the supply chain, that when there is a pandemic, we're going to find

00:44ourselves in a very difficult position. Six months later, that academic study became reality as we

00:50dealt with the pandemic and certainly saw that we had highly efficient supply chains, but they were not

00:55resilient. And I remain concerned that the FDA does not have the visibility it needs into essential

01:04medicine supply chains, from the key ingredients needed for manufacturing our drug products, to the

01:09distribution, to the patients in hospitals and pharmacies. And these blind spots clearly limit our

01:16ability to accurately assess national security risk, including our over-dependence on China, in particular,

01:25for many critical inputs. So last week, I reintroduced the MAPS Act with several of my bipartisan

01:32colleagues, which would address this critical gap by requiring HHS, through public-private partnerships,

01:38to essentially map out the medical supply chains using data analysis and to assess all the threats

01:46and vulnerabilities. So my question for you is, do you agree that this is a significant concern? And

01:52if so, will you commit to work when we pass this legislation to make this a reality?

01:56Senator Peters, I love this topic. It's so important. I'm glad you're raising it. I've written about it in a

02:05book in 2019. I've written about it in the Journal of the American Medical Association. I felt like no one has

02:11been paying attention. I warned about exactly what happened at the beginning of COVID, and it happened. So I

02:17am totally aligned with you that this is an important issue. I think there are root causes that we've not

02:23been talking about that we need to talk about. I mean, we can get out a ruler and map out, you know, the supply

02:29chains. And I'm not opposed to that exercise. But the underlying problem is that manufacturing has

02:36moved overseas. And it's not just one or two things. It is most of what we use in anesthesia to perform

02:42surgery. It is most antibiotics. It is most of these cutting edge therapies. It is the vast majority of

02:47generic drugs. And so I totally am in support of President Trump's agenda here to bring manufacturing back to

02:55the United States. And we've already had a tremendous amount of success. There are companies announcing

03:00moving manufacturing to the United States. We're creating incentives. We're removing regulation.

03:04And this is a national security issue. So I am 100 percent with you on this.

03:09Very good. In April, FDA reported suspending programs to improve testing for a potential bird flu virus

03:16contamination of milk, cheese, and pet food because of the mass layoffs that occurred. We know

03:24that the bird flu virus can kill pets who eat contaminated raw pet food. And it can pose a real

03:30danger to humans who also consume unpasteurized dairy products. As you know, the more people and animals

03:38who get infected with bird flu, the more opportunities there are for the virus to mutate. And I'm really

03:44worried that we only may be a couple and it's not just me. Others are worried that there may be a couple of

03:50mutations away from having another potentially pandemic. So my question for you, sir, is with

03:57the continued spread of bird flu in the country and the significant personnel disruptions at FDA food

04:04safety programs, could you tell me and the committee specifically what the FDA is currently doing to

04:09ensure our food is free from bird flu contamination? Well, first of all, that story was debunked by the

04:15Washington Post. It was the normal procurement pause to recalibrate the equipment. And so when

04:23that happened, people who were trying to make us look bad, sometimes internally, sometimes externally,

04:30said, aha, there were layoffs and there's a pause in some of the milk inspection and therefore the cuts

04:38may have been related to this or were related to this and that's going to affect food safety. No,

04:42it was a normally scheduled pause to recalibrate equipment. It went through its normal schedule

04:49and it is back up and running and it's normally done to recalibrate the equipment. The cuts were to

04:55380 communications people. What's the right number of communications people for the FDA?

05:01Not 380. 125 travel coordinators, 13 strategy offices, 2,600 HR people and budget and procurement

05:12people. So, I mean, are we not supposed to address some of this redundancy?

05:18Yeah, my question is what exactly are you doing to safeguard our food supply and to safeguard the

05:24people from bird flu? So, that was the question. I think you're prepared for a different question and

05:29you gave the answer to the different question, but the question is specifically what you're doing.

05:32You suggested the cuts increased our risk of bird flu and I firmly reject that. That's not true and

05:39the inspection trains are running on time. I think I said personnel disruptions.

05:44So, there's no personnel disruptions involved. There are no personnel calibration facility that

05:49was written about. There are no personnel disruptions related to your work on bird flu? Is that what you're

05:54telling this committee? What I'm what I'm saying is the story that you referenced was saying that our milk

06:01calibration facility paused. I don't remember. I don't think I cited a particular article. I don't

06:09know where. Obviously, you're prepared for a question that I didn't ask. You probably gave a good answer to

06:15a question that I didn't ask and so it shows you were prepped for it. I'm asking you what are you

06:20doing about bird flu? Just answer that please. Don't give me a run around about other stuff. We're doing a lot.

06:24Don't use your prepared talking points. Tell me what are you doing to help us and protect

06:30the American people from bird flu. Please tell me that. We're doing a lot on bird flu. Please tell me

06:34that. That's why we're here. So, look when there's an antigenic shift that represents a epidemic threat,

06:41when there is human to human transmission, that strain that is involved in that human to human

06:46transition is the strain that we should be using to base any potential future vaccines and in the interim,

06:54as I said in my opening comments, delivering on a universal flu shot is one of our top goals and

07:02there are two universal flu shots that are in development and we are not in a receive-only mode

07:08with those developers. We are actively trying to partner with those individuals because it may be

07:14that you could come in for a single influenza vaccine or a two-dose strategy or something like that

07:22and be immune for life against multiple different variants of influenza, including bird flu.

07:28And so early pre-clinical data in animal studies has shown some promise that a universal flu shot

07:34using a traditional vaccine platform can actually create antibodies to the current strain of bird flu.

07:41The question of course is, and I think this is really what you're getting at, is if we have a bird flu

07:46epidemic or even an outbreak in a human to human fashion, what strain is that going to be? Because

07:52one thing we know for sure is, it's not going to be the strain that's circulating right now in millions

07:56of birds. So it is a huge priority for us, Senator. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

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