Federal health officials on Wednesday defended their response to the monkeypox outbreak as they faced tough questioning from lawmakers at the Capitol.

Members of the Senate Health, Education, Work and Pensions Committee complained about the Biden administration’s handling of the epidemic during a hearing that questioned Dr. Rochelle Wallensky, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. expressed. Dr. Anthony Fauci, Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Robert Calif, Undersecretary of Health and Human Services Dawn O’Connell.

According to CDC data, more than 22,000 monkeypox cases occurred in the United States, with one death during the outbreak. However, the number of cases has declined in recent weeks.

Over 59,000 infections have been reported worldwide.

Senator Patti Murray, D-Wash, chairman of the committee, said:

Murray said voters who reported difficulty getting tested, health care providers who had to make great efforts to obtain treatment, and communication from the federal government that was too slow and vague. She also criticized the Biden administration for limiting access to vaccines.

“We have to do better not just with COVID, not just with monkeypox, but with public health threats,” she said.

“On every count, the Biden administration’s response to the monkeypox crisis was a catastrophic failure,” said Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, the panel’s Republican leader.

“You repeat the mistakes of the early days of the COVID response, and the cultural arrogance of public health officials who are supposed to be at the forefront of our response has let this country down once again.”

He accused the administration of testing and vaccines and criticized federal regulators for making decisions “seemingly on the fly”. I pointed out that This allows the Jynneos vaccine to be administered subcutaneously to the top layer of the skin instead of subcutaneously, allowing it to be administered to the adipose tissue underneath. The strategy would reduce the amount of vaccine used per dose by a factor of five while providing the same immune response, health officials say.

“There was no public meeting of experts outside the FDA, CDC to discuss questions relevant to the minds of affected Americans to inform these decisions,” Barr said. “Medical professionals were confused by the initial decision and patients feared they were being experimented on.”

But federal officials insisted they’ve always worked hard to stay ahead of the virus.

Wallenski said the CDC has been studying monkeypox for decades, resulting in the development of the experimental treatments and vaccines in use today. The agency has made outreach calls to tens of thousands of clinicians to educate them about rare diseases most providers have never experienced, she said. The CDC has also launched a public relations campaign aimed at mitigating transmission, significantly increased testing capacity, and launched vaccination campaigns at large LGBTQ events, Wallenski said. It is transmitted by close or close contact and spreads mainly among gay and bisexual men.

The FDA moved quickly to accelerate vaccine production, approved a new method of administering injections to expand supplies, and approved the smallpox treatment TPOXX for monkeypox patients, Calif said.

And O’Connell said the HHS Office of Strategic Preparedness and Response began deploying vaccine doses from the national stockpile and more shots at a time when there were only a handful of cases in the United States. said to have ordered

But officials also admit that there have been some problems. Wallenski and Caliph said there would never be a shortage of tests, but Caliph said access to testing was limited “due to systemic inefficiencies.” He said part of his frustration with testing was the result of asymptomatic people requesting testing that required swabbing the rash.

O’Connell said in June that the government was supplying the vaccine needed to control the outbreak, but it emerged that “anonymized partners” were making contact tracing difficult. At that time, a change in vaccination strategy was necessary. Expanded recommendations.

Lawmakers also put pressure on the Caliph over delays in vaccine shipments from Denmark because the FDA had to inspect the factory. He explained that it was a new factory that had never been inspected before by U.S. authorities, and pointed to problems with U.S. factories producing COVID-19 vaccines as evidence of why officials’ diligence was necessary. did.

“I really felt like I needed to do this right, even if it took me a little longer,” he said.

Wednesday’s hearings came as the Biden administration is asking Congress for $4.5 billion in emergency funding to tackle the monkeypox outbreak and an additional $22.4 billion for the COVID-19 response.

Monkeypox funding is needed “to support testing and laboratory capacity expansion, vaccination efforts, surveillance, epidemiological research, outreach, education and global efforts,” Wallenski said. said.