What Could Go Right? Three cheers for full approval

Three cheers for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), who granted full approval to Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine on Monday, a decision that companies, universities, and government entities alike have been awaiting in order to enact vaccination mandates. It also eliminates, or at least ameliorates, a popular reason for vaccination hesitation. It took the FDA less than four months to review 340,000 pages of data. While The New York Times<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/24/briefing/fda-pfizer-vaccine-approval.html?utm_source=What+Could+Go+Right%3F&utm_campaign=d5056e4a3a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_08_25_09_54&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_614470cd6d-d5056e4a3a-" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">came down harshly on the agency</a> for their slowness, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board was more forgiving. <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fda-covid-vaccine-sprint-pfizer-full-approval-11629752800?mod=opinion_lead_pos4&utm_source=What+Could+Go+Right%3F&utm_campaign=d5056e4a3a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2021_08_25_09_54&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_614470cd6d-d5056e4a3a-" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">The process was done in record time</a>, they wrote, from “development to full approval in less than 18 months, a fraction of the 10 to 12 years required on average,” without any corners being cut. In fact, there’s “more data vouching for the Pfizer vaccine’s safety than there has been for any other vaccine approved by the FDA,” a sentence we hope gets repeated, reprinted, retweeted, and splashed on advertising materials everywhere. <a href="https://progressntwrk.medium.com/what-could-go-right-three-cheers-for-full-approval-988802b6b13b">Learn More</a>