Trump Accuses FDA of Holding Back COVID Vaccine for 'Political Purposes'
President slams move to delay Pfizer news: 'They didn't want me to get a vaccine WIN'
© press
President Donald Trump has accused the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of holding back its decision on Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine until after the election for "political purposes."
The president says the FDA has deliberately delayed work on a coronavirus vaccination until after the media declared Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden the election "winner" in order to thwart his re-election hopes.
On Monday, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer announced that clinical trials have proved their vaccination to be 90 percent effective.
Their data will now go to the FDA for approval and a mass vaccination program can begin as soon as the FDA gives the green light.
The president's son, Donald Trump Jr. also slammed the timing as "nefarious."
Don Jr. said the move was because his father is hated by the pharmaceutical industry for forcing Big Pharma to lower their prices.
© press
On Monday night the president accused the FDA of using the vaccine to sabotage his campaign.
"The @USFDA and the Democrats didn't want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later – As I've said all along!" he tweeted.
The @US_FDA and the Democrats didn’t want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later – As I’ve said all along!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2020
He tweet came as FDA authorized emergency use of Eli Lilly And Co's experimental COVID-19 antibody treatment, which Trump has praised and vowed to make available free of cost for all Americans.
He revealed that his actions had resulted in the creation of a vaccine in record time, arguing that had Joe Biden been president, it would have taken far longer to find treatment.
"If Joe Biden were President, you wouldn't have the Vaccine for another four years, nor would the @USFDA have ever approved it so quickly. The bureaucracy would have destroyed millions of lives!" he said.
If Joe Biden were President, you wouldn’t have the Vaccine for another four years, nor would the @US_FDA have ever approved it so quickly. The bureaucracy would have destroyed millions of lives!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2020
And he said that the FDA had cost lives by the supposed hold up.
"As I have long said, @Pfizer and the others would only announce a Vaccine after the Election, because they didn't have the courage to do it before.
"Likewise, the @USFDA should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives!"
As I have long said, @Pfizer and the others would only announce a Vaccine after the Election, because they didn’t have the courage to do it before. Likewise, the @US_FDA should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2020
The timing of the announcement, which came soon after Biden and his allies in the media claimed victory and less than a week after the election, has already raised questions given Trump had repeatedly said a vaccine would be ready before the election.
Pfizer had initially said it would know if its vaccine was effective by October but shifted that timeline last month to say it expects to seek US authorization from the FDA for emergency use of the vaccine in the third week of November.
In its announcement on Monday, Pfizer said the results of the interim analysis came after a discussion with the FDA, according to The Daily Mail.
It is not yet clear exactly what those discussions involved or when they occurred.
The company only said that, based on those discussions, they had opted to conduct the interim analysis based on a minimum of 62 cases instead of an initial 32 case figure.
The cases relate to the number of the 44,000 people involved in the trial that have contracted COVID-19.
The 90 percent rate ended up being based on 94 cases.
Revealing such early data is unusual in a clinical trial and it wasn't immediately clear why Pfizer opted to announce the early findings today.
Pfizer's CEO and its head of vaccine research immediately sought to distance themselves from the timing of the announcement, insisting they weren't being driven by politics.
Earlier on Monday Donald Trump Jr. was leading calls to raise alarm at the timing of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine "breakthrough," which was announced two days after the media decided that Biden had "won" the election.
The breakthrough was unexpected given the company's CEO's previous remarks that it would be towards the end of the month before they had significant data to submit to the FDA for emergency authorization.
In September, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla promised that they would know whether or not the vaccine was effective by the end of October, a deadline that fit with Trump's promise to find a vaccine that worked before the November 3 election.
But that deadline came and went with no news.
© press
America went to the polls on November 3.
Many told pollsters that the handling of the crisis was one of the most important issues on their minds.
Then suddenly on Monday, after the entire country waited four days for an election result, Pfizer announced their breakthrough, touting it as a "great day for humanity" and science.
Trump Jr. tweeted sarcastically: "The timing of this is pretty amazing. Nothing nefarious about the timing of this at all right?"
The timing of this is pretty amazing. Nothing nefarious about the timing of this at all right? 🙄 https://t.co/nS5rkywKXT
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 9, 2020
Data on how effective it was - the clearest sign of whether or not it works - had been expected by the end of October.
Pfizer said the results of the interim analysis came after a discussion with the FDA.
It is not yet clear exactly what those discussions involved or when they occurred.
