Forward with a scaleddown Economic Relief bill that republicans introduced. National institutes of health orector and Surgeon General on capitol hill for a Senate Health hearing on Vaccine Research and development. They spoke about ongoing Clinical Trials for a Coronavirus Vaccine and the possibility of one being ready by the end of the year. Some of thescussed challenges of distributing a vaccine and the current drop in vaccination rates due to misinformation and public mistrust. Committee on health, education, labor and pensions will come to order. I would like to welcome everyone and go through some administrative matters that we do at the beginning after consulting with the attending physician, the sergeant at arms, cdc, health and Human Services, individuals are seated six feet apart. There is no room for the public to attend and the press is working as a pool bang and the hearing may be watched gaveltogavel online. Both of our witnesses, dr. Collins and sargent general adams are participating in person. Some are in person, some are participating by videoconference. The office of attending physician has advised that editors and witnesses may remove their masks to talk in the microphone since our chairs are six feet apart or more. That is why my mask is off and i am more than six feet apart and when i am in a hall or walking on the senate floor, i wear my mask. We are grateful to the committee, the sergeant at arms, the press gallery, the architect at the capital, all who have helped us maintain a safe environment for this hearing. Votesd like to say that began at 11 15 but we will continue the hearing so that all senators will have a chance to participate and if necessary i will ask someone else to reside during the time of voting and i will come back. Senator murray and i will each have an opening statement. We will then turn to our witnesses who we thank for being with us. We would like to ask the witnesses to summarize their remarks in five minutes to leave more time for questions. I will ask each senator the questions of up to five minutes. Reading, i was senator tims and maggie that i have been reading , thatgerms, and steel won a pulitzer prize. He wrote that there is nothing masks, debts and social upheaval. There is nothing new about epidemics. He says humans have acquired much of our Infectious Diseases from animals. There were basically three ways to deal with these epidemics. One was to isolate the infected. Two was that over thousands of years there have been genetic changes in human populations in response to Infectious Diseases that cause major outbreaks like smallpox. That did not help the native americans who had no resistance when european settlers arrived here wiping out 90 of a native tribe by handing them a blanket with small parts on it because the tribe had not previously been exposed to the virus. There is a third way that was most common throughout most of history and that was to let it rip. Let it run its course through the population until everyone had either been killed or recovered and developed some immunity. Diamond says the black death killed about one third of europes population between 1347 and 1351. What is new about epidemics is modern medicine. Including the ability to diagnose the disease and create treatment that make it easier to recover but the true miracle of modern medicine is vaccines which can prevent humans from acquiring the disease at all. States why today all 50 and in the district of columbia, schoolchildren are required to take vaccinations for diseases polio, andhtheria, chickenpox before entering school. The vaccination will protect the child from getting the disease which in turns prevents the child from effecting someone else, a pattern that causes these diseases to disappear. Americans of my generation remember how polio terrified our parents in the early 1940s and 50s. Many saw their children die or be left dependent on iron lung to breed for the rest of their lives and those who contracted senator mitchke mcconnell, the majority leader who is left only with a lamp. Ais terrified americans until doctor developed the polio vaccine in the 1950s. After it was developed, the United States undertook a largescale vaccination programs and polio was declared eradicated from the United States in 1999. The purpose of this hearing is to explore the remarkable progression that science is making toward a covid19 vaccine to get theirents childhood vaccines and to encourage as Many Americans as possible to get the flu vaccine this fall. First the progress for a Covid Vaccine. Dr. Collins, the director of the National Institutes of health is here to talk about that. Research and development, operation warp speed which is working to develop, manufacture and distribute a safe vaccine to hundreds of millions of americans. Some people believe that warp speed means cutting corners but it refers to the extraordinary investment and research, development and manufacturing a lot for the covid19 vaccine, perhaps most significantly, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority has taken of the unprecedented step to help speed up manufacturing for hundreds of millions of doses of the vaccine early in the process so they could be ready as soon as the new vaccines are approved by the food and Drug Administration. In other words, they are being manufactured before they are approved and if they are proved, they will be ready to distribute and if they are not, they will be thrown in the dumpster. Despite the speed with with scientists are developing a vaccine, dr. Han says the , or his agency says is quote, not skimping on efficacy. This is not going