House panel probes U.S. virus response.

WASHINGTON — The head of a House oversight panel on Monday renewed its investigation into political interference in the nation’s coronavirus response, releasing new allegations of meddling in scientists’ work.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., chairman of the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis, released emails from a Trump science adviser that he said showed how the administration worked to weaken guidance on who should be tested for coronavirus. Clyburn also cited evidence that Trump appointees sought to boost access to unproven treatments for coronavirus that were favored by the president.

The panel “is continuing these critical investigations … in order to understand what went wrong over the last year and determine what corrective steps are necessary to control the virus and save American lives,” Clyburn wrote to White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain and acting health and human services secretary Norris Cochran, in letters shared with the Washington Post.

Clyburn said the Trump administration had blocked the subcommittee’s inquiries, noting that HHS officials “failed to fully comply with two subpoenas and at least 20 document requests.”

Clyburn’s latest allegations focus on emails sent last year by then-scientific adviser Paul Alexander, a Trump appointee who repeatedly clashed with career scientists — and called for deliberately infecting younger Americans with the virus, arguing that it would speed so-called “herd immunity” — before being fired in September. Alexander did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

In one of the newly released emails, Alexander defended a controversial decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

to abruptly revise its guidance to reduce the number of people getting tested for coronavirus.

Under that revised guidance issued last August, CDC said that Americans who had been in close contact with infected people but did not have symptoms “do not necessarily need a test.” According to Alexander, the White House supported the decision because the prior strategy was posing a risk to efforts to reopen the economy — a major priority for President Donald Trump in the run-up to last year’s election.

The panel also released emails in which Alexander repeatedly appealed to health officials to increase access to hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug touted by Trump as a coronavirus treatment despite evidence it was ineffective. Amid White House pressure, the Food and Drug Administration authorized the drug in March 2020 to be used for patients hospitalized with coronavirus, before revoking the authorization in June and subsequently warning about the drug’s risks. Trump complained about the FDA’s reversal, and appointees like Alexander urged the agency to reconsider.

In one email sent July 19, 2020, to then-FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and then-FDA deputy commissioner Anand Shah, Alexander shared draft data from a “highly confidential” analysis scheduled to be published in the British Medical Journal. According to the draft data, which Alexander had obtained as a participating researcher, patients who received the malaria drug as part of their treatment regimen had “a shorter symptom duration than standard care.”

However, the final analysis published by the British Medical Journal on July 30, 2020, concluded that there was “no evidence” that the hydroxychloroquine treatment combination reduced patients’ symptoms compared to standard care.