The Food and Drug Administration has just ousted its brand new top spokesperson, a former reporter for the far right wing One America News Network, who was installed by the White House, after just 11 days on the job. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn notified FDA senior leadership that Emily Miller, who had the title of Assistant Commissioner, would no longer be the agency’s chief spokesperson.
The move comes after “fumbled communications about a blood plasma treatment for Covid-19. President Trump and the head of the F.D.A. had erroneously boasted on the eve of the Republican National Convention that the treatment sharply lowered mortality from the disease,” The New York Times reports.
Politico reports that Miller’s removal follows “a tenure that was marked by infighting and a damaging controversy.”
“The FDA had also faced growing criticism over its hiring of Miller, a former reporter for far-right One America News who has no science or medical background, has worked in Republican politics and is known for her extensive writings on gun rights advocacy,” Politico adds. “The agency’s top communications role is traditionally filled by a career civil servant, and the job opening was initially listed as a role for career civil servants in April before being taken down.”
Miller is the author of “Emily Gets Her Gun: But Obama Wants to Take Yours.”
Miller herself made news after issuing a press release about the FDA’s highly-controversial decision to allow an emergency use authorization for convalescent plasma in treating coronavirus patients, despite studies showing weak results.
Dr. Steven Hahn, the FDA Commissioner, had echoed President Donald Trump’s lie that patients treated with the plasma had a 35 percent increased survival rate, which is false. Hahn later apologized.
Miller’s press release was astonishingly inappropriate for an agency whose credibility rests in being non-partisan.
Kaiser Health News Chief Washington Correspondent Julie Rovner, a veteran reporter who has covered health policy for decades, was among those who criticized the release which praised it as “another achievement” President Donald Trump’s “fight against the pandemic.”
Miller rudely responded to the criticism:
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