FDA's top spokesperson is fired after just 11 days on the job in wake of agency chief's discredited claims it would cut COVID mortality by 35 per cent
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn has fired the agency spokesman just days after Hahn made an embarrassing mistake about the efficacy of convalescent plasma for treating COVID-19.
Miller, an former spokeswoman and former State Department official as well as TV reporter for conservative outlets, had been on the job for just 11 days.
The agency gave no reason for the sudden firing, but it came after she helped prepare Dr. Stephen Hahn for interviews, including one in which he completely mis-stated the results of a study on plasma – a treatment President Trump has touted for COVID-19.
FDA spokeswoman Emily Miller was fired from her post after just 11 days on the job
She posted on Facebook that would 'work nonstop to get information on COVID-19 tests, treatments and the vaccine process communicated to people as accurately and quickly as possible.'
On Thursday she tweeted quoting President Trump, writing that “Convalescent plasma will save thousands and thousands of lives.” The government official included hashtags for #COVIDー19 and the '#RNC2020Convention.'
The New York Times reported that another senior agency flack, Wayne Pines of the Health and Human Services Agency, had his contract terminated a day earlier.
He had advised Hahn to apologize after his on-air mistake about plasma.
Commissioner of U.S. Food and Drug Administration Dr. Stephen M. Hahn apologized after he made a wildly inaccurate statement about the use of convalescent blood plasma
President Donald Trump listens as Dr. Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, speaks during a media briefing in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. The credibility of two top public health agencies is on the line after controversial decisions that outside experts say suggest political pressure from the Trump administration. Hahn was forced to apologize for using an erroneous, misleading statistic describing the effectiveness of a blood plasma therapy granted emergency use for COVID-19, as Trump twisted the facts and inflated the significance of the move
Miller has reported for the conservative One America News Network and other outlets
The administration has touted the potential of treating COVID-19 patients with blood plasma. Melissa Cruz, donates COVID-19 convalescent plasma at Bloodworks Northwest on April 17, 2020 in Seattle, Washington
“I did recommend that he correct the record,” he told the paper, saying he didn't know why his contract was ended. “If a federal official doesn’t say something right, and chooses to clarify and say that the criticism is justified, that’s refreshing,” Mr. Pines said. HHS called the two actions a coincidence.
Hahn had said the treatment would save 35 out of 100 people – which would be an astonishing breakthrough if true.
"I can't remember a mistake by FDA or the commissioner as serious as this one," Dr. Eric Topol of the Scripps Translational Research Institute told NPR.
Hahn owned up to the error, saying criticism was 'entirely justified.'
'What I should have said better is that the data show a relative risk reduction not an absolute risk reduction."
In fact, the unpublished study he was referring to, which didn't have a control group, compared people treated with convalescent plasma in the first three days to those who got it later. After a week, there was a 9 percent mortality rate for those treated early compared to a 12 per cent mortality rate for those who got it later. After about a month, those who got it earlier had a mortality rate of 22 percent, compared to 27 per cent for the group who got it later – a maximum difference of about 5 percentage points.
The study did not say it would save 35 out of every 100 people who got treated.
An FDA release Sunday carried a headline that strayed beyond typical scientific restraint. 'Another Achievement in Administration's Fight Against Pandemic,' it blared on the eve of the GOP convention.
Miller previously worked as a journalist, including at a local Fox affiliate where gun control advocates demanded her firing after Washington reported she told a gun rights rally Virginia that 'D.C. is not part of America.
President Trump mentioned plasma at his White House convention speech Thursday. 'We developed a wide array of effective treatments, including a powerful anti-body treatment known as Convalescent Plasma that will save thousands of lives,' he said.