Post Story on Remdesivir Smells Fishy: Where’s the Beef?
The Washington Post continues to turn Trump administration alleged coronavirus abominations into front-page “hair on fire” stories which, upon inspection, turn out to be bald of facts and without a flicker of a flame.
That was the case with the May 29 story headlined: “Covid-19 drug sent to wrong hospitals.” Here four reporters produce a story that establishes its premise in the first paragraph saying the Trump administration “mishandled the initial distribution of the only approved coronavirus medication, delaying treatment to some critically ill patients with Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, according to nine current and former senior administration officials.” Those officials are not named or quoted directly anywhere in the story. See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/05/28/remdesivir-coronavirus-trump/
The story follows up that indictment in the second paragraph explaining the administration sent the Gilead Sciences drug remdesivir, which helps hospitalized Covid-19 patients recover more quickly, “in some cases to the wrong hospitals, to hospitals with no intensive care units and therefore no eligible patients, and to facilities without the needed refrigeration to store it, meaning some had to be returned to the government, said the officials familiar with the distribution effort.”
But the story has so many holes it could be used as a cheese grater. Only three hospitals are mentioned in the story with staffers at two of them quoted, neither of who said they did not get remdesivir — one said he didn’t get enough — and none confirmed the alleged problem with lack of refrigeration being available. As to the “wrong” hospitals receiving the drug, nary a clue as to whom they might be. None are mentioned.
The distribution chain of remdesivir from Gilead to hospitals is nowhere described. It is not clear what if anything the Trump administration had to do with determining which hospitals got the drug, and the readiness of those hospitals to receive the drug. One only has to go to the May 9, 2020 press release from the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) to find out it was not the Trump administration but the states who decided which hospitals would get the remdesivir. (https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/05/09/hhs-ships-first-doses-of-donated-remdesivir-for-hospitalized-patients-with-covid-19.html)
The release listed the initial 13 states who would get the drugs with New York, Illinois and New Jersey not surprisingly getting far more than any of the other initial states. It went on to say: “State health departments will distribute the doses to appropriate hospitals in their states because state and local health departments have the greatest insight into community-level needs in the COVID-19 response, including appropriate distribution of a treatment in limited supply. Healthcare providers interested in administering the donated experimental drug should contact their state health department.”
The reporters say they interviewed “nine current and former senior administration officials.” None are named in the story. In indicting the ASPR — and only thinly since no factual accusation is made — the reporters base their horror story on “the accounts shared by state and federal officials…” Again, none of them are identified. Deborah Birx, the administration’s coronavirus task force leader, apparently “shared fallout from state health and hospital officials with senior staffers on the task force…” Birx was not interviewed.
The story quotes two hospital spokesmen. One director of pharmacy at a New Jersey hospital who is directly quoted says some initial confusion has been dissipated as the state took over distribution. The second, a critical care physician at a Pittsburgh hospital, complains although he received the remdesivir he only had enough for 16 patients while there are more than five dozen Covid-19 patients who could use it. Does this necessarily surprise anyone given the number of needy and the incipient rollout of small quantities of a useful drug? Sure, every hospital would like to get 100 percent of what it needs. What a surprise!
Montefiore Medical Center in New York was the third hospital mentioned. It allegedly did not have the refrigeration space to store the drug “according to two senior administration officials and one New York health official.” Again none named.
With regard to the story’s claim that some hospitals without adequate refrigeration systems received the drug, a spokesman for AmerisourceBergen, which distributed the drug for Gilead, explains his company “contacted every facility, including both health systems and state health departments, designated by the government to receive remdesivir prior to shipping product to ensure they had cold chain capability and were prepared to receive the drug.” He added, “Upon completion of these shipments, AmerisourceBergen confirmed with each recipient that the quantity and temperature of the delivered medication was appropriate.”
There are no interviews with national or even state hospital or pharmacy associations such as the American Hospital Association or the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists who may have a national view of the distribution of remdesivir and might have been able to provide statistics or even anecdotal data, on the record, as to whether the “right” hospitals got the drug and whether they had the storage to receive it.
Instead, what we get are blanket statements like: “Many hospitals were not prepared to receive the medication, however, because they were not alerted ahead of time, said several senior administration officials and hospital and state officials.” No hospital official anywhere is quoted seconding that allegation.
The lack of facts in this story makes me believe it was the product of ax grinding by disenchanted Trump administration officials or state officials, only one of the latter being quoted fairly extensively, and, of course, anonymously. It also makes me think of, in this presidential campaign season, the famous cry of a candidate of yore: “Where’s the beef?”
