Former President Donald Trump slammed the “bureaucrats” at FDA, blaming them for his election defeat, accusing the agency of allegedly being in league with their “friends” at Pfizer in announcing approval of that vaccine two days after the 2020 US election.
“The FDA, especially with long-time bureaucrats within, has to be controlled,” Trump said in a statement. “They should bot be able to do such damage for possibly political reasons, or maybe their friends at Pfizer have suggested it.”
“They’ll do thing like this to make themselves look important,” he continued. “Remember, it was the FDA working with Pfizer, who announced the vaccine approval two days after the 2020 President Election.”
Trump claimed that the agency, which approves drugs for use and monitors their safety and efficacy, didn’t like him because he pushed them “extremely hard”.
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“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t have a vaccine for 3-5 years, or maybe not at all. It takes them years to act!”
He then said the agency should do its testing, clean up the record of the vaccine, and get it back online quickly.
Rounding out his statement with a return to his xenophobic rhetoric, Trump said that “the only way we defeat the China Virus is with our great vaccines.”
However, Trump spent much of this time in office refusing to acknowledge the gravity of the pandemic crisis, often claiming that the US was “rounding the final turn” on the virus.
So far, three vaccines have been developed and authorized, paving the way for the Biden administration’s efforts to ensure the mass production and delivery of the doses.
As of 13 April, there have been 31.2 million confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the US and 562,718 officially recorded deaths.
More than 190 million vaccine doses have been administered and 74.1 million Americans are now fully vaccinated — 22.6 per cent of the population.
Trump also criticized the FDA’s decision to pause the distribution of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine, saying it’s “a terrible disservice to people throughout the world.” He added; “Perhaps all this was done for politics or perhaps it’s the FDA’s love for Pfizer.”
A pause in the distribution of the vaccine was called by the federal agencies while they investigate rare cases of blood clots in six women who received the single-dose shot. Almost 7 million doses have been administered in the US to date.
