FDA Playing Deadly Political Games

Over the last two years, COVID-19 has been a major part of our headlines. First, we dealt with lockdowns, then we ended up with vaccines followed by vaccine mandates. Things have been dicey, to say the least.

While I’m personally vaccinated, I know a lot of people who have concerns bout the vaccine, and I respect their decision. I’m not fond of people being forced to get vaccinated, especially since the vaccine isn’t a guarantee that you won’t get the disease.

However, the Biden administration has been pushing to get more and more Americans vaccinated. Rather than trust that people have reasons to skip it, Biden has been ready to break out the whip to force people to get the vaccine.

But what if the vaccine wasn’t the only treatment? What if there was another way?

Well, there is. Pfizer has a new treatment for people who are infected with COVID-19. Merck apparently has one too. There’s just one big problem.

It seems the FDA is taking its time in approving it.

Pfizer and Merck have developed antiviral drugs that treat people infected with COVID. Pfizer’s drug, in clinical trials, prevented 89% of hospitalizations or deaths. This is a drug that could neuter COVID by making it far, far less lethal.

But Pfizer’s drug and Merck’s drug are both illegal to prescribe, buy, or sell. That’s because the federal Food and Drug Administration, as a practice, outlaws all new drugs, even after their clinical trials show safety and efficacy, and even if there is zero evidence of serious negative side effects, until the FDA can get around, in its occasional meetings, to approving it.

There’s nothing wrong with the FDA reviewing the clinical trials of drugmakers — that’s a good idea. But when a lifesaving drug is available during a pandemic that is deemed extreme enough to drastically suspend all sorts of civil liberties, the FDA’s process is clearly costing lives.

With the Pfizer drug, there’s an added detail that makes it even more maddening.

“The effect of the Pfizer drug,” the Washington Post reported , “was found to be so strong midway through the study that an independent committee monitoring the clinical trial recommended it be stopped early.”

This severely pisses me off. Why? Because I have lost friends to COVID in recent months. Could this medication have saved them?

I also have a couple of friends who spent weeks in the hospital and are looking at a long, long road to recovery because of the virus. They, too, could have been helped.

Let’s remember that the FDA was more than ready to fast-track the vaccine, and for understandable reasons. People were dying because of the disease and something needed to be done.

Well, they did it. Now, it’s time to do it again, only they don’t seem interested.

So why? What’s the purpose of delaying a potentially game-changing medication? After all, if we have a vaccine for the virus and medications that will knock the virus out if someone does get it, the pandemic is all but over. Why drag their feet?

Maybe I need to break out the aluminum foil here, but I can’t help but think this is deliberate.

After all, when the Biden administration is trying to pull out all the stops to force people to get vaccinated, a medication that removes any risk in not getting the shot isn’t likely to benefit the administration’s plans.

So, they slow-walk the approval so people will have only one choice in protecting themselves from the virus.

Again, they sped up the process for the vaccine, so I fail to see why they’re not making an effort to get this approved unless it’s for political purposes.

Well, it’s either that or the FDA is just a typical bureaucracy that drags its feet anytime they get the chance and the only reason they didn’t on the vaccine was that President Trump simply wouldn’t let them.

Could be both, now that I think about it.

Regardless, the FDA is playing games with people’s lives. They need to knock it off and approve the drug so that we can finally put an end to this pandemic once and for all.