Former FDA commissioner on Hantavirus and Dr. Marty Makary

(CBS, KYMA) - Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former FDA Commissioner, spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the Hantavirus.

According to Brennan, passengers stricken with the Hantavirus arrived Sunday in Spain's Canary Islands, where they were checked for symptoms before being flown on evacuation flights.

Brennan also said close to 150 people, including 17 Americans, who were onboard the ship will be taken to a quarantine unit in Nebraska, and said there has been three deaths linked to the outbreak, with six states, including Arizona and California, monitoring potential exposure in the U.S.

This prompted Brennan to ask Dr. Gottlieb if he agrees with the CDC and the World Health Organization about the risk to public health being low, to which he said:

"I do agree with that. We have to concede that there's still things we don't know about this virus. We haven't had to grapple with many outbreaks in the past. There's been two large outbreaks in Argentina, but based on that experience, what we know is that typically for transmission, you have to have close contact. We also know that people typically aren't contagious unless they're showing signs of the infection itself, in what we call the prodromal phase, where they start to have an onset of symptoms. And the progression from that onset of symptoms to severe disease, and in these cases, death, is typically just days. This is a very aggressive virus, and so based on what we know, the transmission risk is low. Now, that said, when you look back at the past experience, there are these outlier cases where there appears to have been transmission among people who weren't perceived to be in close contact. And so there are these cases that we need to look at closely from the past experience and just be wary that, perhaps there's things we don't know fully about this virus. I will say that we are nearing the end of the transmission window for the people who are being repatriated here in the US. And so, it looks to me like the last death on that cruise ship was May 2. That patient had an onset of symptoms on April 28. If you believe that the incubation period is about two to six weeks, they'll be at the peak of that incubation cycle, some point this week. So I think we're about two weeks away from knowing whether or not there will be additional cases that come from that initial outbreak on the cruise ship."

During the interview, Brennan and Gottlieb talked about Dr. Marty Makary, the current FDA Commissioner, who is reportedly at risk for losing his job.

This led Brennan to ask how damaging would it be to lose Dr. Makary, who was a vocal critic of the COVID-19 response during the Trump and Biden Administrations, and if there is someone who could step in quickly, and Gottlieb said:

"No one obvious to me, and there's been some reporting about different candidates that could work on an interim basis there. Marty's a friend, you know, I think that that's a very difficult job. It, as you said, regulates about 20% of the U.S. economy, products that are very important to people's lives, medical products, food, food safety. And so there- there's a lot of debate and consternation about decisions that get made at FDA. And so it's been a controversial position for whoever has held that job, including me. You know, I got criticized for decisions that I made in that position as well. I think the continued upheaval at FDA has been detrimental to the agency, not just the speculation about Marty's fate, but also the departures that we've seen from the agency. The agency's lost thousands of medical reviewers, some voluntary through- the through the DOGE cuts, or some forced through the DOGE cuts, involuntary means, some voluntary. There's been a lot of voluntary departures from the agency. If you look at the oncology division, they had a starting strength of about 100 medical reviewers at the beginning of this administration. They're down to about 50. The hematological group that reviews drugs for leukemia and lymphoma had 21 medical reviewers, and it's down to six. They lost an entire breast cancer review team. So there's been a lot of departures from the agency. You've seen political appointees take over what are typically career leadership positions, running the medical product centers, the drug center and the biologics center. So, I think cumulatively, that's taken a toll on the agency, and this continued speculation that we saw on Friday, I think is just going to be another step downward.

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Gottlieb, click here.