The following statement is attributable to:
Susan R. Bailey, M.D.
President, American Medical Association
“With COVID-19 continuing to spread rampantly throughout the U.S., we applaud the Biden administration for taking immediate action today to activate the Defense Production Act (DPA) to ramp up the production of personal protective equipment (PPE), as well as testing and vaccine supplies desperately needed to stem the spread of illness and deaths. We are hopeful that the steps taken today will quickly fix the supply chain issues that have plagued the U.S. for many months—providing health care professionals with the PPE they need to protect themselves, their patients, and families from illness, ramping up testing to identify COVID-19 illness more quickly, and getting the vaccines into more arms.
“Since March, the AMA has called on the federal government to implement a coordinated national strategy and pull every lever to ramp up PPE production for N95 masks, gowns, gloves, as well as testing supplies—and coordinate distribution. We commend the new administration for moving swiftly to implement a desperately needed national strategy to combat COVID-19, including a health equity task force to address the inequities that have been exacerbated during the pandemic.”
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About the American Medical Association
The American Medical Association is the physicians’ powerful ally in patient care. As the only medical association that convenes 190+ state and specialty medical societies and other critical stakeholders, the AMA represents physicians with a unified voice to all key players in health care. The AMA leverages its strength by removing the obstacles that interfere with patient care, leading the charge to prevent chronic disease and confront public health crises and, driving the future of medicine to tackle the biggest challenges in health care.
