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Fact check: Did the Obama administration deplete the federal stockpile of N95 masks?
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Ubiquitous
Apr 7, 2020, 6:39:02 PM4/7/20
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The claim: The Obama administration used and did not replenish the
nation’s emergency stockpile of medical supplies, including N95 masks
As the novel coronavirus pandemic strains health care systems,
questions around the U.S. government's response have circulated in the
media and online.
On March 26, The Daily Wire published an article centering on the Obama
administration’s role in using and allegedly failing to replenish the
federal stockpile of N95 masks.
“The Obama administration significantly depleted the federal stockpile
of N95 respirator masks to deal with the H1N1 influenza outbreak in
2009 and never rebuilt the stockpile despite calls to do so,” the piece
begins.
The article draws from the reporting of outlets including Bloomberg
News and the Los Angeles Times. According to Bloomberg News, “after the
H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, which triggered a nationwide shortage
of masks and caused a 2- to 3-year backlog orders for the N95 variety,
the stockpile distributed about three-quarters of its inventory and
didn’t build back the supply.”
“After the swine flu epidemic in 2009, a safety-equipment industry
association and a federally sponsored task force both recommended that
depleted supplies of N95 respirator masks, which filter out airborne
particles, be replenished by the stockpile,” the Los Angeles Times
reported.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said during a press conference the
country’s stockpile of personal protective equipment, including medical
gear like N95 masks, is almost depleted.
A history of the national emergency stockpile
Established in 1999 to prepare the country for threats like pandemics,
natural disasters and acts of bioterrorism, the United States has used
and maintained its Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies
during times of acute crisis in the health care system.
The reserve was originally named the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile,
but was renamed during a 2003 restructuring when additional materials
were added to the supply. The stockpile is jointly managed by the
departments of Defense and Health and Human Services.
While officials rarely discuss specifics about the reserve, like the
exact locations and value of its contents, the fund's restocking
contracts are largely public, including a July 2019 deal for vaccines
valued at $1.5 billion.
Warnings about the United States' lack of preparedness for a serious
pandemic have come from both inside the federal government and
elsewhere since at least the early 2000s and as recently as last year.
“SARS has infected relatively few people nationwide, but it has raised
concerns about preparedness for large-scale infectious disease
outbreaks,” a 2003 analysis from the Government Accountability Office
reads.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in April 2019 the BioDefense Summit that a
pandemic was among his top concerns, CNN reported on Friday. "Of
course, the thing that people ask: 'What keeps you most up at night in
the biodefense world?' Pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in
this room probably shares that concern," Azar told the summit. (His
full remarks are available on the HHS website.)
The stockpile has been used at least 13 times since its creation,
including during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and 2001 anthrax
attacks. Also during the George W. Bush administration, the national
stockpile was deployed in response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in
2005 and then again for Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008, according to
the stockpile's history published by the HHS.
In 2005, the Bush administration published a report that urged
investment in local and national stockpiles, increasing domestic
production capacity and coordinating research efforts toward cures and
vaccines. In 2006, Congress approved expanding the stockpile to include
protective gear like N95 surgical masks.
During the presidency of Barack Obama, the national stockpile was
seriously taxed as the administration addressed multiple crises over
eight years. About "75 percent of N95 respirators and 25 percent of
face masks contained in the CDC's Strategic National Stockpile (~100
million products) were deployed for use in health care settings over
the course of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response," according to a 2017
study in the journal Health Security.
Again according to NIH, the stockpile's resources were also used during
hurricanes Alex, Irene, Isaac and Sandy. Flooding in 2010 in North
Dakota also called for stockpile funds to be deployed. The 2014
outbreaks of the ebola virus and botulism, as well as the 2016 outbreak
of the zika virus, continued to significantly tax the stockpile with no
serious effort from the Obama administration to replenish the fund.
ProPublica reported on April 3 that congressional budget battles in the
early years of the Obama administration contributed to stockpile
shortages. But the article notes available funds were used not to
replenish masks: "With limited resources, officials in charge of the
stockpile tend to focus on buying lifesaving drugs from small
biotechnology firms that would, in the absence of a government buyer,
have no other market for their products, experts said. Masks and other
protective equipment are in normal times widely available and thus may
not have been prioritized for purchase, they said."
During the presidency of Donald Trump, analysts have warned the United
States is not prepared for a serious pandemic.
“We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable
to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious
disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability,
severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and
increase calls on the United States for support,” the 2019 World Threat
Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
states.
The Trump administration has not taken significant steps to replenish
the masks in the Strategic National Stockpile.
Our rating: True
We rate this claim TRUE because it is supported by our research. There
is no indication that the Obama administration took significant steps
to replenish the supply of N95 masks in the Strategic National
Stockpile after it was depleted from repeated crises. Calls for action
came from experts at the time concerned for the country’s ability to
respond to future serious pandemics. Such recommendations were, for
whatever reason, not heeded.
Our fact-check sources:
• Department of Health and Human Services, Strategic National
Stockpile: History
• Government Accountability Office, 2003 Report on Public Health
Capacity
• Health Security, Personal Protective Equipment Supply Chain: Lessons
Learned from Recent Public Health Emergency Responses
• Homeland Security Council, 2005 National Strategy for Pandemic
Influenza
• National Institute of Health, The Strategic National Stockpile:
Origin, Policy Foundations, and Federal Context
• 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community
--
Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully. Those who
seem eager to see the president fail and to call every administration
misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the
demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.
nation’s emergency stockpile of medical supplies, including N95 masks
As the novel coronavirus pandemic strains health care systems,
questions around the U.S. government's response have circulated in the
media and online.
