An angry Azar floats plans to oust FDA’s Hahn

Source: Politico | October 22, 2020 | Adam Cancryn and Dan Diamond

Fights over vaccine standards have created an unbridgeable divide within HHS, officials said, but White House is unlikely to approve any changes until after the election.

Infuriated by the FDA’s defiance in a showdown over the Trump administration’s standards for authorizing a coronavirus vaccine, health secretary Alex Azar has spent recent weeks openly plotting the ouster of FDA chief Stephen Hahn.

Azar has vented to allies within the Health and Human Services Department about his unhappiness with the top official in charge of the vaccine process, and discussed the prospect of seeking White House permission to remove him, a half-dozen current and former administration officials said.

During some of those conversations, he’s gone as far as to float potential replacements for Hahn, said one current and two former administration officials familiar with the talks, identifying HHS testing czar Brett Giroir and a pair of career civil servants – FDA Principal Deputy Commissioner Amy Abernethy and longtime regulator Janet Woodcock — as prime candidates to step in as acting commissioner should Hahn be removed.

The discussions come amid deep frustration with Hahn over his insistence that a Covid-19 vaccine meet strict safety standards — a contentious decision that rendered it impossible for President Donald Trump to fulfill his oft-expressed desire for a vaccine just before Election Day.

Earlier this month, Hahn ended a lengthy standoff over the rules under which the FDA would grant emergency authorization for a vaccine by flouting the White House and ordering their publication. The move won widespread praise from the nation’s public health community.

But it angered Azar and others who viewed it as the latest in a recent pattern of Hahn breaking with the broader administration in an effort to bolster his own reputation, current and former officials said.

White House officials are unlikely to green-light Hahn’s firing in the next two weeks despite their own reservations about him, five current and former administration officials said, over concerns about the optics of removing an FDA commissioner soon after his agency ruled out a pre-election vaccine.

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