Donald Trump Goes After His Own FDA Director for Scientifically Approved Covid Vaccine Safety Rules: ‘Just Another Political Hit Job!’
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President Donald Trump slapped back at FDA Director Stephen Hahn in a Tuesday night Tweet, in apparent anger over that agency’s new more rigorous safety protocols, which will effectively rule out approving any Covid-19 vaccine before Election Day.
Trump had repeatedly hinted — and at-times all but explicitly promised — that his Operation Warp Speed pursing four different vaccines will have one of them ready for the public before November 3rd. But his overt tying of the coronavirus vaccine to the election calendar has caused trust in any Trump-touted vaccine to plummet and prompted his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, to warn against political pressure affecting the science behind the vaccine.
“New FDA rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccine for approval before Election Day,” Trump complained on Twitter. “Just another political hit job!” he added before including the FDA director’s own Twitter handle.
New FDA Rules make it more difficult for them to speed up vaccines for approval before Election Day. Just another political hit job! @SteveFDA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 7, 2020
In late September, the FDA signaled that it would extend the follow-up tracking period of its Phase 3 trials of the Covid vaccine candidates by two months, to watch for any adverse reactions among the trial participants and to reassure the public that the agency was taking every precaution. If the vaccines withstand the two-month follow-up study, then an independent scientific review board would review it as well before the FDA would accede to granting an emergency use authorization. That order would allow the companies involved to start manufacturing enough doses to inoculate the more than 330 million Americans.
