The U.S. gave the final go-ahead Friday to the nation’s first COVID-19 vaccine, marking what could be the beginning of the end of an outbreak that has killed nearly 300,000 Americans.
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While the FDA decision came only after public review of data from a huge ongoing study, it has also been dogged by intense political pressure from the Trump administration, which has accused the agency of being too slow and even threatened to remove FDA chief Stephen Hahn if a ruling did not come Friday.
Was their some last review, some procedural steps, that were skipped over because Trump pressured the FDA to act? We may not soon know the answer to that.
But what we do know is that if it turns out that there is a significant problem with the Pfizer vaccine, a problem for which there was an indication in the clinical trials that was not noticed or glossed over, that problem will be blamed on Trump. The argument willb e "but for Trump, the FDa would have noticed the problem."
The smart thing, both politically and scientifically, would have been for Trump to keep his fat yap shut and let the FDA do its work. But that's not Trump's style.
1 comment:
It may have been on purpose since that particular company wasn't part of his grand scheme, but he sure threw any confidence I had in this vaccine, right out the window.
w3ski
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