On Monday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) filed an appeal at the courts to give them an extension of up to the year 2076 to review and finally release its files documenting the approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine - a process that took them only months to finish.
On September 9, the FDA refused an expedited release of the Pfizer COVID shot approval records from the Public Health Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT), a group of doctors and scientists who were calling upon the agency for more transparency. The group has since filed a case against the FDA for failing to address the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
According to the Daily Caller, the FDA claims that there were about 329,000 pages of documents that must be reviewed in order to fulfill the PHMPT's FOIA request. They also proposed that it can only "process and produce the non-exempt portions of responsive records at a rate of 500 pages per month."
The FDA added that they would provide the PHMPT with prioritized documents and non-exempt portions of records on a "rolling basis." The review of all 329,000 pages of documents will result in about 55 yeers' worth of review.
"This rate is consistent with processing schedules entered by courts across the country in FOIA cases," the FDA said in defense. They also argued that the request of PHMPT to provide documents within four months would require them to work on up to 80,000 pages per month.
In the lawsuit filed on September 16, the PHMPT stated that despite the FDA's approval of the Pfizer vaccine and its capability of meeting "the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product," others who have the platform to do so have raised questions on the sufficiency of data in Pfizer's review of the COVID shots. The PHMPT highlighted in the lawsuit the importance of transparency and releasing this information to the public, especially when the law orders it.
Not the Bee argued that the Pfizer COVID shot is not "some obscure drug that only a few people had taken" for the FDA to ask up to 55 years to release documents on. Instead, it is "a drug that has had all negative news suppressed by those in power and is required for many people to keep their jobs."
"This is absolutely bonkers. So you can write 329,000 pages in a matter of months, but it takes 55 years to review them?" Not the Bee said.
The PHMPT argued that releasing such data should not only confirm the FDA's conclusion that the Pfizer COVID vaccine is "safe and effective," but also "increase confidence" in the experimental drug. Attorney Aaron Siri, whose firm represents PHMPT in this lawsuit, described FDA's promise of transparency as "a pile of illusions."
The report also questioned as to how the FDA is capable of writing 329,000 pages in a few months but take 55 years to review all of it. By then, a portion of the U.S. population would have passed away without having their questions about the vaccine's safety being answered.