to be a political decision, he said. That means if it is determined that a vaccine is not safe or effective, the vaccine will not be distributed. The cdc is time, working on a plan to distribute the vaccine as soon as it is authorized, prioritizing vaccines for healthcare workers and vulnerable populations. The plan will be a system informed by nonpartisan experts from the National Academies of science, engineering and medicine and the Advisory Commission of immunization practice. As inevitably happened, some have suggested you are speeding up the vaccine because an election is coming and you have asked states to get ready to distribution it because an election is coming. I was thinking this morning, what if dr. Collins showed up and dr. Adams that it would be five years before we get a vaccine. I think we would throw them out of the room and ask the president to try to find some more effective people. What if we did not ask states to get ready to distribute a vaccine and showed that we have not learned our lesson from what happened with the h1n1 virus when the vaccine was ready, but the states were not ready to distribute it. We should move as rapidly as we can both to develop the vaccine and to be prepared to distributed. Distribute it. Why are some americans saying they are not persuaded to take the vaccine . Three reasons. One is are they safe. They are approved by the fda. They can either license a vaccine or authorize it for use doing a Public Health emergency and their stringent approval process is the worlds gold standard. Vaccines are routinely that are given to children are recommended by the Advisory Committee on immunization practices, an outside group of Health Experts that look that all available scientific information about each vaccine. And then medical associations by like the American Academy of pediatrics, the American Academy of physicians work with that agency to develop these recommendations. In a 2015 article in the , it isfic america written that by age two most children will receive almost 30 shots designed to boost a childs defenses against disease yet at the same time, parents who take their child for those recommended vaccinations might be inundated with website and celebrity rumors that can making false claims that shots are not necessary or cause autism. At bestnues, navigating this landscape can be confusing but when weighing the risks of encountering lifethreatening disease against the benefits of receiving a vaccine, there is no contest. The vast majority of children did not experience anything worse than shortlived redness or edging at the spot of the injection. And then, are the effective . There is an evidence of smallpox that was ravaging humans as early as the third sister he third century bce the disease killed 10 out of three out of 10 people. And then an english doctor saw gotten e who had cowpox were immune from smallpox. In 1801shed his results leading to the development of mankinds first ever vaccine and no one on earth has naturally acquired smallpox 1977. It has been officially eradicated. Polio was one of the most dreaded childhood diseases following introduction of vaccines specifically, the vaccine in 1950 five and another in 1963. The number of polio cases fell rapidly to less than 100 in the 1960s. Fewer than 10 in the 1970s according to the cdc thanks to a successful vaccination program. The United States has been poliofree since 1979. Diphtheria terrified patients in the 1920s. Today there are only a few cases per year according to aap which tributes the change to vaccinations. And then, is the Doctors Office safe . The pandemic has made some folks leery of the Doctors Office. Have the analysis of patient records according to the wall street journal chose that the immunization rate for recommended childhood vaccines has declined about 40 from late february to mid april. So for parents who are worried about taking their children to the doctor, the American Academy of pediatrics says pediatricians are working to make their. Ffices as safe as possible they say they are among the safest places you can be. Do not be afraid to take your child to see your doctor. I started my statement with comments from Jared Diamond and i will end with a warning he wrote recently. On june 23 this Committee Held a hearing on preparing for the next pandemic. One member asked, why would we worry about the next pandemic when we have not conquered this one yet. In the wall street journal on may 23, Jared Diamond provided an answer to that comment. He says that in this age of jet planes with millions of people carrying infections from one place to another overnight, the next pandemic could be next year and we would be wise to prepare for it. Congress tried to do that in response to the other new diseases that have emerged over the last 40 years, hivaids, sars, mers, ebola, but good intentions often evaporated as the epidemics ended. One example in 2012, congress created three manufacturing plants so that when the next epidemic arrived, we could introduce axioms rapidly. Ofvaccines rapidly. Two those plans are playing a role in manufacturing hundreds of millions of those is a fact for covid19. The senator and i took a tour of one of them not long ago. There is still a need to improve and sustain these types of facilities so they are able to pick it more quickly to the next threat when it emerges pivot. Stockpiles were created and then depleted. Former hhs secretary told his committee that Public Health programs had been underfunded for the last 30 to 40 years. The nation goes, he said, from panic to neglect to panic. Fortunately next to an unprecedented effort by the private sector in our government as well as scientists around the world, there is likely to be a covid19 vaccine ready for the most vulnerable citizens by the end of the year and hundreds of millions of doses available in 2021. Some of the challenges apart of filing finding a vaccine are how to distribute it, to whom should it go first, and how to persuade americans that it is safe to take it. But while we are in the midst of dealing with this pandemic, it would be wise to remember in any legislation that Congress Passes this year to make sure that onshore manufacturing place plants are functioning, stockpiles are full, Public Health is properly funded and states have the right tools and resources. The reason to do that now while our eyes on the ball is that the pandemic, as Jared Diamond road, could be next year. