President Biden Cancels Baltimore Visit

BALTIMORE, MD — President Joe Biden, who had been slated to visit Baltimore Wednesday for a briefing on COVID-19 vaccine production, has reportedly changed his plans.

Biden will instead meet with pharmaceutical executives in the D.C. area, according to The New York Times, which said its investigation into Maryland company Emergent BioSolutions resulted in the shift.

The meeting in Baltimore was to take place at a facility run by Emergent BioSolutions, which is manufacturing the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.

Now the president plans to meet with leaders of pharmaceutical companies Johnson & Johnson and Merck at the White House, without anyone from Emergent BioSolutions there, according to the Times, which published an investigative report over the weekend showing the company's tactics to influence federal dollars resulted in shortages in the stockpile of equipment needed to combat COVID-19.

Emergent BioSolutions, a biopharmaceutical company based in Gaithersburg, has committed to produce 100 million doses of the J&J vaccine by June and 1 billion doses by the end of the year.

About 1,000 employees at Emergent BioSolutions' two Baltimore facilities are working on the vaccine's production, WBAL reported.

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