WHITE HOUSE BLINDSIDED FDA ON DONATED RUSSIAN VENTILATORS

The White House did not alert the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when it accepted a shipment of ventilators from Russian President Vladimir Putin as the COVID-19 pandemic started killing Americans and after US President Donald Trump sent 18.7 metric tons of medical aid, including ventilators, to Russia.

In an exclusive story written for Reuters by Marisa Taylor on May 30, 2020, the Russian shipment headed to New York and New Jersey, states that were badly battered by the pandemic, and FDA only learned about the arrival of the unauthorized equipment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on March 31st, the day before the 45 Aventa-M ventilators were delivered, the health regulator told Reuters.

At the time, the states were girding for a crush of COVID-19 patients likely to need intensive care and thousands of ventilators to help them breathe. New Jersey and New York did not end up using the ventilators, which use a different voltage and could not be dispatched to US hospitals.

Earlier this month, Russia suspended use of some of the Aventa-M ventilators in its own hospitals after six people died in fires that reportedly involved the devices.

New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, who oversees the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said the Reuters report raises “serious concerns about whether President Trump and his aides at the White House may have kept FDA experts in the dark while they rushed to bring in these ventilators from Russia.” #COVID19