Birx email says task force will review distribution of remdesivir

White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx in an internal email wrote that mistakes were made in allocating the drug remdesivir, touted as a potential treatment for coronavirus, and that the task force will review how the “misalignment” occurred.

Birx made the remarks in an email to other administration officials, including Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious diseases expert. The email was obtained by The Wall Street Journal.

“We can later review the decision-making process, the lack of engagement of Task Force, and the methodology and analysis used by the data and modeling group that resulted in the misalignment of the therapeutic and on-the-ground current need in the first shipment so we can be assured this doesn’t occur in the future,” Birx wrote.

Other officials on the email included Navy Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, who is overseeing the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s supply-chain task force; Robert Kadlec, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) assistant secretary for preparedness and response; HHS chief of staff Brian Harrison; and Treasury spokesman Devin O’Malley.

The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency-use authorization on May 1 for the drug. The following week, hospitals were notified that wholesaler AmerisourceBergen would notify them if they were chosen to receive the drug, but hospitals have said they were not given any information about the rationale for which hospitals were chosen.

Two days after Birx’s email went out, HHS altered its methodology for allocating the drug, saying it will ship the drug to states and leave need-based allocation to state officials.

Daniel Kaul, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan, said hospital officials at the university were asked Saturday to complete a survey from state health officials on how many patients they were currently treating and how many they believed could be treated with the drug.

Kaul told the Journal that after finishing the survey, the state sent enough remdesivir for about nine patients, and that HHS’s state-based system appeared to be working more smoothly.

“Last week, it felt very opaque; we had no idea who was making decisions at the federal level regarding allocation, and what were the criteria,” he told the newspaper. “In general, we feel better this week.”