Kessler Praises Marks on Covid Response Leadership
Former FDA commissioner David Kessler, who became chief science officer for the Biden administration’s Covid-19 response, had words of praise for CBER director Peter Marks and his role in the government’s activities. In a lengthy interview with Politico, his first since leaving government a few weeks ago, Kessler said he and Marks “would have very strong back and forth, we debated, but he was always looking around the corner. He knew what he needed to do not only today, but he knew what he needed to do down the road and was ready for the curveballs that would be thrown.”
Kessler’s comments were in response to a question about his evaluation of FDA and other agencies that have been criticized about messaging and changing direction on things like masks. He said that while the federal response wasn’t uniformly good, strong leaders such as Marks emerged. “There were some extraordinary examples that people should be proud of,” Kessler said. “I think there’s always areas where not having the data soon enough and not being set up to get that data soon enough also had real costs.”
Kessler said the Trump administration should get credit for its Operation Warp Speed program that got vaccines developed in record time. “I hope everyone can agree, both sides of the aisle, that it was a singular success, one of the singular successes of the pandemic. That we all can learn from it,” he said.
Asked if he was surprised how partisan things became around Covid and the vaccines, Kessler responded that the degree to which vaccines and masks became a partisan issue left him and many people scratching their heads, trying to understand why. “But in the context of everything being hyperpartisan,” he said, “maybe we shouldn’t have been so surprised.”
Kessler said it’s important to remember that 226 million people received their primary Covid vaccine and 94% of people over age 65 were vaccinated. “When’s the last time 226 million people agreed on anything, did anything?” he asked. “We have to be realistic on what people are going to do. There are a lot of things in public health we wish people would do that they don’t. Taken as a piece, we did pretty well, considering the extent of the upheaval caused by this pandemic.”
Kessler distinguished the questioning that is an inherent part of science and the undermining of basic facts to create doubt so that people decide they don’t need to do something to take care of themselves.
“I just think that one has to be careful when one injects doubt in people’s minds,” he said. “If you inject that doubt, it just makes the job that much harder to get people to do stuff when it’s already hard to get people to do things that are in their health interest…. No doubt we have to do a better job on disinformation because this virus is not done with us yet.”
Asked what remains to be done, as the country soon ends its public health emergency, Kessler cited the need for a next-generation vaccine and additional antivirals. “There’s always the possibility of resistance developing,” he said, “so we need improved vaccines and improved therapies.”