Chairman Clyburn’s Opening Remarks at Azar Hearing
Washington, D.C. (October 2, 2020) — Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis Chairman James E. Clyburn delivered the following opening remarks at today's hybrid hearing with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar:
Transcript:
Good morning. The Committee will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess of the Committee at any time.
I now recognize myself for an opening statement.
Today, the Select Subcommittee welcomes Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, the Trump Administration's top health official.
Secretary Azar, this is the first time you have testified before Congress since February. In the seven months since your last appearance, more than 207,000 Americans have lost their lives to the coronavirus and over 7 million have been infected. And all of us woke up this morning to the news that the First Family and at least one of their close staff members have been diagnosed with COVID-19. We wish all of them a speedy and complete recovery.
As Americans, we pride ourselves on being the most scientifically advanced nation in the world, with the best doctors and public health experts. We have led the world in countless medical breakthroughs, from inventing the polio vaccine, to mapping the human genome, to battling AIDS and Ebola.
That is why it has been so heartbreaking to watch the Trump Administration squander this legacy by refusing to lead, ignoring our scientists, and putting politics over the health of the American people.
Let there be no doubt: the President's response to the coronavirus crisis has been a failure of historic proportions. COVID-19 has claimed more American lives than the battles of World War I, the Korean War, Vietnam War, Afghanistan War, and Iraq War combined.
While the President claims that he saved millions of lives, more people have died from the virus in the United States than in any other country on Earth. We have 4% of the world's population, but 20% of the world's coronavirus deaths. More than 140 other countries have all had fewer deaths per capita from the virus than we have had in the United States.
Behind me are images of a few of the Americans we have lost.
At my far right is Skylar Herbert, the daughter of two first responders in Michigan. Skylar was a healthy five-year-old who loved playing dress-up and dreamed of becoming a pediatric dentist when she grew up. She died from the coronavirus in April.
Next is Cheryl Fink Lolley. At 81 years old, Cheryl was sharp as a tack and loved visiting with family and friends. She died in April after contracting the coronavirus. Cheryl's daughter, Alison Lolley, told her mother's story to our Committee in June.
To my immediate left is Jason Hargrove. Jason was a 50-year-old bus driver in Detroit. He caught the coronavirus after being coughed on by a passenger and died in early April. Jason's best friend and colleague, Eric Colts, spoke to the Committee in May about Jason and the dangers faced by frontline workers around the country.
The final photo is Demi Bannister. Demi was a 28-year-old third grade teacher from my home state of South Carolina. She tested positive after returning to school for training in early September and died just three days later.
Last Sunday, Demi's mother, Shirley Bannister, also died from the coronavirus. Shirley tested positive for the coronavirus the day her daughter died. Shirley was 57 years old and served as the Chair of the Nursing Department at Midlands Technical College.
Tragically, it is not hard to see why Americans like Skylar, Cheryl, Jason, Demi, and Shirley were more likely to die than people in most other countries. Even though President Trump knew in early February that the coronavirus was, quoting his words, "deadly stuff," in March he said, and I'm quoting him again, "I wanted to always play it down."
Consistent with this desire, the Trump Administration has refused to step up and lead a national response to stop the spread of this deadly virus.
Rather than implement a national testing strategy, the White House deferred to the states, reportedly because they believed blaming Democratic governors for coronavirus deaths would be, in the words of a public health expert involved in the discussions, "an effective political strategy." The result was widespread testing shortages and delays that let the virus spread widely throughout the country.
The White House also refused to purchase and distribute masks and other protective equipment, with President Trump saying, quote, "We're not a shipping clerk." As a result, the national stockpile overseen by Secretary Azar quickly ran out. States were forced to compete for scarce supplies, while first responders and medical workers reused old masks and wore garbage bags to try to stay safe.
As HHS Secretary and the first Chairman of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Secretary Azar should have been at the helm of an ambitious national response. Instead, he and other political appointees acted more like Trump campaign operatives. Rather than follow the science, they tried to hide, alter, or ignore the science whenever it contradicted the President's wish to downplay the crisis for perceived political advantage.
This morning, my staff put out a report that identifies 47 separate times that political appointees, including Secretary Azar, interfered with career scientists who were trying to help Americans stay safe during the pandemic. 47 times.
When President Trump complained that CDC guidance on reopening schools was, quote, "very tough" and "expensive," – how expensive was Demetria Bannister's life when she went back into that classroom?
After President Trump complained that testing was revealing too many new coronavirus cases and said he wanted to, quote, "slow the testing down," HHS altered key testing guidance to claim that people without symptoms did not need a test, even if they were exposed to the virus. That decision was reversed only after this Select Subcommittee, and many others, objected.
And when President Trump complained that the, quote, "deep state" at the FDA was not moving fast enough to approve treatments before the November election, the FDA authorized plasma therapy over the objection of top scientists. Mr. Secretary, you stood with the President at a press conference and repeated false statistics about the therapy's effectiveness.
Now, the Administration appears intent on politicizing a vaccine, with President Trump putting pressure on the FDA to approve a vaccine before Election Day and casting doubt on the agency's efforts to ensure that a vaccine will only be approved based on science.
Now I know there are about four companies that have moved to a third phase of testing, but I would hope that whatever they come up with, I'm hopefully it will be a safe and effective vaccine. But even in a best-case scenario, as Dr. Fauci said last week, most Americans will not receive a vaccine until mid to late 2021. That means Americans could be waiting up to another year to get vaccinated.
I often share with the public that I was around during the polio vaccine and I remember political decisions that were made for that vaccine. I'm sure many remember the salk vaccine and the sabin vaccine. The salk vaccine required a shot in the arm, the sabin vaccine was a drop of syrup on a lump of sugar. Political decisions were made on who would get the shot and who would get the syrup and I think that all of us can imagine back in the 1940's and 1950's who got the shots and who got the syrup. I would hope that we would not have a repeat of this kind of political decisions being made by whatever vaccine is developed.
In the meantime, coronavirus infections are rising again in more than 25 states, and hundreds of Americans are still dying every day. Tens of thousands more will die unless this Administration provides a national plan for testing, tracing, mask-wearing, and other public health measures to contain the virus.
I urge the Administration to put partisan politics and ideology aside, embrace our nation's long history of science, and finally show the leadership we need to get this pandemic under control.
We can't bring back Skylar, Cheryl, Jason, Demi, or Shirley, but whether other Americans just like them live or die depends on whether the Trump Administration improves its response to this pandemic.
I now yield to the Ranking Member for his opening statement.
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