There is a new Task Force in town! The National Influenza Vaccine Task Force!
On September 20, 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order to establish an interagency task force to improve flu vaccines. This new Force is tasked with finding new and faster ways to deploy the influenza vaccine, specifically, to “increase influenza vaccine use through enhanced communication and by removing barriers to vaccination.”
The Task Force is staffed by senior officials from the non-elected federal alphabet soup agencies: DOD, DOJ, DOA, VA, USDA, CDC, FEMA, NIH, CMS, and BARDA. Read the entire Executive Order here. These officials must, among other things, submit a plan to the President with a 5-year national plan to promote the use of “more agile and scalable” vaccine manufacturing technologies, and to accelerate development of vaccines that protect against many or all influenza viruses.