On March 26, The Daily Wire published an article centering on the Obama
administration’s role in using and allegedly failing to replenish the
federal stockpile of N95 masks.
“The Obama administration significantly depleted the federal stockpile
of N95 respirator masks to deal with the H1N1 influenza outbreak in
2009 and never rebuilt the stockpile despite calls to do so,” the piece
begins.
The article draws from the reporting of outlets including Bloomberg
News and the Los Angeles Times. According to Bloomberg News, “after the
H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, which triggered a nationwide shortage
of masks and caused a 2- to 3-year backlog orders for the N95 variety,
the stockpile distributed about three-quarters of its inventory and
didn’t build back the supply.”
“After the swine flu epidemic in 2009, a safety-equipment industry
association and a federally sponsored task force both recommended that
depleted supplies of N95 respirator masks, which filter out airborne
particles, be replenished by the stockpile,” the Los Angeles Times
reported.
On Wednesday, President Donald Trump said during a press conference the
country’s stockpile of personal protective equipment, including medical
gear like N95 masks, is almost depleted.
A history of the national emergency stockpile
Established in 1999 to prepare the country for threats like pandemics,
natural disasters and acts of bioterrorism, the United States has used
and maintained its Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies
during times of acute crisis in the health care system.
The reserve was originally named the National Pharmaceutical Stockpile,
but was renamed during a 2003 restructuring when additional materials
were added to the supply. The stockpile is jointly managed by the
departments of Defense and Health and Human Services.
While officials rarely discuss specifics about the reserve, like the
exact locations and value of its contents, the fund's restocking
contracts are largely public, including a July 2019 deal for vaccines
valued at $1.5 billion.
Warnings about the United States' lack of preparedness for a serious
pandemic have come from both inside the federal government and
elsewhere since at least the early 2000s and as recently as last year.
“SARS has infected relatively few people nationwide, but it has raised
concerns about preparedness for large-scale infectious disease
outbreaks,” a 2003 analysis from the Government Accountability Office
reads.
HHS Secretary Alex Azar said in April 2019 the BioDefense Summit that a
pandemic was among his top concerns, CNN reported on Friday. "Of
course, the thing that people ask: 'What keeps you most up at night in
the biodefense world?' Pandemic flu, of course. I think everyone in
this room probably shares that concern," Azar told the summit. (His
full remarks are available on the HHS website.)
The stockpile has been used at least 13 times since its creation,
including during the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and 2001 anthrax
attacks. Also during the George W. Bush administration, the national
stockpile was deployed in response to hurricanes Katrina and Rita in
2005 and then again for Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008, according to
the stockpile's history published by the HHS.
In 2005, the Bush administration published a report that urged
investment in local and national stockpiles, increasing domestic
production capacity and coordinating research efforts toward cures and
vaccines. In 2006, Congress approved expanding the stockpile to include
protective gear like N95 surgical masks.
During the presidency of Barack Obama, the national stockpile was
seriously taxed as the administration addressed multiple crises over
eight years. About "75 percent of N95 respirators and 25 percent of
face masks contained in the CDC's Strategic National Stockpile (~100
million products) were deployed for use in health care settings over
the course of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic response," according to a 2017
study in the journal Health Security.
Again according to NIH, the stockpile's resources were also used during
hurricanes Alex, Irene, Isaac and Sandy. Flooding in 2010 in North
Dakota also called for stockpile funds to be deployed. The 2014
outbreaks of the ebola virus and botulism, as well as the 2016 outbreak
of the zika virus, continued to significantly tax the stockpile with no
serious effort from the Obama administration to replenish the fund.
ProPublica reported on April 3 that congressional budget battles in the
early years of the Obama administration contributed to stockpile
shortages. But the article notes available funds were used not to
replenish masks: "With limited resources, officials in charge of the
stockpile tend to focus on buying lifesaving drugs from small
biotechnology firms that would, in the absence of a government buyer,
have no other market for their products, experts said. Masks and other
protective equipment are in normal times widely available and thus may
not have been prioritized for purchase, they said."
During the presidency of Donald Trump, analysts have warned the United
States is not prepared for a serious pandemic.
“We assess that the United States and the world will remain vulnerable
to the next flu pandemic or large scale outbreak of a contagious
disease that could lead to massive rates of death and disability,
severely affect the world economy, strain international resources, and
increase calls on the United States for support,” the 2019 World Threat
Assessment from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence
states.
The Trump administration has not taken significant steps to replenish
the masks in the Strategic National Stockpile.
Our rating: True
We rate this claim TRUE because it is supported by our research. There
is no indication that the Obama administration took significant steps
to replenish the supply of N95 masks in the Strategic National
Stockpile after it was depleted from repeated crises. Calls for action
came from experts at the time concerned for the country’s ability to
respond to future serious pandemics. Such recommendations were, for
whatever reason, not heeded.
Our fact-check sources:
• Department of Health and Human Services, Strategic National
Stockpile: History
• Government Accountability Office, 2003 Report on Public Health
Capacity
• Health Security, Personal Protective Equipment Supply Chain: Lessons
Learned from Recent Public Health Emergency Responses
• Homeland Security Council, 2005 National Strategy for Pandemic
Influenza
• National Institute of Health, The Strategic National Stockpile:
Origin, Policy Foundations, and Federal Context
• 2019 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community
--
Every American should want President Trump and his administration to
handle the coronavirus epidemic effectively and successfully. Those who
seem eager to see the president fail and to call every administration
misstep a fiasco risk letting their partisanship blind them to the
demands not only of civic responsibility but of basic decency.
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