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Re: Let the truth be known
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Re: Let the truth be known
The Trump admin awarded a firm $1.3 billion to make Covid vaccine syringes. Where are the syringes?
Just another TRUMP FAILURE
Andrew W. Lehren and Laura Strickler
WASHINGTON — A year after a Connecticut company was awarded almost $1.3 billion in federal loans and contracts to supply an essential syringe for the Covid-19 vaccine rollout, no syringes have been made. The syringe hasn't received even the first of a series of approvals it needs from the federal government before it can be manufactured, and a factory promising 650 jobs remains unbuilt.
ApiJect Systems Corp. positioned itself as the company that would make the difference between a stumbling rollout and delivery of lifesaving vaccines. But as the U.S. vaccine rollout hits full stride, with about half of adults in the U.S. having already received at least one injection, the need for ApiJect's device has waned, leaving the contracts and loans in question.
The company said in a statement to NBC News that it "is working with several vaccine pharmaceutical companies to conduct the testing and regulatory reviews of Covid-19 vaccines in the ApiJect syringe."
Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak
However, a spokesperson for Pfizer, one of the vaccine makers, said that even if ApiJect's syringe got all the necessary approvals from the Food and Drug Administration, it would "not have any impact on our output or process." Moderna didn't respond to a request for comment, and Johnson & Johnson declined to comment.
According to ApiJect, it has “packaged … for testing purposes, two of the vaccines” so the vaccine companies can do the tests required before requesting FDA approval to use the syringe with their products. Neither federal regulators nor any of the vaccine makers would confirm any pending approval requests. ApiJect didn't provide the names.
ApiJect's plant is supposed to be built in an industrial park in North Carolina, but Morgan Weston, a spokesperson for the foundation that runs the park, said that the plant hasn't been built and that "they have not moved their operation in on any level." She referred all other questions to the company.
ApiJect spokesperson Steve Hofman said the land in North Carolina has been cleared and graded for construction. He wouldn't elaborate further about when construction would begin.
When President Donald Trump triggered the Defense Production Act to fight the pandemic in May, he established new authority to finance U.S. companies that wanted to make much-needed medical supplies — an effort that quickly stumbled. A $765 million loan to Eastman Kodak stalled in August after it was announced prematurely. An inspector general's report found no misconduct, but Congress continues to investigate the loan, according to a recent statement issued by the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis. The project was never restarted.
The Trump administration also approved a Defense Production Act loan for ApiJect of up to $590 million. In all, the administration awarded the company nearly $1.3 billion in loans and contracts last year. In addition to the Defense Production Act loan, there was a Department of Health and Human Services contract at the end of January worth up to $453 million, just as the pandemic was emerging, and then a Defense Department contract in May worth up to $251 million.
When the Pentagon announced the ApiJect contract, it said the contract would "enable the manufacture of more than 100 million prefilled syringes for distribution across the United States by year-end 2020."
Image: ApiJect syringe (NBC)
The Defense Department also touted its pandemic relief work with a timeline that gave the same time frame and volume for ApiJect's syringe production.
The company maintains that it was committed only to ramping up the capacity to make that many syringes, but in a news release in May, it said it would use the government money "to Supply 100 Million Prefilled Syringes for COVID-19 Response by Year-End 2020." The release also said it would "create a surge capacity to supply ... more than 500 million in 2021."
While ApiJect didn't deliver 100 million syringes by the end of the year, it has met its obligations under its federal contracts and loan commitments, in part by lining up a subcontractor that promises to be able to produce the syringes if they are approved by the FDA.
Both the Pentagon and HHS have said ApiJect is compliant with the terms of its contracts, and the agencies have set aside $147.6 million in federal funds, which could rise with FDA approval.
No syringe shortage
The loans and the contracts came about when alarms were being raised inside and outside the federal government about whether the U.S. would face a syringe shortage when vaccines became available. As NBC News has reported, HHS whistleblower Rick Bright warned colleagues in an email March 12, 2020, that "It could take two plus years to make enough [syringes] to satisfy the U.S. vaccine needs for a pandemic."
But the vaccine rollout wasn't stymied by a lack of syringes.
Meanwhile, the $1.3 billion in federal loans and contracts to ApiJect haven't led to any ApiJect syringes' entering the country's medical supply, because the company doesn't yet have any of the FDA approvals for its needles to work with coronavirus vaccines.Last edited by bsm2; 04-22-2021, 04:50 AM.Comment
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Re: Let the truth be known
"No working American should lose a single dollar from their paycheck because they chose to fulfill their patriotic duty of getting vaccinated," Biden said.
He said he is giving serious consideration to sending some of the doses to other countries, including Canada and Central America, once he is confident there is enough supply to meet demand from Americans. He said he spent a half hour talking to the Canadian prime minister Wednesday about sending additional doses there.
"It's in process, we don't have enough confidence to send abroad now, but I expect we're gonna be able to," Biden said.Comment
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Re: Let the truth be known
Well CA looks like you will be paying more tax dollars to fix an issue that has been developing for years! Another failure for NanNan!
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Re: Let the truth be known
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Re: Let the truth be known
Black Lives Matter Says Communities Are Being 'Terrorized' More Under Biden Than They Were Under Trump
Black Lives Matter
@Blklivesmatter
Apr 20, 2021#End1033, which transfers military equipment into the hands of police across the country-- including school & campus police. Another example? The military you see out on your streets ahead of the Chauvin verdict.
Black Lives Matter
@Blklivesmatter
Biden is currently sending more military equipment to our neighborhoods than Trump did. You read that right. Our communities are being terrorized at a greater rate than they had been under Trump.
On its website, Black Lives Matter explained that it wants an end to the policy of allowing police departmentsBlack Lives MatteranalyzedThe Washington PostBarack Obama sought to limit what police agencies could obtain through a 2015 executive order, according to CNNArt AcevedoComment
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Re: Let the truth be known
Students claim soap dispensers are proof of systemic racism.
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