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. While you still have a few more hearings, i want to start off by saluting you for your many years. F service to the country i know my democratic colleagues and i will miss you next year. Hearing,pic of todays ourirman, are country country is in the middle of a painful crisis. The pandemic has crowded hospital intensive care units, it has emptied schools and shuttered businesses. Healthdeep into damaging disparities among black, latino and tribal communities, people with low incomes and people with disabilities. It has ravaged prisons and Nursing Homes and other congregant care facilities. It has strained our economy, our Mental Health and more. 100 90,000med around lives so far and more each day. Unfortunately, instead of leading in the war against this virus and fighting the pandemic, President Trump is fighting Public Health experts. Instead of supporting facts and science, he is supporting conspiracies. He has spread false theories about fda officials being deep state agents and cdc overstated the death toll. He has promoted unproven treatments. He has called for less testing which he blamed for the rising number of covid19 cases, wrongly claimed kids are not likely to transmit the virus, and has repeatedly insisted this would all go away. The list of inaccuracies and outright lies at a time when truth is a matter of life and death goes on and on. Unfortunately the president is not alone in his response. In july after months of delay in action, republicans put forward a proposal that did not come close to addressing the harsh realities of this pandemic. Now we are hearing their new plan is to force a vote on a proposal that does even less. I hope that republicans will sit down with democrats to work on a package that helps our economy and keeps our American Families safe. A package that will actually increase testing and access to healthcare, that actually supports our schools and addresses the childcare crisis and protects workers. And what is relevant to the parent today, helps make sure we safe, effective trusted vaccines that are widely distributed and administered. Vaccines have long been a critical Public Health tool and even before this crisis, it was important that we encourage vaccines easier to keep people safe, to make sure vaccines are available and administered to kids across the nation including through efforts like the vaccines for Children Program and build faxing confidence while combating this information Vaccine Confidence. This had has made the challenge more urgent than ever. I am glad we have Surgeon General adams and dr. Collins to share their expertise. I am also frustrated that despite my request to the chairman, the fda commissioner and cdc director dr. Redfield were not invited to testify today. Those agencies play a very Critical Role in developing and distributing vaccines and should be here today. Hearing from them is even more urgent in light of recent political interference. By waiting to bring them before the committee, we are losing valuable time to avoid costly mistakes. In the past few weeks, we have trumply watched president promote conspiracies about the fda and the cdc, we have seen hasse reports that he put political pressure on the fda to issue an emergency use authorization for convalescent cdc which on the changed testing guidelines to be more restrictive with no justification and running counter to the consensus of Public Health experts across the country. These are not the first reports of political interference. The Trump Administration had previously promoted unproven treatments like hydroxychloroquine and blocked cdc guidance for community reopenings. Recently the fda commissioner announced he was prepared to authorize a covid19 vaccine before phase three trials were complete but without providing any guidance about when that would be appropriate. When it comes to a covid19 vaccine, we cannot allow President Trump to repeat his lying pattern of putting politics ahead of science and Public Health. Efforts to ensure the safety and efficacy of vaccines must not be undermined by political meddling. Cdcs role in distributing a vaccine and prioritizing who receives the first doses must not be supplanted by politicians or Campaign Strategists or corporate lobbyists. If we are going to turn the page on this pandemic, people across the country must not have any doubt in this process or in the final product which is why we need to hear directly and immediately from our Public Health agencies about how they will prevent political interference and why we need to push for the transparency required to hold this administration accountable. We need the fda to be transparent by issuing an official guidance with standards for granting any vaccine in emergency use authorization including s