A former Baltimore health official has sparked backlash after asking Joe Biden to authorize bird flu vaccines before leaving office.
Dr. Leana Wen, the former commissioner of the Baltimore Health Department, said on Face The Nation on Sunday that Biden should do as much as possible to combat the bird flu outbreak in his final days as president.
“There are two important things they should do in the days they have left,” said the public health professor at George Washington University. ‘The first is to start testing… we should have learned the lesson from Covid that just because we don’t test doesn’t mean the virus isn’t there.’
Wen added that the “second very important thing” is that the Biden administration is working to obtain FDA approval for the already developed bird flu vaccine.
Wen said Biden should take this step “because we don’t know what the Trump administration is going to do about bird flu.”
She added that Trump “has people who have anti-vaccine views” and so it is possible that his White House could “hold up” vaccine authorization or “withhold testing.”
The H5N1 vaccine has already been developed and contracts with manufacturers to make nearly 5 million doses, but is awaiting FDA approval.
‘Research is being done. They could get this approved now, and also distribute the vaccine to the farm workers and vulnerable people,” Wen added.
Former Baltimore Health Commissioner Leana Wen has urged the Biden administration to approve the bird flu vaccine, which has already been developed
Wen’s comments touched nerves with many
The health policy expert controversially stated that unvaccinated people should not appear in public.
One X user said: ‘Dr. Leana Wen insisted on taking away basic human rights… why would anyone listen to her anymore? This should be completely disqualifying.”
Another said: “Leana Wen is a politician, not a doctor. Her health advice should be completely ignored.”
However, many have also taken to social media to support Wen, with one user writing: ‘Disappointed to see Dr. Leana Wen is once again viciously attacked for reasonable comments about bird flu.’
Another Since we now have RFK on site, you can find me gathering my quarantine supplies. Again.’
The bird flu virus causes sporadic, usually mild illness in people in the U.S., and almost all of those infected worked on dairy or poultry farms.
A worker in a hazmat suit is pictured spraying a truck in a quarantine area following an outbreak of bird flu (stock image)
The above map shows the number of people infected with bird flu by state in the US this year. California and Washington state have recorded the most cases. Louisiana was added today (not colored on the map), after recording the first case
A Louisiana resident was hospitalized for the first time with a serious case earlier this month. The H5N1 patient is in Louisiana, and researchers said they likely contracted the disease after handling sick and dead birds in a backyard poultry flock.
In California, officials declared a state of emergency due to the spread of bird flu, which is ravaging dairy cows in that state.
The virus, also known as Type A H5N1, was first found in American dairy cattle in March. Since then, bird flu has been confirmed in at least 866 flocks in 16 states.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than sixty people in eight states have been infected, with mostly mild illnesses.
One person in Louisiana has been hospitalized with the nation’s first known serious illness caused by the virus, health officials said this week.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasized again this week that the virus poses a low risk to the general public.
Importantly, there have been no reports of person-to-person transmission and no signs that the virus has changed in a way that makes it easier to spread between people.